Very Fun iPhone App

You probably already know about this, but I just bought my first iPhone app (after owning the phone for nearly six months): Camera Bag. It processes your photos using 12 different retro filters. I love it. Here are some fun images I've been playing around with:

Instant:

Magazine:

Lomo:

Plastic:

Six, Seven, Eight, Nine!!?!?

Amelia is nine months old! We have no idea how or when this happened. The last thing we remember is that lovely weekend in Wilmington and then BAM! Here we are. The reality is that the last few months have been the most intense of my entire working career. (For all of my publishing pals, I had six projects going to print in a six week period--almost 2000 pages. Yes, it is a miracle that I am not in some sort of stress induced coma.) On top of all of that, Amelia has grown and changed dramatically. I'm sure it's safe to say she's been doing the most intense work of her young career too. The thing that has been the most shocking to me has been her shift from needs to wants. She used to need to eat and nap and have her diaper changed. Now she needs those things, plus, she wants very desperately to squeeze Olive's face and rub her nose on Olive's fur. She wants to eat the remote control. She wants to play in the fireplace. She wants to open and close the doors on the TV stand. Perhaps you are noticing a theme? If we were playing Jeopardy the clue would be "Things to which Mommy must say No! all day."

It is exciting to see her turning into a little kid, but also a little sad. So that we can remember all of the stages of our sweet baby girl, here are the last few months in photos.

First Easter egg hunt:

In her lovely Easter dress (she was not really sitting up yet at this point, but we were giving it a try. She did a serious face plant shortly after this was taken because I was not fast enough when she started teetering--a Bad Mommy moment):

The first few bites of solid food! She was well past six months when we finally gave this a try, so it was a hit immediately. She was more than ready.

Bath time is now serious play time:

Amelia crashed the party at our ten year (!) college reunion--and passed out:

This is how she falls asleep when she is resisting a much needed nap:

Starting to crawl:

The most desired object in the house (we have since had to quarantine Olive's dish behind a baby gate. Poor Olive can't get to her own food without a lift.):

Chilling at the beach on the Outer Banks:

She loved the pool at our beach house:

Very suspicious of the man taking our photo at the Cape Hatteras light house:

World's cutest pirate, Salty Amelia Jones:

At the Black Beard museum on Ocracoke:

Now insisting on eating foods that she can feed herself, she shuns the purees:

Spying on the neighbors:

Eyeing Dad's lunch:

At her nine month appointment she was 27 inches tall and 16.4 lbs. This was also the first appointment where she seemed to have any sense of her surroundings. She did not like being weighed and measured and screamed her head off the entire time. She was very nice to the doctor though and was a real champ when she had to have blood drawn for a lead test (due to the age of our house). Put that on the list of world's worst jobs--drawing blood from babies!

Expect more frequent posts now that life has settled down a bit around here. In fact, somehow in the last few months we actually managed to get a few projects done around the house, including a bathroom makeover that I adore.