The Atlanta Zoo

Today Amelia took her first trip to the zoo and she brought her parents too. (Her grandparents came too but managed to not get in any of the pictures)

Though only 4 months old, this giraffe has outpaced Amelia's growth rather substantially. Mia's speech, however, has progressed significantly better than the giraffe's.

And we saw some elephants...

And some lions...

And some large fowl (very docile)...

And of course we had to go down the slide...

And play on the rocks...

It's been some time since the last post and Amelia has accomplished quite a lot. She is now officially one year of age and has discovered that she does not like cake in the least. In fact her parents trying to feed it to here resulted is anger, icing throwing, and Suzie eating Mia's birthday cake for her.



Additionally she has become quite adept at expressing herself in a vocal yet still civil manner:

And in a less traditional form of communication she has added to her repertoire the ability to squeak while inhaling. Sadly it is only interpretable by the Amazonian Okapi:

Her most recent endeavors into fashion center around knitted hats, complements of her Gammi (great grandmother on her father's mother's side).:

And finally she has decided that it is time for her to seriously consider broadening her understanding of the world through literature:

Her most recent reads have been "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and "Everybody Poops" by Taro Gomi. You can follow her on Goodreads.com.

Standing and posing

Of all the new things Mia is doing of late the cutest of all are the funny faces and head shakes. She has also started standing like a proper biped which mean that walking cannot be far behind.

She was feeling very sneaky,

and then kind of like Egor,

and then a bit more like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

While Alex was out in Phoenix, AZ Suzie taught Mia to shake her head.

Alex only fears that this will lead to further insubordination.

After a day in the park and some serious standing, Amelia declared that crawling was so yesterday.


Though she sometimes cries when placed in her car seat, she will voluntarily crawl into and out of it. Independence is key.


And like every great day, this entry ends with swinging.

As most of you can imagine, the past month has been a busy one for Mia. No she is not yet walking but she is making many new noises and eating lots of new things. "Babababa" is her current favorite phrase followed by "Dadadada." I am not deceived that she is referring to me in any way as she has yet to do it for me, only for Mom, and it is quite a mechanically simple sound to make. But we're making good progress. Additionally she is now eating a large swath of solid foods. We are still heavy on the blended vegetables and fruits but recently she started on deli turkey and tonight shared a chicken bake with Dad (only the bread part).

Enjoy the baba's.

A wedding and more

After another very busy month we have some more Mia for everyone out there. Of late she has been crawling all around, starting to work on steps, making great progress with solid food (nearly completely done with milk), and is making all kinds of new sounds every day.

The bathtub has become one of her favorite places while making close friends with the rubber ducky.

Feedings are not always clean but we are getting much better at eating. Sneezes are still problematic, though.
About 1 week ago she conquered her first step. Due to a short landing she has only managed one step so far but as you can see, she is very proud of her accomplishment.


Another recent accomplishment was her fitting an entire wagon wheel shaped snack into her mouth:



She had a wonderful time at Dani and Alex's wedding despite the cold:



She also later said how thankful she was to her aunt Jeanne for taking care of her during the ceremony and that she is praying for Alex and Dani regularly.

FInally Crawling

Amelia has shown herself very adept at noise making, standing while holding onto us, rolling, throwing up and producing excrement. Today, however, she added another great feat to her repertoire, CRAWLING! Below is the latest footage of Mia Marie and her transitory accomplishments.

More Mia 7 February 2010

Hello Family and Friends,
As a very late reply to many requests we have a fresh batch of Mia pictures and video for you all. Her primary objectives of late seem to be centered around avoiding crawling and being painfully cute.

Some post bath joy!

I love cups!

Just being happy.

And not so happy.