Amelia's Six-Month Check-Up

Weight: 15 lbs 11 oz (5oth percentile)
Length: 26.75 inches (90th percentile)

Almost everyone who has seen Amelia lately has commented about how much bigger she is than Seth was. I just looked up his six month measurements: weight: 14.8 lbs, length 26.5 in.

It was a good appointment, we've been given the green light to try new foods, which Amelia took note of as she tried to steal my roll all through lunch! She got three shots, and they hurt her feelings a lot less this time than the first two times.

Seth had a great time meeting his teacher yesterday. He is ready for school next week, he wants to make new friends and try out the playground! We came home with a Scholastic book order form already, which I perused last night. Nathan and I were a little nostalgic; they look the same now as they did when we were in elementary school. I could go a little crazy, but I better not, it sounds like they do them every month!

Turning six months old is serious

hey people. you sit on this green thing. it's itchy.
smiling with her eyes again
this is boring
okay, maybe I'll give you one good one.
my bug is not incentive to smile.

Amelia has a very serious side, and she brought it with her for her 6 month portraits. I did get a few good ones, but those girls worked hard to get her to smile, and she just looked at them like they were idiots most of the time. So I have included one good one but the rest are serious.

She has her check-up tomorrow, and I will post stats then, but as you can see, the dark hair she was born with was false advertising. Her eyes are slowly turning a lighter shade of blue, but they're still not as light as Seth's. She has been doing a wobbly tripod for a couple weeks now, but today did a really good job sitting up like a big girl when we didn't have something behind her (she'd get lazy if she knew there was a prop there). We have had to retire the Bumbo because she has figured out how to climb out of it, but she still loves her jumperoo. We are back to sleeping through the night (read: until 5:30 am) most nights. Hurray! She has worked her way through rice cereal, oatmeal, applesauce, bananas, peaches, squash, carrots, peas, and now sweet potatoes. She likes them all, but either she was starving tonight or she REALLY likes sweet potatoes. She thinks she is very funny when she wrinkles her nose right now, and makes all sorts of vowel and consonant sounds. She loves when Seth plays with her, especially peekaboo during car rides!

Seth update

Seth's hives persisted through Monday. The pediatrician wanted me to bring him in. We think it was a histimine response to a virus, possibly even the nasty bug that struck several of the wedding guests (myself included) the weekend before. She wanted him to have around-the-clock Benadryl for three days, and hopefully by tomorrow it will have run its course. This is day three of constant rain here, so having Seth toned down a notch isn't a bad thing.

Since his check-up in June, he has gained over a pound and grown over an inch.

Tomorrow we will go to meet his teacher. Preschool starts next week, and he can't wait!

Seth's Pictures at the Reception

From Seth's disposible camera at the reception...of 27 exposures, nine actually had people in them...here are the top five:

Mommy's friend Stephanie
Riley (of course)

Do you think he's used to hamming it up for the camera? Mommy
Riley and Great-Auntie Fern
the bride and groom

While Seth was trying to take this last picture, the photographer tried to get a picture of Seth taking the picture. Seth caught him out of the corner of his eye, gave him the hand and yelled "STOP!" It was hilarious!

wedding recap...let's go fishin'

Sunday Nathan headed back home to play soccer, and I stayed in Cary so Seth could play with Riley. We ended up congregating in the back yard to go fishing. You can see there was a good bit of algae on the lake. The boys had a great time. Sometimes they would reel in the fish, sometimes they would just want to touch the fish.



(The last one was taken by Seth.) Ryan, Kristin, and I took the kids to Monkey Joes. The boys had a blast running around, but they only lasted about an hour. It's hard to jump and chase when you haven't had a nap! I ended up spending Sunday night in Cary, too. I had four hours of an awful stomach bug/food poisoning. But, because of that, Seth got to play with Riley one more time Monday!

Urticaria

noun, definition: an itchy skin eruption characterized by weals with pale interiors and well-defined red margins; usually the response of an allergic reaction to an insect bite, food, or drug.

Want to see a picture?
Seth took a short nap and woke up saying he was thirsty. He didn't seem to think anything was wrong, but he had a rip-roaring case of hives. We went to the playground this morning and he hasn't eaten anything weird, so we have no clue what caused it. This is the worst spot, but he also had it on his other cheek, his ear, both arms, one wrist, both legs, and one foot. He took a bath and had a dose of Benadryl and it's gone away.

We already know he's allergic to penicillin and long-haired cats. Since the last case of hives, I've kept Benadryl in the diaper bag (by the way I love these, I wish they made all children's medications this way!). I wish I knew what caused this one, because the whelps were pretty fierce!

wedding recap...the big day!

The kids woke up at 6am on the wedding day, ready to party! We were the first ones at breakfast and then Seth and I stayed downstairs to burn some energy. Slowly the extended family started waking up, and I know the aunts, uncles, and Grandma had a great time watching the kids play out the window (Seth had just met Riley and Paige for the first time this trip).
Next stop was at the hair salon...Kristin rode along to take pictures, I can't wait to see all her shots from the weekend! I am still going through post-baby hair loss, so I didn't grow my hair out for the wedding and opted for professional styling. It was a good choice, because my hair stayed put all day! While we were out, Seth and Nathan joined the rest of the Knudsons at the pool (and I was worried about Seth being tired enough to nap, ha!) We had to be at the church at 2pm to get ready. The Mayses stayed at the hotel with sleeping Seth, and we took Amelia with us. The actual ceremony didn't start until 4:30, but the time passed quickly. Michael regifted to Lisa the Tarheel tissue box she got him the first time he visited:

Amelia and Lisa showing off their "princess dresses":
Bridal party dance at the reception:
Lisa and Michael (and their camp buds) doing their goofy camp dance:
Bryan supervising the garter retrieval (Michael's not lost, he was feeding Lisa cake!): Picture Nathan's mom took of me and Amelia:
Seth chattered his way through the wedding, most notably saying, "WHERE'D THE MUSIC GO?" at the end of communion. Amelia had to take a walk outside towards the end of the service, but overall they did very well. Seth was WIDE OPEN at the reception. He and Riley had a great time. (And for the Ohio people, I can't tell you how many times Riley told me the buckeyes were "super good".) Around 9, the kids went back to the hotel with their grandparents and Nathan and I cut loose ourselves. Stephanie and I danced the night away (being frequently reminded by Joe, the best man, how old he was when some of our childhood favorites came out...that seven years makes a difference!) The party wound down around 10:30, but the owner of Gregory's let us (meaning the orginal Blackorbys plus the two spouses) sit at the bar and watch Michael Phelps win his eighth gold. I drove Bryan and Nathan back to the hotel, they were in rare form, wanting to do Chinese fire drills the whole way back (thankfully I only hit one red light).

Tune in tomorrow for the Sunday highlights, along with never-before-seen photos taken by Seth!

wedding recap...Friday edition

Friday morning Lisa and Alissa (the maid of honor) made brunch at my parents' house and then we headed out to the spa for a day of nails and massages (and when I say day, I mean DAY...we were there from 11 to 4! I even left for almost 2 hours in the middle so I could get checked into the hotel for naptime!) I think that was the best manicure I've ever had, usually my nails don't look like mine after someone else shapes them. And of course I have purple toenails (Parlez-Vous OPI?)...Lisa and I kind of consider it a good luck charm, plus it was a wedding color. Lisa looked really relaxed after her massage...I think that (plus the margaritas the night before) was just what she neeeded.
Afterwards everyone RACED to the church for rehearsal. Rush hour traffic in the Triangle was not kind. We all got there just in time for the 5pm start.
The Beerys hosted a rehearsal dinner at The Chop House Grille. The food was great, we heard some great stories about Michael and Lisa, and we debuted the video that dad put together which I had editing rights to. It might be possible for me to put it on the blog. Let me check into that. Grandma Sarah took the kids back to the hotel, so it was a very relaxing dinner for us!

wedding recap...let the parties begin!

Last Thursday is when things really started rolling. The Beerys had flown in late the night before, so Michael and Lisa took them down for a tour of Agape. Alissa and I worked on some covert bridesmaid operations. Nathan and Bryan both got into town mid-afternoon, and other extended family started flying in. The guys went to get their tuxes, and I guess only minor adjustments were needed.

That evening my parents hosted a pig pickin' for anyone who was already in town. We introduced the Ohio crew to barbeque, sweet tea, and Goodberry's. Ducks from Seth and Amelia (of course):



Later that night we went out for Lisa's bachelorette party. We went to On the Border so the girl could get a good margarita (her only request). The bar closed at 10 (this is Cary on a weeknight, people), but they let us order a bunch of pitchers ahead of time and let us hang out until well after 11. She got a lot of fun little gifts. They had the Olympics on TV, and we all enjoyed watching mens' swimming with a margarita on board! Some of the guys took Michael out as well...Nathan stayed with the kids, and Bryan said he couldn't tell us what happened due to "man code", so I have no details on that!

a little birdie told me...

...that somebody has learned how to play the stick-out-your-tongue game with her daddy, and now she wants to do it all the time!

Seth's "little friend"

Seth decided everyone he met last weekend was a friend...the best man was "my friend, Joe", the maid of honor was just "my friend" (her name is Alissa, which is kind of confusing to a little boy who has aunts named Lisa and Elise!). Saturday morning, Seth met Riley. Riley is my cousin's son from Minnesota who is 15 months older than Seth. We introduced them to each other on the hotel's basketball court, after about 10 minutes of being bashful, they were fast friends. Riley put up with a lot of bear hugs over the weekend, and the boys provided a lot of entertainment at the reception. Seth cried at bedtime Monday because he missed "his little friend". So sweet!

Hanging out at the church pre-wedding.
Riley was on over a third of the pictures on Seth's camera.
Taking a ride on wheelie during the reception.
Hanging out in the hotel lobby Saturday morning.
The buddies going inside to wash hands after fishing at Pops' house!

two things

• My sister is now Lisa Beery! The wedding was great...since SOOO much happened, I think I'm going to blog everything a week late, I have over 200 pictures on my camera to go through!
• We bought a new computer the weekend before last...and I lost all my email addresses in the transition. If you haven't heard from me in the past week, could you please send me your email address at your convenience?

Tanglewood Pool

Since I had worked this weekend and we have a busy week ahead of us, I decided to take the kids to Tanglewood Pool yesterday (the neighborhood pool is closed on Mondays). Seth and I used to go to this pool the past two summers, but it didn't seem like a good idea with a new baby. Now that Amelia is older, it wasn't too bad for a one-time thing. Seth was so excited that he could reach the bottom all the way across the kid pool, and he had fun playing in the sprinklers. Amelia had a great time watching.
Ah, someday she'll look at this picture and develop "second-child syndrome"...who puts a baby girl in a blue stroller with trucks all over it?

Wanna cracker?

I've been reading that you can give the little ones a cracker to gum on while you eat a meal. I remember it took Seth a long time to figure out what to do with it... ...not Amelia, she immediately took a big bite!

My new favorite picture...

Meeting Momma Meek

My grandma flew to NC Wednesday night and rode over Friday with my mom and Lisa to pick up the dresses. Since Seth couldn't say "Great Grandma" last year, we used to call her Momma Meek. He decided yesterday that he likes to call her "GrammyGram". This was Amelia's first time meeting her great grandma, who she shares her birthday with.