Trick or Treat

Tonight was our first Halloween trick-or-treating with Amelia. We went to her boyfriend Ben's house (she KISSED HIM ON THE LIPS yesterday!) for dinner and some Halloween fun. Seriously, these toddlers dressed in costumes are just the cutest things I have ever seen. They toddle around with their little pumpkin buckets and fall over and get right back up and just kill me with cuteness. Too bad Amelia refused to nap today and got a little grumpy early on. Oh well, many more years to come!



I've been taking tons of pictures lately, and will have all of them up on the online photo album this weekend.

15 months

Little one is 15 months old today and doing great! She's 23 lbs, and 31 inches tall. We had to answer a bunch of developmental questions at the doctor's office, and she's right on track with everything. I thought it was funny when they asked if Amelia imitated me when I iron, vacuum and sweep the house etc. Since I rarely do any of those things, I had to say no. (Iron??? I haven't ironed anything in years!) But she does imitate me talking on the phone, brushing my hair and typing on the laptop :) I'll clean the house tomorrow...

Who wants to iron or sweep when there is this cuteness going on?

Wildlife Encounters

Last weekend we introduced Amelia to various forms of contained wildlife. On Saturday we went to the local aquarium, and on Sunday we went to a petting zoo. We are truly embracing our parenthood responsibilities (and maybe a little bit of our inner kid) these days! Mia seemed to enjoy them, although she gets the most enjoyment out of pushing her own stroller around. She's such a busy, active kid!

Cute stuff this week

Some of my favorite cute things that Mia has been doing lately:


1) She has to try everything we are eating and has started yelling "BITE" (sounds like "BUHH" which is totally different than "BAHH"/ball) when she wants it. We've been calmly saying "Bite, please!" and finally last night she yelled at Sean when he was eating a piece of bread "BUHH PEEESS"! So cute:)


2) She's reading to herself in her crib. Instead of crying when waking up from naps, she just babbles away, flipping pages. I wonder what she's saying?



3) She flirts with everyone! At the mexican restaurant, she blows kisses and makes goo-goo eyes the entire time at anyone who happens to be looking at her. Whose child is this? Sean and I are not particularly fond of being the center of attention, but she sure is!



She's also unfortunately becoming more of a picky eater. Here she is spitting something out, lovely! I'm not ready for the exclusive mac-n-cheese/chicken nugget toddler diet yet!!

Pumpkin Pickin'

One of the things I have really been looking forward to is taking Mia to a pumpkin patch for the first time. Today we took her to a local farm where she went on her first hayride (and even got to "steer" the mules). And she seemed to enjoy the field of orange "balls" (as she called them) that were scattered around just for her :)

"Driving" the hayride!

Shana and Ben, Me and Mia

A little bit too big!

It's hard to get a good shot of all of us anymore....

Sporting the "shag" hairdo!

"You're cute!"

Some Photos

Below are a few photos taken over the past few weeks. Amelia's hair has gotten so long and shaggy, but I can't bring myself to trim it yet. I also can't bring myself to update our blog photo of the Spanish beach. Maybe later.

Ok, don't get alarmed. She crawled in on her own and Cali was totally fine with it! I promise, Sean was NOT trying out his crate-training theory for babies!

Just a cute one!

Hanging out with little Ben for the first time!

Birthday Shout Out!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and daddy ever! Lucky guy has a day off work and not much to do except lounge around! We may go for a walk on the beach and wave across the Atlantic to our former home:) Dinner and cake later.

We love you! XOXO

Checking in again

I still feel like we are only functioning at about 75%. Amelia is feeling much better after new antibiotics and is sleeping through the night again thank goodness. Now Sean and I are feeling kind of lousy, blah. I think we are allergic to the US! :)

Grandma W. came for a quick visit this past weekend. She watched Amelia while we looked at houses with the realtor. When we got home, Amelia was sound asleep on Grandma's lap--very cute.

House hunting is going well. There are a lot out there and this crazy market is favoring home buyers with good credit (hopefully us!) right now. Of course there are the trade-offs ("I wish this house came with this kitchen in this neighborhood... etc. etc.) but I think we'll end up in a lovely place!

