1 Year Old!

Here we are, the parents of a one year old! I cannot believe my baby is technically no longer a baby anymore. This has been an incredible year and I am so in love with my sweet little red head. Even though there have been tough times that we have had to endure and I have often been sad that we are going through so much hardship during Baby K's first year of life, she continues to bring us so much joy. In fact, I truly believe that her purpose has been revealed to us - to be there to make Tolar and me forget about our problems and concentrate on her and how much we love her.

Stats: 18 pounds, 10 ounces. Her 12 month well check up is tomorrow, so I won't know her other measurements until then.

Development: She is such a fast crawler, cruising all over the place. Tolar even helped her learn how to crawl up and down the stairs. I was nervous at first, but she does really well. Of course, we don't let her crawl up the stairs unless we are right behind her (baby gates are our friend!). She pulls up to stand on almost anything and it is the cutest thing when she squats down to pick something up off of the floor. She can stand on her own for a few seconds too, in fact she can stand on her own until she realizes that she's not holding onto something. She will walk by holding our hands or if she is pushing something, but she hasn't taken any steps on her own yet.

Loves: My mom (aka Grammaroo) got her a stuffed Roo from Winnie the Pooh and she LOVES that thing. It is so cute, she will grab Roo from me and put him right up to her face and snuggle him. At night when I peek in on her using the camera monitor, I love to see that she has one arm around Roo while she sleeps. And this kid loves to eat, we have officially reached the stage where if we eat in front of her, she has to eat as well. She doesn't have to eat what we are eating, but she definitely tries to grab our food and will cry until we give her something. And her newest trick and something that she loves to do is stick her arm out like she's Vanna White. It is so stinkin' cute because she will do it a lot of the time when she is saying hello to people - almost like she's saying "here I am!" And one of my favorite things that she does is when she goes into a play "panic" mode trying to get us to chase her. The look on her face when she is trying to "escape" is seriously adorable.

Dislikes: Baby K does not like to be told no. If we tell her "no touch" when she goes to grab something she shouldn't, she will stop, sit there for a second and then start wailing. It is so cute and so sad all at once. I'm glad she does understand what no means though!

Sleeping: I'm so thankful that we still have a super great sleeper. Her bedtime is 8 p.m. and she will sleep until 7:30 a.m. We no longer set an alarm clock (unless we have to get up super early) because she will wake us up. Her morning nap is very consistent as far as time of day and length of her nap - its a nice long one! But her afternoon/early evening nap varies, especially the time of day.

Diapers: Size 3 Pampers Swaddlers and Baby Dry diapers. The Baby Dry diapers are seriously so amazing!

Eating: As I said above, this girl loves to eat. She will eat anything that we give her, I can't think of anything that she has refused. This month was her first time trying avocado and she liked it, Mama didn't enjoy the messy hands though. I think her favorite food might be grapes, or possibly egg whites. It is so funny to watch her eat though, she grabs big huge handfuls of food like she just can't get enough. I sometimes wonder why I even cut up her grapes in quarters because she still grabs 4 pieces and shoves them in her mouth.

Clothing: She is in a solid size 12 month, but will easily fit into 18 month clothing too. She has SO MANY clothes, my little fashionista. To the Grandmas: she could use some 18 month clothes, both for warm and cool weather. :) Oh and during our move, I realized just how many clothes she has already worn over her life time, I think I had 5 tubs full of clothes that are now too small for her! If Baby K gets a little sister one day, we won't need to buy new clothes because we have so many and so many options in all sizes for several seasons.

Miscellaneous: Our sweet girl got sick for the first time on Saturday. She woke up with a fever that morning and started feeling pretty bad as the day went on. Sadly, that was the day of her first birthday party. :( We decided to still hold her party since we were having it outside and also since she didn't show any other symptoms outside of her fever. But the party definitely overwhelmed her and our little girl ended up in tears right as we were singing happy birthday and presenting her with her cake. We took her to Urgent Care and found out that she has an ear infection. It is so super sad seeing my baby so pitiful. She just feels awful, but luckily she has been fever free for one whole day now! Her actual first birthday was yesterday and she was in better spirits, so I think she is starting to feel better. We tried to give her some birthday cake again and well, the picture speaks for itself.

Let's take a look at Baby K through the months: