12-month Appointment and more from #1 birthday

Adalyn had her one-year appointment on Monday. She was walking everywhere in the waiting room, practically doing laps! Again, as soon as we set her on the exam table she got upset. She just remembers what happens when she goes to the doctor! She is doing great with her stats, though. Her weight is 19 lbs. 7 oz., so she is staying consistently in the 25th percentile. She is 30.5 inches tall, which is an increase up to the 90th percentile. She had her shots and will have another appointment at 15 months.

At 12 months,
Adalyn has been walking very well, and there is no slowing her down! She does still crawl sometimes and she is very fast. She has eight teeth and is really good at biting off pieces of food and feeding herself finger foods. Her favorite snacks are puffs, little pieces of toast and ritz crackers. She still likes to eat pureed foods and I blend up our meals for her in our magic bullet blender. It works great for foods that are not bite-sized and she is getting a large variety of foods. She has been eating small pieces of pasta and likes small pieces of fruit and veggies to feed herself too. She is just starting on whole milk now and seems to like it so far.
She loves exploring and learning new things, especially how her new birthday toys work!

Here are some more pictures from the party:

Bailey heard someone was having a birthday!


Birthday girl with her mommy and daddy


Grandma Coral holding Adalyn's cup for her


Adalyn feeding Grandpa Pat


Grandpa Russ and Grandma Jill enjoying the party


Aunt Dana having fun at the party


Elizabeth, Shana, Grandpa Pat and Grandma Kenda


Uncle Travis, Grandpa Randy, Aunt Jen, Cousin Brenna and Grandma Coral


Spencer and Nissa


Uncle Travis, Aunt Jen and Brenna


Adalyn, me, Jill, Megan, Kya and Dana


The birthday girl getting used to her cake:



Getting into her frosting!

Happy 1st Birthday Adalyn!

We had a wonderful party for Adalyn on Sunday. She really enjoyed visiting with all of her guests, opening her generous and thoughtful gifts, and trying birthday cake! We are so glad Adalyn has the love of so many great family and friends! It was a fun and amazing day and Jamey and I are so proud of our daughter. She has grown and changed so much over the past year and we have been delighted to see her transformation from a newborn to a toddler.

Here are some of the pictures from her party. I have a cute video of her eating her cake that I will post separately with additional party pictures and her 12-month update when I get a chance.

Birthday morning....hmmm....you say I get lots of visitors, presents and cake today?


Cake table


Pretty birthday girl!


Having some snacks at the party


Peeking into a gift bag


Adalyn made the cutest excited gasp sound when she opened every gift!


Mommy helped open the birthday gifts


Listening to everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her!


Leaning in to get a taste




Mmmmm...


Yikes!


Clapping for the cake


Sticky frosting!


Yay! Birthdays are fun!


Birthday girl covered in frosting


I will post more pictures and the video in the next few days!

Videos of our little walking girl!

Videos of Adalyn walking around the living room:



Walking with a shoe and avoiding toy obstacles:

Getting ready for the Big One!

We are getting ready for Adalyn's first birthday! Her party will be on Sunday and I can't wait until she gets into her birthday cake! It has been an amazing year watching our little baby grow up into a beautiful butterfly. We took some photos of her a few weeks ago and used one of the photos to make her butterfly-theme party invitation.

The photo from her invitation




















She has been walking around and learning many new things lately. I call her my little "busybody" because she she is always exploring things and is constantly on the go. She knows where her own and other's hair is and she touches it when asked. It is really cute to see her brushing her hand over her hair and if you hand her the baby hairbrush she pulls it over her hair, too! She has been learning and recognizing many new words and objects and points at or retrieves some things when asked. When I know she needs to be changed, I ask her "should we go change your diaper?" and in the last few days, she has either walked or crawled into her room and over to her changing table ahead of me. It is so cute, she justs heads over and turns around to see that I am coming right behind her!
She now has eight teeth, the four on top and four on the bottom. Her little teeth are cute but since she has the front teeth now, I miss her little "fangs!"

Roo's kitten pictures

In my post regarding our cat, Roo, I mentioned that we didn't have any digital pictures of Roo as a kitten. I had forgotten that we had taken some with Jamey's old digital camera and I am so glad my mother-in-law found ones we had forwarded to her. (Thanks, Coral!)
He was an adorable little fur ball of a kitten! Here are his cute pictures:







When we had flowers at home, Roo would always try to bite at them so we had to keep them up or in another room. Once, he stuck his nose in the pollen of a lily and had a yellow nose! This week we picked out a beautiful flower bouquet for our table in remembrance of Roo. We are sure missing his funny antics.

Videos!

Adalyn has been improving with her walking every day. Here is a video of her walking on the second day in the kitchen. She was being really cautious on the smooth floor. She is really fast when she crawls and still prefers that method when she wants to get somewhere quickly. I will work on getting another video of her improving skills soon!



She is really impressing me with her comprehension, too. In this video, she starts by talking to the cat, then I ask her where her little car is. She searches for it and finds it for me and brings it over. At the end, she makes the "car sound." She is really into cars now and makes the sound as she pushes one around.
She also identifies our dog Bailey and other dogs as well as toy dogs and images of dogs and now makes her "dog sound," which is her perception of barking. It is really cute! She seems to find a new trick every day and certainly keeps me entertained :)

Weekend at the Hot Springs

This past weekend we traveled to Fairmont Hot Springs for a holiday party with Jamey's employer, Tempest Technologies. We enjoyed some swimming, a fun dinner, spent the night and had a breakfast buffet the next day. We really appreciate Tempest for allowing us to enjoy this fun weekend getaway!

Adalyn was a little apprehensive of the pool at first but liked it the longer we stayed in, and we ended up staying in for about an hour. It was much larger and crowded than the other pool she tried a few months ago. After dinner, Adalyn entertained everyone with her new walking skills. She really likes being around kids and had a lot of fun walking around to people but she usually came back to me, like I was the safe "base."
We had a good time getting out of town for a bit. It was funny to think that last year Jamey and I attended and I was counting down the days until Adalyn's due date....and this year she was here to entertain everyone! Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Adalyn and Jamey ready to hit the pool


Little bathing beauty all ready to go (I love this picture!)


Hi daddy!


Turning into prunes


Going with the black-and-white motif


Visiting with the group


Adalyn coming back to the "mommy base"


Having fun with everyone!


Worn out from a busy day, in her favorite sleeping position!

First Solo Steps and Carousel Ride!!

This evening, Adalyn surprised the heck out of me by taking at least 5 steps on her own! I left the living room to start her meal and came back to the doorway and baby gate and watched as she stood up and just took off. She covered about 3 1/2 feet and then fell/sat down. It was pretty funny that she waited until I left the room and then tried out her walking skills on her own. She didn't even know I was watching her until she was sitting down again and I started cheering for her. I was frozen when I saw her walking alone and I think I just stared with my mouth open:) She walks around with her push toys and takes a few steps in between furniture and to us but this was without any support at all. It is pretty amazing when your little baby has grown up enough to take some steps on her own! Of course she wouldn't walk on her own after I came back in so hopefully I can get a video sometime soon.

Last weekend we really needed a distraction to keep our minds off how much we were missing Roo and we took Adalyn to the Carousel. We only took one ride but Adalyn really enjoyed it. She was looking around at all the horses and liked the organ music and lights. We took a few pictures, nostalgic style.

Adalyn and Jamey


Adalyn was too interested in the lights and horses to look at the camera :)


Waiting for our turn to ride


Sitting on our chariot (hint: face forward, not out, when riding in this! So dizzy:)