I haven't really taken any pictures. This weekend if we are all feeling better, I hope to go to a pumpkin patch and art festival with our friends Shana and Bryan and their little Ben. Photo opps galore!

Checking in

Well, we made it back to the US of A. It was an extremely long travel day and night, and our plan of minimizing the pets time in crates was thrown out the window when we discovered our flight was delayed for 6 hours. But, we eventually showed up at Dulles at 2am with pets, luggage and sick Amelia in tow. Much to our suprise, Alexis and Dave were waiting for us (!!) with a sign and wonderful goody bag. They helped tremendously when I was with Cali and Amelia while Sean picked up the rental car. We are eternally grateful to them for this!

We checked into our new apartment, which has lots of nice amenities. It will be a good temporary home.

Amelia woke up last Thursday morning with pink eye in addition to her lingering cold. Poor thing looked like she'd been in a boxing ring with red, puffy, swollen eyes. Yesterday, she woke up with a high fever and it fluctuated all day. We brought her to an Urgent Care place when she had a temp of 104.6! This is our first experience with sick kid, and it was pretty scary. Turns out she now has a double ear infection on top of everything. We've decided that she likes to do everything on a grand scale (e.g., she can't just get one tooth at a time, she has to get 6!) We've started her on a course of antibiotics and are hoping they work their magic quickly.

Oh, we also bought a Toyota Prius, which is something we've been talking about for a while. It is cute and peppy and I'll enjoy driving it around town!

I guess I'm still adjusting to being back for good. It kind of seems like I'll move on from Spain quickly and that makes me sad.

Looking forward to seeing friends and family and house hunting next! Think healthy thoughts for my Mia!

rain and boredom

It's a rare, yucky rainy day and we have 4 days left in Spain. Everyone is napping (including loudly snoring Cali) and I'm bored. Amelia had a nasty virus all week and now she's catching up on sleep. I guess in addition to picking up some walking tips at daycare last week, she picked up a bad bug. Needless to say I was extremely happy when Sean got back from his conference on Friday night!

Below are a few photos from the past week or so. When we get faster internet connection, I'll post lots more to the website.

The smile before the sickness.

Kid Day on Base-she had a great time!

New favorite thing: passionately embracing the tv. Apparantly a McCain fan.

Goodbye cake! Great fiesta thrown by the Werners:)

Hasta Espana...

*NOTE* : Even though we have almost 2 weeks left here, I don't think I'll be able to post much, so I'm saying my blog goodbyes now... sniff sniff. I'll catch everyone up once we are stateside residents again!

Well, we have packed up the house and are living in the temporary base house. It is nice for the pets to still have a yard, and to have a kitchen, etc. We should be able to check our email at the library occasionally, but that is about all. I can't believe that it is time to say goodbye, but I guess it is...

For now you can still reach us at the gmail account: mcbridesa@gmail.com. We can use a calling card to make calls from on base, and I will try to make some phone calls next week!

We get in to DC on Friday Oct 3 and will be staying overnight with our saintly friends Kevin and Donna (who really don't know what they've gotten themselves into!). We head down to our temporary apartment in Virgina Beach the next morning, and I have a feeling that one of our first stops will be to purchase cell phones.

We've promised Amelia we'll visit one day so she can see her beautiful birthplace. We've promised to stay in touch with all the dear friends we've made. We've shipped back tons of Spanish wine and pottery, and we know we can get Manchego cheese back in the states (although it's so much more expensive!!) We have completely loved our time here and feel like we took advantage of all it had to offer. We will be eternally grateful for this life opportunity!

'Ta Luego hermosa Espana. Muchos Besos! Te Queremos!

XX
Sarah, Sean y Amelia

Walking Queen

Yes, we are supposed to be organizing the house for the big move, but Amelia decided to start walking like a champ this week! She needs a little motivation (for some reason, Sean's watch did the trick) but she's really getting good. Check her out! Ok, now back to organizing:)