December 2010-1st Half

SO...on Tuesday the 7th we got our air shipment. We weren't really sure what we would want to pack in that when we were packing, and we weren't sure how much stuff we could pack that way until the day of the pack out, so instead of 4 huge full boxes, we only used like 2 and a half. Most of it was clothes that didn't fit in our suitcases, coats, the bumbo chair and bouncer, all of our shoes, and a whole bunch of random crap. I tell you what, both times we've had people come pack our house for us they have been COMPLETE IDIOTS. Sorry, that's rude of me. BUT TRUE.

Let me explain. So moving from CA to TX, we were packing up our entire house. Like the whole thing. Completely empty. Except after the first day of moving, I went around the house and opened up all the cupboards and drawers and stuff, and found a huge pile of stuff (including every cookie sheet I owned, and our brooms and stuff). We put them in a huge very inconspicuous pile on the kitchen counter, yet we had to actually ask them at the end of the second day (at the end of everything) to pack it all into a box for us. REALLY THOUGH? Like, did you think I just wanted to leave that stuff for the next owners? Ugh. Anyways.

Sorry for the rant. Same story though, except slightly more complicated as some things were going into storage and something being shipped. But that's why our air shipment boxes were full of random crap-they loaded up the truck the first day of our sea shipment, so everything the second day HAD to go either into storage or the air shipment boxes, which meant that if we wanted in in London it had to go in the air shipment box.

OK, I guess I was still going. Now I'm really done. So along with all that (random) stuff, we got all of our puzzles. And that's all Amaia had to play with until we got all of our stuff. She would just dump all the puzzles in a huge piece pile and then put the boards in a cirlce around her and put them together. Needless to say, we still watched a lot of movies and played kinect games. We were pretty bored out of our minds. We also ended up taking a lot of video this month since we didn't really have tons of other entertainment.

Here are the pictures of Solia.

Here are some of Amaia. See her enjoying the great view from her bedroom window. (Hopefully I will have my home video tour for the next post and I can show you the view!); Her plastic grocery sack handle 'princess Jasmine' headband; doing puzzles; and bottom right is her watching Aladdin on her iPod (yes she actually watched it like that!)

Amaia this month:

*We've been trying to get her to stop throwing tantrums by refusing to help her when she screams. We just tell her say it with a "nice voice and a happy face"-it's like flipping a switch as she swallows her screams and says it nicely.

*She's starting to recognize her letter shapes (can't blame her-two of the puzzles are alphabet)-know what they are for (S for Solia, etc) even if she doens't know what the letter is called.

*If she's playing with something she's not supposed to, like Mom's iPod or something, if you take it away from her and put it up out of reach, she'll throw a tantrum until you 'put it back' where she got it from, in reach. She doesn't want it back, and she'll leave it, she just wants it where it was

*She likes to watch the ducks out the windows. They dive bomb for bugs or whatever it is they are looking for down there. When a duck goes under, Amaia will say "Where'd he go?" all excited, then sit there and wait. If the duck takes too long to come up, she'll say "Him no make it"

*If Solia starts screaming, for any reason, Amaia will run over and hug her while saying "I sowee So-wee-uh"

365 Photos: Dec 1-7 (Not in any order): Amaia helping Solia with her first solids; the girls in Solia's crib in the kitchen of our temporary living apartment...

365 Photos-Dec 8-15: Our (fake) Christmas tree-if you know Justin, you know that's a huge conesssion. Even if you account for the fact that the ornaments and wrapping paper all coordinate perfectly; and on the bottom you see the girls in front of our new house! The white part on the right and the brown part is our house (the white is the stair wells), then white on the left is the neighbors house.

Here is Justin and Amaia freezing thier butts off as they enjoy their first dinner of toast and ice cream in our new flat; the front of our flat; the view out the back door; my first batch of laundry hanging on drying racks (how every one else here does laundry-we got a tumble dryer in the garage-wahoo!)

Come back for the second half and the awesome (if some what long, (compared to the others)) video for December. Coming soon to a blog near you (hopefully).