Where have we been? It's been a busy couple of weeks! The weather has been beautiful this week, so Amaya and I have taken advantage of it and have spent quite a bit of time outside. She's really good at finding rocks, sticks, leaves, and PUDDLES! Amaya has changed so much just within this past week. She now prefers to WALK EVERYWHERE. No more crawling for her! She's also picking up a lot more words - just last night she saw a picture of a train and said, "choo, choo." Her most used words are, Da?, ma, da-da, hi, bye, uh-oh, up, ball, baby, yum, and go. If you ask her to repeat any word, she has her own version of it - buttons are ba-ba, dog is gog, etc. We've taught her some sign language - milk, more, please, thank-you, but we may not need to teach her much more if she continues talking at the pace she's going. Amaya also knows quite a few of her body parts - eyes, ears, mouth, tongue, hair, feet, etc. It amazes me how quickly she picks up on things!
In other news, we've added a new niece to our family - Hope Ann Springer. As some of you know, she's had quite the first week of life. Early Wednesday morning, she was taken by helicopter to Omaha because her oxygen levels were too low. After multiple tests the doctors found a minor concern with her airway, weak vocal chords, and a minor heart defect. The doctors believe she should grow out of all of these conditions. She will see the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor again next week for a follow-up checkup, and the cardiologist in 6 months. Thank you so much for praying for Hope. My parents are leaving today to spend a week with them to help them get settled. We plan to visit them for a weekend in mid-April.
Steve and I keep plugging away with work and Steve with school. We're definitely looking foward to the summer. Steve surprised Amaya and me with a trip to the Cities last weekend. We went to the Mall of America to go to the American Girl store - it was awesome! They even had a hair salon for your doll. I'll have to bring my Kirsten doll up there to get her hair done/fixed. Amaya loved watching all the kids her size and enjoyed watching the rides and flashing lights at the theme park. We made a quick stop to IKEA to pick up some frames and went to Babies R Us and bought some baby-locks for our cabinets (much to Amaya's dismay!)
We'll hopefully get a chance to post pictures this week of Amaya's adventures outside and her sitting on her new potty! Until then, we'll leave you in suspense.