1 year old!

I started the day off yesterday by singing Happy Birthday to my baby girl. I'll admit, I shed a couple of tears. What a year this has been! One year ago, I was really sick and didn't even know it. I had preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. We were so lucky that this happened when I was 39 weeks pregnant, and that Caroline was full term and healthy. I have loved every second of being a mommy, even the rough patches. All of those phases that you think will never end eventually do, and you end up with this fun 1 year old who is learning and discovering new things every single day. It's amazing! She cracks me (and herself) up daily! Here are her monthly facts:

*This child "talks" nonstop! As a speech therapist, I am thrilled. As a mom, I think my ears might fall off--just kidding...I love it!

*She can say "thank you" when she feels like it.

*She can drink out of a straw. We're working on milk from a cup but haven't quite gotten there yet.

*She's not much of an eater. She still loves grapes, bananas, and yogurt. And that's about it. Everything else is hit or miss. She has had her first sandwiches (grilled cheese and pimento and cheese) and seems to like eating "big girl" food.

*She's starting to walk! It's just a couple of steps, but she's very proud of herself when she does it.

*She loves the phone. She "talks" on my old cell phone and her toy phone ALL day. I even caught her texting along beside me!

*She has 8 teeth (but 2 of them are just barely peeking out).

*She has started initiating peek-a-boo with her washcloth in the tub...so cute!

*Last week, she was doing great signing (and trying to say) "all done" when she finished her meal. This week, not so much.

I'm sure there's more, but my brain is tired! I'll have to update height and weight next week after her 1 year check up on the 17th.

My new owl hat!

Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel

She moves so much when she sleeps, she wriggled out of her pillowcase dress!

My 1st sandwich

Hanging out with Max

The Big Party!!!

Caroline's party has come and gone, and I'm still recovering! We had so much fun, and I was lucky enough to have my mom come in on Wednesday and lend me a big helping hand. I really enjoyed gathering all of the ideas and seeing it slowly come together (well, slowly until about 12:30 on party day when we kicked it into super high gear!). We had 8 babies and a 2 year old big sis plus mommies, daddies, Grandmama, Nana, and a good friend to help celebrate. We played outside on Caroline's birthday presents (a slide and homemade ball pit) and in a fun tent/tunnel that we borrowed from Mason and Jace. Then, the party moved inside where we chowed down on little sandwiches, spinach and artichoke dip, a cheese ball, and fruit and veggie trays. Presents came next. Caroline started to get the hang of ripping into the packages and wasn't a big fan of anyone touching her new treasures. The grand finale was the cake! She made a little mess with hers and got some frosting in her mouth. Most was smeared all over the highchair though. We sent sleepy babies and tired mommies off with their goody bags and cake pops, and Caroline settled in for a nice, long nap. Here are some pictures from the big day. (I will be uploading more to my Facebook page, so be sure to check them out too!)

The tablescape

Highchair banner

Watch Me Grow banner

Happy Birthday banner

The cake! (This is what I was most nervous about!!)

Caroline's cake

Owl cake pops

Tutu cute!

Mama, Daddy, and me

Yummy!

My mom and I made these little guys for the goody bags.


Let me take a minute to thank everyone who helped and whose ideas I "borrowed". I bought the owl clipart and got the idea for the invite from an Etsy shop called monkeyhut. Check it out here. The idea for the Watch Me Grow and highchair banners and goody bag tags came from an Etsy shop called Ciao Bambino. You can find it here. I found the cute branch idea here. I found the cute owl cake here. The ideas for the little owl and cake pops came from here. Many thanks to my friends McCall, Ginny, and Melissa! McCall inspired me to make all of the decorations and cake myself and also did me a huge favor by cutting out the banner letters for me. Check out her awesome blog here. Ginny made Caroline's perfect onesie and bib. Look for her shop, Just For Keeps, on Facebook. Melissa signed me up for my cake decorating classes and helped out with the big cake on Friday (including icing it, my least favorite part!). Big thanks tomy hubby, John, for being a computer geek and helping design the invites and decorations; to my mom for ALL of her hard work; and to my MIL for cleaning up the aftermath of the party!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, not actually at my house...yet. We're gearing up for the big 1st birthday party in 6, yes, that's right 6, days. Ever since I was in grad school, I have pulled out my tree and all my decorations out the day after Thanksgiving (well, except for last year, but I'm blaming that on being 38 weeks pregnant at the time!). I've had to postpone it a week this year because I didn't think a houseful of babies and a tree would be a good combination. I love Christmas time! I love the songs, the decorations, the smells, finding just the perfect present, and the cards. They're like getting a litte gift in the mailbox everyday. In fact, I received our very first one of the season today. :-) My favorites are photo cards, and I'm very glad that this year I can just have a picture of our beautiful little girl on ours instead of dragging John, Max (our dog), and Baby (our cat) to some picture perfect location! One of my favorite websites for anything picture is Shutterfly. Take a few minutes (or a couple of hours!), and check it out here. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites...

