A Year Later....

My baby is a year old! I can't believe it! She is such a sweet girl, and I can't believe all the joy that she has brought to our lives in a year! It has FLOWN by. I know people always say to cherish every moment - it goes by so fast. They are so right. I have loved every single stage more than the last, but I really wish that time would slow down!

 

June Anne has got the sweetest, most curious little personality. She wants to know about and get into everything. But, she's still obedient and sweet. She will rush over to give you a huge hug and then turn around and try to get into something. I love that she is such a good mixture of curious (and a little ornery) but also so sweet.

 

Some things we are doing these days now that June Anne is a big one-year old:

• No more bottles! June Anne is taking all milk and water from sippy cups. It only took her two days of not having the bottle to adjust fully to the sippy cup. I was amazed this transition was so quick!
• No more formula! June Anne is talking all whole milk instead of breast milk or formula. When I quit nursing, I was able to still give her breast milk until she was about 11 months. We then started on formula and then switched over to milk fully this weekend. I debated about whether to mix the milk with formula or just go for the whole milk by itself. I started by mixing it, but kept increasing the milk and decreasing the formula. Within two days, she had switched to whole milk only! Once again - totally amazed at how quickly she adjusts.
• June Anne is still my awesome sleeper - she now goes to bed around 6:45 (which I hate on the days I work!) and will sleep until 7:30 unless I wake her up earlier. She still takes two naps a day at home, but only one at school - school is so much more interesting than home, I'm sure!
• June Anne still loves to eat - the doctor cleared her to have "anything we have." I was nervous at first about this - what about peanut butter? What about strawberries? What about these other foods that I have heard can be high allergy foods, etc? "Anything you have, she can have." (Obviously minus anything that she couldn't chew - nuts, hard candies, etc. - he does assume we have a little common sense). So, that's what we do! We give her what we have - peanut butter toast, strawberries, and everything else! Since she eats dinner around 5:30, I usually giver her leftovers from whatever Jason or I cooked from the night before (ok - it's usually Jason doing the cooking these days - sweet husband!). She's not picky at all - she eats anything and everything! Her teachers are always amazed at what a good eater she is! I'm very thankful.
• My little monkey is trying sooo hard to walk!! She will take 8-10 steps and then fall down. I will catch her walking across the room when I'm not looking! Little stinker! I think she's playing me. I think she can walk better than what I am giving her credit for.
• June Anne definitely has her own vocabulary - DaDa, MaMa, Dog, Bye bye, "dan, dan, dan," which translates to dance, dance, dance (cutest thing I've ever seen, by the way!), and hey - her favorite is definitely DaDa. When I bring her home from school and get to the front door, she looks right at me, smiles and says, "DaDa!" as if she knows he's in there! It's absolutely priceless to watch her face light up when she sees him. Heals my heart.
• Some fun things she is doing - blowing kisses (complete with the MUAH sound), giving kisses (very slobbery), dancing (especially when we sing, "Dance, dance, dance!"), loving on her baby dolls (she will hug them and lay her head down like she's snuggling them - so sweet), trying to put her shoes on every morning, brushing her hair before bed, blowing raspberries with her tongue, and constantly waving.
• June Anne is incredibly smart and very obedient. She is very quickly learning that there are some things in the house that do not belong to her, and she is remembers that she's not supposed to touch these items. She will get really close to them, look at them, look at us, look back at the items, and then slowly move away. Smarty, smarty! She's so curious yet so obedient. Again, very thankful!

This past weekend, we celebrated June Anne's birthday with her best friend, Caroline (Caroline's mom, Kimble, and I are really close friends) and some of our friends and families. We just had the party at our house. It was such a special time! June Anne was not really into the smash cake and kept looking at me and Jason wondering if it was ok to make a mess. (We usually don't let her play with her food.) We feel so blessed to have the sweet friends that we have who came to celebrate with us!

 

I keep thinking about how different my life was a year ago. I keep saying, "A year ago right now we were.....eating pizza the night before June Anne was born, getting ready for bed with a HUGE belly, waking up with contractions at 2:38 am, getting to the hospital at 5:30 am, praying (and BEGGING) for my epidural at 6:30 am, not getting epidural until 8:30 am!, and finally, meeting our sweet girl at 11:52 am." And a year ago this moment, I'm sure I was holding my sweet daughter in my arms at University Hospital wondering how on earth it is possible to love someone so much that you don't even know. Words can't describe what it's like to be a mommy to this sweet girl - I am truly blessed. I consider it my greatest calling and privilege.

 

 

 Then:

 

And now: