Fun photos from July so far...

Visiting family in WI

WI Dells!

Lia hates bedtime and naptime...  :-(

Helping Mommy unpack

Walking along the Mississippi

Sandboxes rock!

Lia is pulling up on everything and climbing everywhere.  It's a full time job wrangling her right now!

Lia - Ovens are hot. Not safe!

9 Month Catch Up

Now I've gone 2 months without posting.  And I've gone a few months without scrapbooking.  Way too busy.  I thought summer would get easier, but the extra free time just means we commit to more random activities.  Anyway, for the family members out there who may still check this on occassion, here's the catch-up:

Month 8: April 21 - May 20

• Introduced a bunch of new foods - blueberry puffs, mango, apples, bananas.
• Work Weekend at Camp Forest Springs!  Lia had a blast, but had trouble taking her naps due to all the activity.  (I learned my lesson the hard way that when visiting strange places, Lia needs to get away to a quiet place for her afternoon nap...)
• First Easter!
• Started "creeping", a.k.a. "army crawling", and soon after started rocking on her hands and knees.
• Got the hang of sitting on her own.
• Garage sale mania!  Getting clothes for the next year.
• Started playing with musical toys.  She loves the lights and sounds!
• Lia had a grand time playing disc golf with Daddy and hanging out with Daddy outside.
• General fun an mayhem ensued as Lia began investigating her surroundings in a more active sense of the word.

Month 9: May 21 through June 20

• May 21 - First tooth is coming in!  Poor baby - drooling, crying, fever, needing cuddles/baby orajel/baby tylenol.  No fun.  Also got a bad case of diaper rash.
• Rash stuck around for over a week.  Had it looked at - it was worse than just a rash.  We had a mix of antibiotics and "poop goop" to fight it.  It's just now starting to look cleared up.  A month of rash!  Yucky...
• More improvements in sitting on her own.
• Measuring around 17 lbs
• More new foods: pears, strawberry banana puffs, yogurt, eggs, Cheerios, chicken, Kix, and even a bit of cheese.  Let's just say she really loves her yogurt.
• Attended the parade and fireworks in our town.  Lia did great at both.  Only a little nervous during one of the fireworks launches, but for the most part, she seemed to enjoy the activity and the new experience.  (And the fireworks kept her up past 10pm!)
• Starting to stand more while holding onto tables/couches/etc.
• Can hold her own bottle and can use a sippy cup pretty well.
• Visited the zoo.  Seemed to like the big cats the best.  :-)  Not sure if this was her first trip, but it was the first one where she could actually see the animals.
• Finally seems to like her bath time.  (Frequent "soaks" during the fight against the diaper rash seem to have helped with this, in addition to the rubber ducks and rubber frogs from Granny Callie.)
• Record high temps in early June!  Lia survived pretty well.  :-)

And those are the highlights.  Pictures to follow soon....

Happy Belated Earth Day, Everyone!

Life has been absolutely nuts for the Cromer family as of late.  Due to this fact, it wasn't until today that I was able to get pictures off the camera and onto the computer.  Also, this is the reason for my severely limited blogging in March and April.  Let's just say I'm looking forward to the end of the semester...

Anyway, today we got to do something really unique.  Matt, Lia, and I hauled ourselves over to our nearby cloth diaper store (www.allthingsdiapers.com) to participate in "The Great Cloth Diaper Change" event.

The purpose of the event was to set a world record for the most cloth diapers changed at one moment in time.  We had to sign in, use a ticket to enter (and only one adult per baby was allowed to help with the diaper change), and before we started, we had to hold up our babies and the fresh diapers we were planning to use.  Then we had to wait for the signal to start, then change our baby's diaper.  Finally, we took an "after" picture of the babies in their fresh diapers. The whole event was video recorded (for proof, I'm sure), and the start time was centrally coordinated.  So, today Lia helped to set a world record at the ripe young age of 7 months.

It was fun to meet and talk with other parents and babies.  Lia had a grand time checking everything out and talking to the babies she met.  The store provided snacks and door prizes.  Speaking of door prizes, we won a fun new diaper cover that we're going to have to try out.  Check out some of the pics from the morning:

Some of my favorite pics from the last month or so....

St. Patrick's Day

She laughed, she napped, she went to work. What a fun filled 1st St. Patrick's Day Lia had today!


Enjoying her Bumbo chair:

Helping Daddy to study:

Hanging out with friends at Mommy's work:

Rocking her St. Patty's day outfit:

Smile

Here's a pic from Feb 18th... So far, it's one of my favorites. Such a sweet, smiling baby girl... I feel so blessed to be her mom.

Quick Update

I've been absent for a little bit while I had a cold and had a bunch of work to do for my class, but I thought now that I'm feeling better, I should check in. My quick update for the moment is the following:

Amelia's hair is getting lighter...

She can now grab her toes (and she can easily turn from her tummy to her back by rolling to her left side)...

She is eating one meal of oatmeal per day around dinnertime, and she loves it...

She's getting bigger every day, and more smiley, also. Still, she gets serious around the camera. Whether smiling or serious, we think she's pretty adorable...