I've always loved a blue card, but this red, green, and white one is super cute!

I'm a sucker for black and white pictures, and I like how the wording pops on this one.

I love the message on this one.

Alison, you and Jay absolutely need to make this your card this year!!

I really love a card with a snowman (or 2) on it!

But I think this might be the winner...

Guess you'll have to wait and see! :-)

I should also tell you about a few of their other great products they have over there on Shutterfly. Do you live far away from your family? I have the perfect gift for grandparents--a photo calendar! That way, they can see that sweet grandbaby's face everyday! Start making yours here. And who wouldn't love to get a personalized thank-you note? They have those too. Take a look here. And last, but not least, check out the birthday invites you can make here. So cute!

Ok, guess I've done enough rambling for now. Make sure you check out their website. Then let me know what your favorites are! :-)

1st birthday peek , part 2

Here is a little look at the birthday banner in progress:

Think this little guy wants to join the party??

And that's it for the sneak peeks! You'll have to wait until after the big day to see the rest! :-)

Disney!

My sister went to a conference at Disney World this past weekend, so Caroline and I packed up and headed down for the night on Saturday. We had a great time and learned a few things:
1. Don't get trapped by a circle of parade floats when your baby has never been to a parade...specially when it's time for her to eat.
2. When you're waiting in the 30 minute line for a 30 second ride on Dumbo, have something to try and occupy the little one. This is very important when you have an almost 1 year old who think she needs to walk everywhere now.
3. Get as many FastPasses as possible but know that you still kinda have to wait a long time.
4. The Aladdin ride is the same thing as Dumbo for a fraction of the wait time.
5. The Pirates of the Carribean ride is a little scary, but it's worth it for the mommy (and aunt) because they did a great job making the animatronic Captain Jack Sparrow look real!

1st birthday peek :-)

Here's what my little birthday girl will be wearing on her big day...

11 months exactly :-)

So, are you impressed? I'm actually doing Caroline's update on her b-day! And I'm getting to be a better blogger...I've posted a few other times since her last update. Go, me! October flew by. We had a very busy month. John went to GA for his job, and we took a family trip to a friend's wedding in Pennsylvania. It was really nice to have an extra set of hands traveling with Caroline. I think John was a little stressed, but both he and Caroline did very well! :-) We are packing up for another trip tomorrow--heading to MS to visit family and my college BF's. I am very excited!! Crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer that my wiggle worm does well on the plane. Here are her monthly facts:

*She weighs around 19 pounds.

*She is standing by herself some. It usually lasts until she realizes she's doing it, and then she plops down on her bottom.

*She loves to feed herself now...it's amazing what actually becomes finger food when they reach this stage.

*Her favorite foods include chicken meatballs, kiwi, pineapple, and peas. And she leans in with a wide open mouth to take a bite of whatever I might have in my hand at the time.

*She is imitating sounds I make and seems to be trying to imitate words some times.

*We've tried formula in a sippy cup a few times, and it's going pretty well.

*We tried out level 3 at Gymboree. She was not so sure about all the small people walking around. It was strange to see her as the little kid in class again.

*She has 6 teeth now--3 on bottom, 3 on top.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now! I've been super busy working on her birthday party...maybe you'll get a sneak peek sometime during the next month! :-)

I just love baby feet!

Playing inside my cave (aka--the entertainment center)

my 1st waffle--yum!

Pop, pop, pop! Pop those bubbles!

