So. Amelia has croup. The doctor said it should last for three days, and that she should be better by Saturday. He told us to run a humidifier and he gave her a steroid injection that will help her little body fight this thing – boy, was she upset about that! Nobody told her that she was getting a shot! She was wonderful though, and even waved to the doctor when he left the room.

Once we got home she had a quick lunch and took her nap. We spent the rest of the day cuddled up on the couch watching movies. I let Amelia keep her paci (which normally never leaves her crib), and she also brought her blankie and all three of the bears that she sleeps with out to the couch. We had a movie party!

(This is how she soothes herself – she rubs her blankie under her nose. Her Daddy did the same thing when he was little.)

I am praying that she has a better night tonight, and that her little body keeps healing. It’s no fun having a sick little girl!

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Larger sized image (there is more to this photo than the smaller thumbnail reveals): Click Here

Update: Around midnight Mark got an email from the local meteorologist, complimenting him on his photo and thanking him for his submission. I’m proud of my storm-chasing hubby!

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7:12 AM – I go back to the bedroom and tell Mark (again) that it is time to get up. I tell him that I am going into the living room to drink my coffee and then I pull the covers off of him and leave the room.

7:23 AM – I go back to the bedroom and tell Mark that it is REALLY time to get up. He has bundled himself back into the covers. I pull them off of him again and he murmurs ” . . . but I like sleeping . . . “; I grab his phone from the bedside table and put it on his chest – the shock of the cold phone on his warm skin finally wakes him up.

7:28 AM – Shelby comes out into the living room and jumps up on the couch next to me. Mark gets out of bed and starts getting ready.

***We started this routine a few weeks ago and while it seems like a lot of work on my part to get Mark up and out of bed, it is wonderful and it works for us. Since I am able to wake up and get out of bed with the first sound of the alarm (while Mark hits snooze 43 times), I am able to have my coffee and ‘wake up’ a bit before Amelia starts her day while Mark gets to enjoy a few extra minutes of sleep. If we didn’t do this Amelia would be awake the second time Mark hit snooze and I would get up and be GO GO GO until her after-lunch nap – exhausting. We are all happier this way!***

7:52 AM – I start hearing sounds from Amelia’s room. I walk in, saying “good morning, sweet girl!” while she stands in the corner of her crib and throws her paci/blankie/stuffed bears on the ground. I toss them all back in and she throws them out again, giggling the whole time. We do this a few more times, then I get her out of bed, change her diaper, and we head out to the living room.

8:00 AM – Amelia has a cup of milk and the TV is turned to PBS – time for Curious George!

8:10 AM – After cuddling with Amelia for a bit, I hop into the shower while Amelia ‘helps’ Mark finish getting ready for work.

8:19 AM – Mark leaves for work. Amelia walks to the door and makes sure he takes his keys, security badge and sunglasses. We wave goodbye to Daddy as he walks out to his car.

8:23 AM – Amelia and I take Shelby outside.

8:33 AM – Amelia eats breakfast (banana and strawberry mini-muffin) while I finish getting ready. I try to get my breakfast now too – just a banana today.

8:38 AM – Amelia is done with breakfast, so I clean her up and get her out of her high chair.

8:44 AM – I get dressed while Amelia digs through my drawers and tosses clothes on the ground. We go into her room and I get her dressed for the day.

8:57 AM – Amelia helps me feed Shelby, and then we head out to the car. We’re going to the park!

9:48 AM – We stop by the grocery store on the way home. Amelia munches on some cheerios while I shop – she’s talking/yelling very loudly, so I try to hurry. She throws a handful of cheerios on the floor in the snack aisle. She then throws a fit when I won’t let her eat mandarin oranges in the store – we head to the checkout and get to the car. I give her her water bottle, paci, music box, book AND Mortimer the Moose for the car ride home. Before we are even out of the parking spot, she throws it all onto the seat next to her and starts crying. I tell her that since she chose to throw all of her things away, she was just going to have to do without them until we got home. She keeps crying.

11:02 AM – We get home. I bring Amelia inside and unload the car. Amelia is all smiles again and helps me unpack the groceries.

11:24 AM – I make Amelia some lunch – mandarin oranges, peanut butter sandwich, cheese and carrots. She licks the peanut butter off of the bread, eats the oranges and some of the cheese and ignores the carrots. I get her out of her high chair.

11:38 AM – Amelia has a runny nose, so I get out her humidifier. I set it up in her bedroom and turn it on so it can run during her nap. I change her diaper and ask her if she wants to go to sleep. She says that she does, and points at Violet, so I put her in her crib and give her her paci and blankie. She starts screaming as soon as I leave the room, but gets quiet a few minutes later.

11:54 AM – I make myself a sandwich and start reading my book.

12:11 PM – Shelby starts barking at the UPS man who is delivering a replacement part for our vacuum. I pray that Amelia stays asleep – thankfully, she doesn’t wake up!

