Easter

I've been on a blogging break lately (obviously). School is winding down for this semester, only to pick back up full force in two weeks for summer semester. :/ I have loads to update on... this child is growing at the speed of light!

Don't believe me? Check this out... Easter last year...

Easter this year...

Anyways - I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! We started off the day with lunch at my mom's. The Easter Bunny left Lily lots of goodies!

We had a delicious southern style lunch, complete with ham, mac & cheese, field peas, and sweet potato casserole (YUM!!). Then we all went outside for a little Easter egg hunt... um, game of pick up.

By the time we left, she was exhausted! After a nice nap in the cool car we headed to Mama Woods house. The Easter Bunny visited there too!

She went and sat beside her new friend...=)

After lots of great finger foods and fun at Mama Wood's house, we headed back to mom's to visit with Uncle Marshall.

So needless to say she had a fabulous Easter! She was completely worn out by the time we got home that afternoon. Lots of family, lots of fun, lots and lots of great food!

Remember how I said she loves to swing?

Remember our trip to the park  where I elaborated on just how much she loves to swing?? Well, she now has the convenience of swinging whenever she pleases without having to leave the back yard. She's got a brand new play system (that should last her until she's grown and gone! lol). She's OBSESSED with this thing. As in, we can't leave the back door curtains open because she screams and throws down until we take her outside to play. She swings, she climbs up the ramp, down the ramp (with our help, of course!), she slides, she repeats. I swear she could do this all day every day and never tire.

You should have seen her face when they came to set it up... priceless!

She's a prim and proper eater... just like her Mama.

I've never been known as a "delicate" eater. I devour... I'm notorious for getting more food on my clothes/the floor than in my mouth. If you've ever eaten dinner at our house, you know where our dogs like to sit. Right beside me. I've ruined so many of my favorite clothes because I just literally cannot make it from my plate to my mouth without dropping at least a little something.

She's taking after her Mama on this one. =)

Oh, and I promise we normally clothe the kid. I hope you'll understand why she eats nakey after seeing these pictures. lol.

Sorry this one's so out of focus...

My One Year Old

How did this happen so fast? Was it not last week I was lying in a hospital bed, shaking with anticipation and overwhelmed with excitement to meet our first child? I've been warned by every person I've come in contact with that the first year flys by, but no one, no words, can truly prepare you for the whirlwind of events and emotions that seems to come and go in a blink. My baby is One. She's graduated from newborn to toddler, from this tiny little dependent blob of a person to a beautiful, smart, walking and talking toddler whose independence grows more and more every second.

This past month has been especially full of new developments. She's definitely morphed into a miniture person. =)

Stats:

• I'd say most importantly: She's walking!! She just wanders around the house now, making sure not to leave out any room in the house.
• My girl is still a porker! She's up to 24 lbs. exactly as of 2 weeks ago.
• I'm enjoying this one while it lasts: She's not a picky eater by any means! She gobbles up whatever we put in front of her, although she especially likes spaghetti (that's my girl!), mac and cheese, and zuchinni.
• I'm beginning to think her stomach is a bottomless pit. She's still hasn't dropped a bottle or that glorious night time feeding. I'm really okay with that though. I have to say I'm going to miss our little 4 a.m. snuggle sessions when she outgrows them.
• Night time sessions have reverted back to being semi-easy again. She went through a phase of "Lily vs. sleep" where she whooped sleeps ass for hours at a time, but I think they've made peace for now.
• Her vocabulary has grown tremendously! Words include: mama, dada, bye bye, dog, uh oh, woof woof, dat, baby, eyes. I'm sure there are more but these are the ones you can actually understand. ;) She's also stringing words together, most of which makes no sense! She does say, "dog... woof, woof!" And she'll point to her baby doll's eyes and say "baby, eyes". She blows my mind!
• We're about to move up to size 5 diapers, and she's completely outgrown 99% of her 12 month clothes!
• We started her on 1 oz. of organic whole milk with each bottle she gets at day care. She didn't even blink. I'm slowly trying to make the transistion from bottle to sippy, so here's hoping that goes as smoothly as the introduction of milk!

Hey!!

Her saying "dat?"

I'm procrastinating... here's the party!

I'm procrastinating writing her 1 year post on purpose. Why is it so hard to swallow the fact that my baby is one?  I promise I'll have it up as soon as I get a chance to upload the rest of our disasterous attempted 1 year shoot.

On to the good stuff! Jack and I spent almost every night for 2 months hand making most of the decorations and invitations for her party. The theme was pink, more pink, and green, but I did order a few cute "baby woodland" details from a seller on Etsy. We only invited close friends and immediate family so it was a small party, but she had fun. =)

Warning: HUGE photo overload.

Family photo with some serious cheese!
The decorations:

The cake smash that was eaten ever so politely.

We ended up "smashing" it for her.

This is what she did the entire time I opened her gifts. She's walking everywhere!

So much preparation, so much anticipation... and it's here and gone. I hope she enjoyed herself as much as we did putting everything together for her! She's officially one!

A trip to the park

Sunday we had one of those days, we just HAD to get out of the house, even if it was just for a few minutes, and do something different. Now that the weather is less brutal, we took Lily up to the park and introduced her to the swings. Her new best friend. She loved it so much... she now has a brand new play system making it's arrival in our backyard in less than two weeks. Yes, it's that serious. :)

Our little person :)

She manhandles her walker

Lily's Aunt Kasey bought her a dinosuar walker for Christmas. Then, she could barely stand behind it without falling over. Now? Well... see for yourself.



She whips that thing around like it's nobody's business. :)

On another note: Her top left tooth is breaking through! The top right is peeping at us too. It'll be any minute before she officially has two top teeth to accompany her two bottom. She got in trouble at daycare last week because, you guessed it... she's trying to bite any and everything (err... everybody). What to do, what to do. I know it's just her poor gums itching. :(

Her birthday is less than two weeks away. We're almost done with the decorations, and I've taken off on her birthday so we can celebrate it together! Of course by celebrate I mean snuggle up on the couch with my no-longer-a-baby girl, rocking her and crying bittersweet tears. Okay, maybe not THAT dramatic, but you get the point.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This year boasts not one, but TWO Valentines. One sweeps me off my feet, the other keeps me on my toes!

I love you two more than words could ever describe. <3 Happy Valentine's Day!!

11 Months, or should I say ALMOST A YEAR!

I'm not quite sure when it happened, but it did. In what seemed like an instant this tiny (okay, maybe not exactly tiny) baby of ours turned into a little girl. I think this has really been a month for bonding between the three of us. It has definitely not been an easy month for our girl. She's battled RSV and a bacterial infection like a champ, but it really did take it's toll on all of us. Between all the doctors visits, shots, bloodwork, medicine, and tears...I think it's safe to say we're all glad January is over. If one great thing came out of all of this though, it's the bonding. Something special happens when you have absolutely nothing else to do but sit around and snuggle all day.


11 Month stats:

• Still not *quite* walking. I keep thinking every day is *the* day because she really is that close! She's easier to contain just crawling though, so no complaints from me!
• With being so sick, I thought she would have lost weight. Ha! She's up to 22 lbs. 14 oz.
• She's pointing at everything! She points and says, "Da?", like she's asking me what it is. She also does it when she wants something. 
• Her meals have increased significantly this month. She's now eating breakfast, lunch, a 2:00 snack, and dinner. Oh, and don't even think about eating without offering her some!
• She STILL hasn't dropped a bottle. This child is unstoppable!
• She's waking usually twice a night. She wakes once to eat between 1-2, and again at 4. Bedtime is between 7:30 and 8:00 and she wakes up between 5:45 and 6:30. Fun times. Putting her to sleep is a challenge on it's own too. She's recently learned that she HATES nite nite time. 
• Still in size 4 diapers. 
• She's following commands. This isn't new altogether, but now she understands perfectly what we ask her to do. I'll say, "Where's your paci?" and she grabs her paci and puts it in her mouth. "Sit in your chair please" and she's in her chair... aka the bumbo (Ha!). "Can I have it?", "Brush your teeth", "Turn off the light", "Are you hungry?"... there are a ton more I'm sure, but you get the point.

Little girl, I tell you. Baby no more. :(