more than a 5K, giving thanks & independent steps!

November was a busy month!

Amelie's birthday was a blast, which quickly brought us into november (which flew by way too fast). I was so busy preparing for her birthday (in a totally fun and awesome way), so after it was all done, I sat down at night not knowing what to do with my boring self.

The weekend after her birthday, my mom, Amelie and I headed up to Atlanta to do this: ZOOMA. Funny story… (well, not at the time, but I guess it is now). This was my first official 5K which started at 7am. The night before Amelie ended up in my bed (which was a first) because she wouldn't sleep in the hotel crib and I didn't want her to wake up the entire hotel with her screaming. Therefore, I got very little sleep. So, here I am functioning on probably 3 hours of sleep (if that) and it was about 35 degrees outside with frost on the ground… COLD! Long story kind of short (but not really), I ended up starting with the half marathon group instead of the 5K group that started only 5 minutes after the HM peeps. I was doing really good (for hardly any training) for the first 3 miles. Then I hit the mile marker that stated I was at 4.5 miles. WHAT? That's when I started to second guess myself. I texted Ant (yep, I had my phone in a 5K) and asked him to refresh my memory on how far a 5K was, cause I thought I was going crazy at that point. I just blamed it on my sleepy stuper and kept going. After about 5.5 miles, my legs were not wanting to go any further (did I mention there were ridiculous hills???) so I decided to break down and ask a group of ladies if they were with the 5K. "No… we're in the half marathon," they replied. CRAP. yep, I was that girl. Eventually I found out that I wasn't the only one… phew! That made it a little better, but not much. So, I had to get a cop escort back to the finish line (classy). I was so embarrassed, tired and annoyed at myself. Eventually, I had to laugh it off and all-in-all it was a great trip with my mom and Amelie :)

That next monday was my birthday and unfortunately Ant was right in the middle of finals so we didn't do much that day. I worked, he worked… BUT I had a little chat with Amie the night before my bday and told her to let me sleep in for my birthday. She listened and I got to sleep until 9:30!! Ant made a fantastic dinner: carrabba's chicken marsala (my fave), garlic mash and extreme brownie cookies!! And yes, they were extreme… perfect mix of chewy and gooey at the same time in cookie form. yum! Ant also got me a beautiful bouquet of 100 peruvian lilies… they were gorgeous! I have an amazing hubs!

For thanksgiving we went down to Spring Hill to stay with Ant's mom for about a week. It was a nice, relaxing week. I ate a lot of cookies and we had a fantastic t-giving dinner and lots of PIE! The Saturday after t-giving we headed up to my mom and dad's for the fitz/win/pal t-giving. We had yet another fantastic meal and we basically just sat around and laughed at the cousins playing with each other. Amelie was so excited cause she can walk with the big ones now :)

Amelie learned to walk! She was determined and she has finally mastered figured out how to walk. It's so stinkin' cute and she's so proud of herself!

 

Here are some more pics from last month…

 

look what i got for my birthday, guys!!

 

all bundled up at the 5K in atlanta… brrrr!

 

at the winery at Chateau Elán

 

she's a bubble elf

 

"everyone is thankful for ME!"

 

my rea of sunshine :)

 

tried really hard to get a group shot and this one cracks me up!

 

she loves her dada!

 

forgot to mention that amie got a bad case of hives on and off for a few days :(

she'll appreciate this pic later, i'm sure of it.

To see more pics… visit our flickr

birds, dwarfs, ladybugs, a russell, a max and more!

here are some pictures of our friends and family from the party:

 

the old email posse reunites

 

snow white, the witch and her dwarfs

 

Lee, the giraffe and Quin, aka the best Dopey EVER

 

Max from Where the Wild Things Are:

 

Aunt Hazel was Russell from UP:

 

genius!!

 

Snow White and her dwarfs… and a tree, and owl and max

 

the palamaros :)

 

the other tree (matt) and a ladybug (noel), but she had already taken her wings off

 

aunt jenn was a duck, but then she became a flapper girl.

there's flappers in the forest, right?

