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Alternatively titled: Annie's 15/16 month info so I don't forget it!

Weight: 20 lb, 4 oz – 15%
Height: 32 in. - 90%
Head: 18.19 head – 60%

15 Months:
- Blows kisses with her hand
- Holds phone up to hear and says “hello”
- Took her first significant steps on 8/26
- Started really walking the week of 8/31
- Significant walking weekend of 9/4
- Trying to repeat more and more things
- 8/28 – Took a bite of pepperoni! (This is HUGE for Annie!)
- Gives kisses and hugs
- Mid-August started getting teeth to the right of front 4 teeth and then late month started getting 2 on the other side
- Likes to hold anything up to her ear and say “hello”
- Words: mama, hello, hi, bye bye, milk, more, water, bear, ball, night night, Bob, papa
- Still says “mama” when you say “dada” - doesn’t seem to like D sounds

16 months
- Started quacking like a duck – 9/7
- Knows the noise for a snake – 9/9
- Identified a baby for the first time – 9/14
- Nodded head and saying yes – week of 9/13
- Answering some yes/no questions – 9/19
- Started saying Heeeyyyy and Byyeeeee – 9/20
- First weekend in Oct said her first “sentence” - Hi dog

Annie also went on her very first plane trip in September. She did great, but didn't sleep like we had hoped. Instead, she spent the full hour and a half there and back saying "hewwo" to everyone that would listen or respond. I think she said "hewwo" to the girl next to us no less than 40 times over the course of the flight. When we were getting off the plane, I overhead a lady say "she doesn't seem to know any other words, but she sure is good at that one word!" She is quite the social butterfly and really knows how to turn on the charm when she needs to!




Maybe some new posts will come soon, but don't hold your breath waiting on me! :)

Pilot Annie

I realize that she looks a little confused and overwhelmed here, but I can assure you that we got from Omaha to Nashville just fine with Annie in the cockpit!

13/14 Month Post

I’m a little behind on my monthly posts. No surprise there! But here’s what Annie’s been up to over the past couple of months:

- She can make a dog bark, monkey sound and cow sound (mmmmmm)
- Her top two teeth are coming in now and she loves to click her teeth together. Drives us nuts!
- Can sign “more,” “eat” and “all done” (13.5 months) and uses the “more” sign all the time to indicate things she wants.
- Started pushing her cart and walking around July 4th weekend, but wasn’t too excited about it.
- She’ll now eat cheese and turkey sandwiches and will drink out of a straw
- Went to the zoo the first time 4th of July weekend and was enthralled with the monkeys!
- Can fearlessly climb stairs and about anything else she can find to climb
- Loves her white bear
- Still says ma ma for both mom and dad, although she’s starting to say “dadeeeee” more when prompted
- Climbs in and out of her little Anywhere chair
- Gets a little slap-happy at night and squeals and giggles all the time
- Loves to take things out of something and put them into something else (purses, toy buckets, dishcloths, etc.)
- At almost 14 months, has started to stand on her own more and started pushing her car around voluntarily at the end of July
- Started climbing/sliding down stairs backwards around the week of July 19

14 months:
- Roars like a lion and learned to meow like a cat
- Give hugs when you ask for one
- Loves her little red car
- Sticks her arms out and opens and closes her hands when she wants something
- Can say milk, bear, ball, mama, hello and hi and banana (“nana”)
- Top teeth coming in more and the ones on either side of the top two and the bottom right is starting to come in, too.
- Responds to bye-bye by waving
- Can show you where her head, nose and ears are

This picture is rather symbolic of our lives over the past few months - lots of moving boxes!

"Mom - aren't I too big for these pictures?"

Loving the mermaid truck!

This Little Monkey Likes Cupcakes

Note: I know Annie is almost 14 months old. Yes... it did take me almost two months to write this post. But we did move a couple of weeks ago, so maybe that's a good excuse?

Am I the only mom out there that started off saying “We’re really going to keep this first birthday party nice and simple”? 30 handmade birthday invitations, 12 pounds of BBQ pork, 12 cupcakes + a cake, 2 canvas paintings, 1 “custom” doormat, 1 birthday crown, 60 chocolate-covered bananas, and 6 balloons later, I’m not sure how “simple” it really was. But it was fun and I did it on a small budget, so that should count for something!

I’m glad we went with just a cupcake for Annie instead of an entire “smash cake.” She ate the entire cupcake without taking a breath, so if there had been more to devour, she might have ended up in a sugar coma on the floor.

Here’s Annie with her first of many birthday crowns. She left this on for about 2.5 seconds.

Family picture! HUGE thanks to our friend Emily Lavender for taking so many great pictures of Annie on her birthday! She's a great photographer and if you're in Nashville, visit her blog and book a session with her. I can't wait to post Annie's 1-year-old pictures that she took recently!

