After adjusting for height (clearing away several CD cases) a stack of CDs makes an excellent toddler seat...as Amelia now demonstrates. 

Continuing quest for a comfortable seat.

Amelia seems to have reached an age where she wants to sit down. Since her toddler chair is about an inch too high for her to sit on she has been finding her own creative solutions to satisfy her desire to take a seat.

According to Mike, he is a favorite choice for Amelia to sit on. Any time he desides to lie or sit on the floor he becomes an obvious chair for Amelia. I've also seen her attempt to sit on her toybox and on the edge of the bottom stair. If you lift her up on the couch she has a great time sitting there with you while watching her favorite video. I will keep my eyes open and camera ready for other creative sitting endeavors as they manifest themselves...

Lisa

Amelia turns daddy into a chair... 

So sexy I shouldn't be allowed out without a burqa. 

Hoosiers Outrun Cancer

Yesterday mommy participated in the Hoosiers Outrun Cancer 5k run. This was actually my third 5k and I always have a great time when I get out and participate in these events. I never plan on winning, I don't run enough to win, but I always do my best and I feel good afterward because I know the exercise is good for me and the registration fee always goes to a good cause.

You can look for my ranking and final run time at http:///www.hoosiersoutruncancer.org . But before you go looking for my name on the winners list, keep in mind that I finished the 5k in about 39 minutes. I will probably be pretty far down on the page - scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll and then scroll some more.

Next month, October 15th, there will be another 5k here in Bloomington. I may also join this race and see how well I do. Honestly, 39 mins. is the worst I've done so far. Beating that time shouldn't be difficult. My best time was around 31 minutes. I really impressed myself with that one...didn't walk a step if I remember correctly.

Just keep running, just keep running,
Lisa

Amelia gets a new "toddler-sized" chair. 

Gerbils and a baby seat

Hello, it's been a long time since I've contributed to the blog. Here's my excuse: first, Amelia and Mike were gone for a week. Then I had to leave for the weekend to complete my usual Navy weekend training. But now we're all home together for a few days, so let the fun commence...

Last night Mike and I took Amelia to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was kids' night, so we thought we'd buy her a $0.99 macaroni and cheese dinner - just to see how she liked it. She really enjoyed the macaroni and cheese and the green beans that came on the side. She also had a lot of fun thumping her metal spoon against the inside of her ceramic dish and saying, "ding, ding, ding..."

After dinner Amelia was in a much better mood than she had been that afternoon. She seemed so happy and playful we thought it would be fun to take her to Petsmart to see the dogs, birds and fish. Amelia liked the dogs she saw, which was no surprise (she has always liked doggies) but what Amelia seemed to really love were the gerbils. Several gerbils in a little gerbil house kept skittering out, twitching their noses ("any food on ya?") and slipping back out of sight over and over. Amelia thought this was great.

Gerbils, it turns out, look a whole lot like mice and Amelia loves her stuffed mousey. She kept giggling and smiling and saying, "mousey" at the gerbils when they would stand up on their hind legs for a look at us.

I realize that a young toddler probably is not conscientious enough or responsible enough to handle a gerbil, but seeing those little critters last night made me want to buy one.

Lisa

Yesterday, I helped Amelia paint her very first picture. She made it for grandpa, feeling certain it would cheer him up. 

"Haha, daddy, I found you!" 

Exploring and growing.

I'm sure you've all heard me say this before, but Amelia just loves the outdoors. If you take her outside and set her down on a lawn or in a park somewhere, she's like the Energizer bunny. She's a virtual perpetual motion machine. It's actually kind of amazing how fast and how far she'll walk, given the opportunity to do so.

On Sunday, Michael and I took Amelia to explore campus just outside the Education Building. I had been there with Amelia before, and she had so much fun and looked so lovely playing in the flowers that I wanted to bring her back. She wandered up and down the main corridor of the building, all over the grassy hills, and played in the flowers (kind of roughly, to the dismay of her dad).

She also had fun playing hide-and-seek with daddy. After running around for an hour or so on the lawn, we all went out for dinner and ice cream. It was a great Sunday afternoon.

Lisa

Amelia is crowned blossom queen in a local hobby store. 

Flowers everywhere

As most of you know, Amelia loves the outdoors. In fact, "outside" is a part of her toddler vocabulary and she uses the word to mean, "I want to go outside!"

Well, when I brought Amelia on campus yesterday she and I spent an hour looking at flowers, trees, grass, leaves and branches. She definately loved the flowers most of all. The poor flowers probably didn't favor her much after she sat on them, but she really loved playing outdoors in the gardens near the education building on campus.

After lunch today, Mike D. and I took Amelia to a hobby store to look (again) for plate hangers I can use. The store had all of their Halloween costume fabrics out and Amelia loved the shiny fabrics, bright colors and wild patterns. Amelia also loves handing mommy skeins of yarn. She choses bright colors and hands them to me one at a time. When I put them back she bacame frustrated and fussed.

But Amelia loves silk flowers almost as much as real flowers. Especially big, brightly colored flowers. That may be why she chose sunflowers to send to her grandpa. She loves grandpa a lot, and we all hope he's cheered up by her gift and feels better every day.

Lisa

After helping mommy empty the dishwasher, Amelia makes plans to wash her dolly. (After mommy removes all of the sharp knives, Amelia helps by handing her the silverware one at a time.)