12:53 PM - Amelia wakes up and starts making noise. I stay quiet and hope that she goes back to sleep, even though I know she won’t.

1:05 PM – I get Amelia out of her crib. We cuddle and she points at the humidifier, wondering what it is. I take her over to it and explain what it is for – she then helps me turn it off. We go out into the living room and read a few books together.

1:27 PM – I put away two loads of laundry while Amelia reads on the bed.

1:52 PM – Time for a banana/mango/OJ smoothie! Amelia drinks hers while she plays and I drink mine while I clean up the kitchen, which is still dirty from last night. Yuck. I start the dishwasher.

2:13 PM – Amelia comes to the kitchen to give me a sheet of double-sided tape (used to stick foam corners to the furniture) – apparently while I was cleaning the kitchen she was baby-proofing! I go back to her room and find another sheet of double-sided tape in one of her dresser drawers along with three foam corners on the floor of her room. I still don’t know how (or where) she found all of that!

2:22 PM – Mark calls and tells me that he found a way for us to save $80/month on our cell phone bill! Hooray!

2:34 PM – Amelia and I get back in the car. We have to go pick up a couple prescriptions and something I forgot to grab on our earlier grocery trip.

3:03 PM – We get back home and Amelia eats some cheddar bunnies for a snack. Curious George is on TV (the same episode as this morning) but she really isn’t paying attention to it. She keeps grabbing a handful of bunnies from her bowl on the coffee table and wandering into the kitchen, where she looks in the bag of dog food, then in the pantry and then at the dishwasher – I’m not sure what she’s looking for!

3:31 PM – I ask Amelia if she wants to take a little rest in her crib. She says yes, so I put her to bed. I don’t think she’ll sleep, but I really hope she rests for a bit so that she is happy and alert when Mark gets home. Sometimes when she gets whiny in the afternoons a little “quiet time” in her crib will turn her mood around. While she’s in bed, I make myself a cup of coffee and read my book.

4:07 PM – I get Amelia out of her crib. She has been playing with her bears and blankie – I can tell she hasn’t slept, but I think the little rest did her some good. I head into the kitchen to start supper while Amelia plays in the living room.

4:32 PM – Potatoes and carrots are peeled and ready to be cooked, broccoli is ready to be roasted. Meatballs and gravy are on the stove. I condense all of Amelia’s toys into a few empty baskets and diaper boxes, and she immediately starts emptying them.

4:48 PM – Amelia brings me a stuffed penguin and a tiny book with a penguin on the cover and asks me to turn on Ba Bu (Pingu). I tell her that we’re not going to watch Pingu today and she gets a little bit worked up. I distract her by asking for help cleaning up her toys (again). She LOVES helping, and anytime I ask her to help me with something she gets the biggest smile on her face!

4:53 PM – We head down the driveway to get the mail. Our electric bill comes and it shows that we have a past due amount, even though we pay our bill on time, in full every month. Uh-oh!

5:19 PM – I get off the phone with a very friendly lady from the power board. She said that since we are on a rolling budget program (we pay approximately the same amount each month so as not to have any surprise $400 bills) the “past due” amount just shows a debit on our account. They said that it is definitely not past due, they just don’t have any other place on the bill to put that number. She said that it would even itself out eventually, and that we should just ignore it. Whew!

5:23 PM – Daddy is home!!! Amelia gives him a big hug and asks for his sunglasses.

5:33 PM – Supper time with applesauce for dessert. Yum!

5:58 PM – Amelia gets a bath and I clean up after supper. She helps Mark put the replacement part on the vacuum and then plays with Daddy while I vacuum the floor.

6:28 PM – I ask Amelia if she wants to brush her teeth and go to bed. She says yes and heads into the hallway. I go into the bathroom to get her toothbrush ready and then come looking for her. She is in mommy and daddy’s room, pointing at OUR bed with a mischievous grin on her face. I tell her she is a silly girl and that she has to sleep in HER bed. I brush her teeth while Mark helps keep her still – she has recently started throwing a fit when we brush her teeth.

6:33 PM – Story time on our bed, and then she goes down for the night in her crib.

6:52 PM – I do a little work on the computer before going to take a bubble bath and read my book. After getting out of the tub, I spend the rest of the evening reading, blogging and spending time with Mark.

Between 10:30 & 11:00 PM – Bed!

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I’ll admit that my patience has been worn very thin these past few days. I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and I couldn’t wait for Mark to come home so I could get out of the house and be by myself for a bit. It’s got to be pretty bad when you long for a quiet waiting room and hope that the doctor is running behind schedule so that you can read a few chapters in your book!