 

happy owl!

 

 

katie b (a lightening bug) and jenn (when she was still a duck)

 

nana (sleepy) and quin (dopey)

 

aunt lucie (bashful) and dopey

 

my cute hubs

 

minh-thi's hooters

 

SO many more HERE

Amelie's 1st Birthday

I would definitely say the party was a huge success!! We had wonderful family and friends there to share Amelie's big day with us. Most dressed up as a 'forest friend' and it was so awesome to see the creativity that everyone put into the day. Amelie was the most precious little owl and she was in a great mood all day… all smiles and kisses for our guests. She absolutely LOVED digging into her cake (and then 'sharing' it with her cousin, Quin). I had so much fun planning and creating this party for her and even though she won't remember it, I know we will be able to talk about it and blog about it and show her pictures so she knows how great it was :)

To see all of the pictures from the party, visit our flickr album HERE.

a year ago today

wow. one year already. i can't believe it.

photographer

 it all started HERE

 

 

Even though we had a pretty rough start, I would say this past year has been absolutely blissful. Amelie is growing so fast and she is the sweetest, funniest little thing. She continues to amaze us every day by growing and learning. It's a blessing to us that we can call her our daughter and that God chose US to raise her. It's something that's so surreal, you can't even put it into words.

As of the past 2-3 weeks, Amelie has changed so much…

• She is wanting to walk so bad! Sometimes she tries even if we aren't there to catch her. All of the sudden you'll see her out of the corner of your eye and then you hear a thump. Good thing she's a good faller because she just smiles at what she just accomplished, gets up, and tries again. She's determined to walk!

• She's eating like crazy. Anything she can get her hands on, she's eating. She's totally over the baby food and all she wants now is something she can pick up and shove into her mouth. Green beans, black beans, lima beans, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, zucchini, rice, bananas, cantaloupe, berries, cheerios, etc, etc, etc.

• She's starting to understand words and I think any day now all of the signs we've been teaching her are going to kick in.

• She loves to read books and watch her 'God Made Me' and 'God Made Animals' videos. 

All-in-all, life is good and she seems to enjoy it, so I think we're doing a decent job so far!

I'm so excited about sharing these pictures we had taken a couple weeks ago. It's taken everything in me not to share them sooner, but we really wanted to show them to our families in person before we shared them online. We found an amazing photographer here in Savannah, Michelle Morris. She was SUCH a pleasure to work with and she is SO good at what she does. You can totally see that in her work. Ah-like so…

 

 

To see ALL of the pictures, go HERE. Make sure you turn your volume up when you watch the video… it's simply beautiful!

I seriously can't wait to share the details about Amelie's birthday party… that's coming soon!

Lastly, Ant and I want to thank everyone who has prayed for us and supported us over the past year. We are incredibly blessed to have all of you in our lives! Thank you for loving our daughter and helping us raise her to be an amazing woman of God!

(If you can't click on the links, go to http://palamaro.blogspot.com/)

baby steps

Amelie took her first steps this week! She took 2 the other night, but today we got about 3 on video. She is so proud of herself! She is letting go of the furniture more and more and she doesn't realize she's standing on her own until we get excited and then she gets scared. It's pretty funny!

We're only 13 days away from her 1st birthday and we're so excited! I've been busy making all kinds of goodies and costumes for the party. I can't wait to post pictures!

ALSO, we had our first professional photoshoot on Thursday with an amazing photographer. (I can't share who she is yet because she *might* have a picture up already :) She is fantastic and we've seen a sneak peek of the session, but I can't share it yet because it's going to be a surprise for some :) I can't wait to share, though!

Here's just a few pictures from the past couple of weeks…

 

just sittin' pretty

 

one of her favorite things to do… watch momo eat

 

watching momo eat again

 

smiley baby!

 

GiGiMa reading a book and she LOVES it!

 

still reading…

Until next time…