Reading my new Halloween book with Daddy

I love how she's looking at her babydoll. :-)

Halloween

Ok, so I was pretty good this year. I refrained from taking my 10 1/2 month old trick or treating, so that I could steal her stash. :-) We did have a lot of fun celebrating this year, even without the mounds of candy! On Friday, my friend's church was having a Party at the Patch, so we decided to join in. I've heard of this trunk or treating thing but have never seen it in action. Well, little did we know, but we were going to the Disney World of trunk or treating! There were around 80 cars to visit (we only stopped by a few...Caroline was amazed by the Dora car), bounce houses, games for the kiddos, and yummy food (including some fantastic coconut cream pie that was a steal at $1 a slice!). Oh, and did I mention that there were thousands of people there?? We had a great time, and Caroline enjoyed checking out all of the costumes, including her cowboy boyfriends, Mason and Jace. On Saturday, it was all about football--forget Halloween on the weekend of the FL/GA game! Thankfully, the Gators were able to squeeze by the Bulldogs in overtime. On Sunday morning, we decided to carve our pumpkin (better late than never!). I scooped out all the guts and drew on the face, and then John took over. He did a great job carving out our smiley pumpking! After that Caroline and I partied with the babies in our playgroup (this is a group that I'm not super involved in, but it gave us another excuse to break out the costume). It was fun...not super fun...but fun. Caroline looked adorable in her Minnie costume, if I do say so myself. :-) And then on Sunday night, we played in the front yard while we waited for the neighborhood kids to come take our candy. Enjoy the pics!

My 1st Picture Post!

It's not perfect, but I'll get better with practice! Thanks for the lesson, McCall!

Tutu cute!

I have been inspired by my friend, McCall. She writes an awesome blog that I read daily (and I looooove that she is able to update it everday so I can get my fix!). You can check it out here. And not only is she a fantastic writer, she is the craftiest person I know! I see her cute stuff and tell myself I can do that...well, maybe not that exactly but something like that. My 1st project was a birthday tutu for Caroline. I wanted it for her 1 year photo shoot that will be here before you know it, so I decided to start early in case I had to make a few of them. :-) Turns out, I only needed one time! It's not perfect, but it was made with a lot of love. I just need to add a big pink bow to it, and we're all set. Check it out:

More projects to come...I have a big birthday party to plan!

PS--Check out all of McCall's fun giveaways on her blog! She's got the hook-up from some great artists on Etsy who also inspire me. Actually, nevermind. Don't check them out because then you will want to enter too, and I won't win! Just kidding! :-)

"This whole parenting thing is a crapshoot."

really old picture but it's the only one I have of all 3 of them!

This is a favortite saying between my friend, Kristin, and myself. We are both 1st time moms--as you know, I have my darling Caroline and she has cutie pie twin boys, Mason & Jace, who are almost 8 months old. We compare stories, notes, and horror stories at work, through Facebook, texts, and during playdates. Everything is a big mystery to us. And I'm hoping it's not just us...is this a common theme among 1st time moms?? Here are a few of the mysteries we try to fumble through togther...or as Kristin put it today: the blind leading the blind. :-)

When do we take away the notorious 4th bottle? Actually, neither of us had really thought about this until another friend (NOT a 1st time mom!) brought it up.

When they have lots of green snot, I mean more than you think those tiny little heads should be able to hold, and are coughing but not running a fever, do you call the doctor? And if you do, is there a big, red note in your child's file that reads: "CRAZY NEUROTIC MOTHER!!!!"?

Solids--what, when, how much??? Puree or just chop? What can we give our kids to snack on that's not a hunk of carbs (aka--puffs, Goldfish, Mum Mums, veggie sticks...aka--all of their favorite things). Is it really a meal if they only ate 3 green beans, 2 grapes, and 15 kernels of corn?

Nursing (this is all Kristin...no luck on that front for me)--can she really make it for a whole year? Is she a bad mom if she supplements? On a side note...I know that it definitely does NOT make her a bad mom. She is a total rock star for breastfeeding twins!!!


I know that there are a million other things that she and I have talked about, but my tired brain can't remember them all right now. If I think of anymore, I will be sure to add on a postscipt. Lucklily, the thing all of kiddos are good at is sleeping (knock on wood that it continues, and that I didn't just jinx us!). They're also sweet, smart, loving little bundles of happiness...most of the time...so we must be doing something right!!

But, if any of you moms have any advice/suggestions, bring it on! :-)

Pumpkin Patch

I've always loved holidays, but now that I have Caroline, I love them even more! We went to the pumpkin patch today to pick out just the right one. So glad I have a "real" excuse to carve one this year!