Motherhood is hard. It is most definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it is also – without a doubt – the most rewarding as well. Every day I realize how fortunate I am to share my days with this sweet little person, but sometimes that realization can get lost in the day-to-day shuffle. It’s on days like today that I need to take a step back and count my blessings. She is so beautiful, inside and out; I am so thankful that I have been blessed with the gift of motherhood!

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Need a closer look?

Still can’t tell?

This is what my darling daughter did during her 90 minute “nap” this afternoon. What a little stinker – she was so quiet that I was positive that she was sleeping! I’m wondering if I should wait & see if she leaves the rest of the bird alone or if I should just take it all down now. Toddlers are so funny!

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She absolutely LOVES these shoes, and wants to wear them all the time! We have a basket in her room that we toss all of her shoes into, and every day (without fail) she plucks her gold shoes out of the basket.

This evening, once she was dressed in her PJ’s, she crawled over and grabbed her gold shoes. She gave one of them to me and held up her foot . . . I couldn’t resist!

Golden shoes and penguin PJ’s – how perfect!

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On Saturday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa B came over to play with Amelia and Shelby while Mark and I went on a date to see Avatar 3D.

Not the best picture (taken on a camera phone), but we had to get a picture with our goofy 3D glasses!

After church on Sunday we had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa B and some of their friends from Big Stone Gap, VA. Amelia was very well behaved even though lunch went right through her normal nap time. After a quick cat nap in the car on the way back to Grandma and Grandpa B’s house, Amelia was rearing and ready to play for the rest of the day!

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Adorable!

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Last night as she was nursing before going to bed, I started crying at the thought of not nursing her at night. Yes, for the first two nights I was excited about the prospect of not having to get out of bed at night, but then I realized how much I would miss cuddling with my baby.

Mark gave me this Willow Tree figurine for Christmas. It is incredibly precious to me, because this is exactly how I cuddle with Amelia once she finishes nursing at night. It is the ONLY time of the day or night that she is still enough for me to cuddle. I love her vibrant personality and her amazing energy, but she is always moving. During the day she hardly ever wants to sit down, much less cuddle!

After our middle-of-the-night nursing sessions, I sit in the glider and just hold Amelia close. She lays her head on my shoulder and drifts back to her dreams. Sometimes, I will sit with her for quite some time, savoring the feel of her snuggled close to me. I just need a few more of those cuddles! When Amelia woke up at 5:15 this morning, I went into her room and nursed her even though she didn’t need to nurse. She didn’t need to, but I did.

I don’t know how many more nighttime cuddles I will get, but I will make sure that I cherish each and every one. My baby is growing up! Thank you Mark, for the beautiful Willow Tree figurine. It is a perfect addition to our collection, and because of the memories it invokes, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

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We had Grandma B, Grandpa B and Uncle Paul over for a chili supper on New Year’s Eve, and we had a great time playing Bananagrams and Dicecapades. We had a lot of fun, and the evening flew by – it was 11:00 PM before we knew it. After everyone went home, Mark and I rang in the new year by watching Travis Pastrana break a world record for the longest rally car jump – 274 feet!

This morning while I was outside with Shelby, Mark used static electricity to stick all of these air-filled packing pillows to the wall. Amelia loved it!

She actually loved it so much that she started crying when they started to fall down a few minutes later. *Please be patient while waiting for the video to load*

After Amelia ate her breakfast, we all got in the car and drove to Best Buy. I thought Mark just needed to return something, so I stayed in the car with Amelia. When Mark came back to the car, he was carrying a brand new Keurig! He found out last night that there was no way to fix the broken one, so he surprised me with a new one this morning! When we got home and I started using it, we realized that my old one must have been in the process of breaking for a long time – it was always very loud while running, and the new one is whisper quiet. Thank you for my new coffee maker, Honey! I thought my K-cup stash was going to be wasted, but now I get to use them all!

After her nap, Amelia played with some packing pillows . . .

. . . and helped us put away the Christmas decorations!

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On Friday afternoon as I was working on some laundry, Amelia discovered a fun new game!

She would stand up to look in the mirror that hangs on the door to our master bathroom . . .

. . . and then she would grab hold of my robe (hanging on the back of the bedroom door) and swing the door open and shut. Fun fun fun!

On Saturday morning we woke up to the first snow of the season! The three of us bundled up and had fun playing outside.

Shelby had a blast running around in the yard. She goes crazy when it snows!

On Sunday as I was working in the kitchen, I noticed that Amelia was surprisingly quiet. Care to guess what I found when I went to investigate?

Amelia was hiding behind the curtains and pulling off all of her window clings. I can only imagine what else she’ll get into as she gets older!

Also, I caught this cute video of Amelia crawling through the gate into the kitchen and I just had to share. I think it’s so funny!

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They peeked at a list of my favorite items on Etsy.com. This is from SunlightGlassJewlery’s shop – isn’t it gorgeous?!? What a wonderful surprise at the end of a long & tiring day. I have such a great family!

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