Our VERY talented friend Denette made Annie’s matching birthday cake and cupcakes for the party. (Please visit her blog and if you’re in the Nashville-area, order a cake from her!)

The monkey-themed front door.

Annie’s custom melbelle birthday canvas. I’m sure once she heads to college, she’ll be sure to take this with her to hang up on her birthday every year!

When the birthday celebration downstairs got boring for the kiddos, they headed upstairs for some (dry) fun in the ducky bathtub. Somehow that ducky never gets old!

Being ONE is FUN!

Here’s what Annie has been up to in the last month:

• Loves the dishwasher and fridge. She’ll take off crawling at warp speed if either are opened while she’s around.
• Climbed up the stairs by herself for the first time the first weekend in May
• Started saying maaaa maaaaa and daaaa daaaa more at the beginning of the month
• At the end of the first week of May, she figured out that she could use her fingers to play with her lips and make some really fun noises! It’s one of her go-to tricks now and seems to be a fan favorite.
• The week of May 13th she started saying mama and dada more continuously and seemed to start connecting it to us more. (Matt says I’m brainwashing with the “ma-ma”s.... She definitely has those down a bit better than the “da-da”s)
• Thinks its a really fun game to wrinkle up her nose and blow air out and wants us to reciprocate for even more fun!
• We discovered she’s a fan of squash and zucchini, but only if it’s covered in crushed up goldfish crackers.
• Still loves to clap!
• She had her first Krispy Kreme doughnut on Free Doughnut Day! As expected, she was a big fan.
• No signs of walking yet, but she’s a daredevil whose not afraid to climb anything that might be obstructing her path.
• Thinks it’s really funny to shake her head from side to side.
  

And she’s quite the string bean:
Height: 30.25” - 90%
Weight: 18 lbs 14 oz. - 18%

What a Difference a Year Makes

(Note: This was originally supposed to get posted on Annie’s birthday, but let’s just pretend...)

1 Year and 1 Day Ago....
I was 36 weeks pregnant and having a baby shower, walking to Sonic with my family for a post-dinner ice cream dessert, and playing a late night game of Rummikub.

1 Year Ago....
Matt and I woke up, were making plans to head to church with our family and then take in an afternoon Sounds baseball game. But sweet little Annie had different plans. After a frantic call to the OB doctor on call whom I had never seen, heard of or spoken to in my life, we drove to the hospital (with no bag of things one might normally take to the hospital when there’s potentially a baby on the way), and then made plans to meet up with our family at the late service at church. After a couple of hours of being checked and completely re-creating my medical file (mine hadn’t been transferred at the hospital yet and my doctor was out of town, so picture me with my planner out trying to remember the dates of and exactly what had happened at the last 10 OB appointments), they decided I was officially in labor and sent us to a L&D room.

I was panicked because my replacement at work was starting the very next day (I was 110% POSITIVE that I was not going to have Annie early, so we all though having 4 weeks for me to train someone would be plenty), so I was sitting in the hospital room with my laptop trying to write down everything that I was supposed to teach my replacement over the next 4 weeks. Meanwhile, I was texting the world to let them know that I was in labor, and Matt had his laptop, Blackberry and cell phone out as well. I don’t think our L&D nurse really appreciated our tech savvy-ness.

Fast forward a few hours – a few innings of a Dodgers baseball game on the TV in our room – and Matt was heading out to the lobby to get some pizza when the nurse told him he better stay in the room because the baby was coming! Then in walked another random doctor that I had never heard of or seen before (and I’ll never forget he was drinking a can of Coke when he came in to deliver Annie). Fifteen minutes of pushing and out came little 6 pound 4 ounce Annie who thankfully was completely healthy in spite of her 4 week early appearance. We were so thankful that the Annie fan club/paparazzi was just around the corner and all got to meet her just minutes after her arrival. (After an apparent fight broke out between the NICU nurses and the L&D nurses on whether or not she would have to be checked into the NICU since she was considered a “preemie”.)

I can remember that with her coming 4 weeks early, a fairly quick labor and a very fast delivery, I was not prepared for when they handed her to me for the first time. I’ll be honest... It wasn’t love at first sight. I think it was just too much to process all at once. I just remember thinking “Wow. They just handed me a baby. My baby. I’m not quite sure what to do here.” But within 15 minutes, I was head over heels in love. I have several friends that are pregnant right now and one was recently talking about how so many people talk about how bad the first few weeks are with a new baby. While they were definitely rough and (thankfully) I don’t remember too much about the sleepless nights and all the crying (me and Annie!), I can clearly remember one morning sitting in the chair in her room, looking out the window with her sleeping in my arms and thinking “I can’t possibly think of ANYTHING better that exists within this earthly life than this moment right now” and wishing that I could just stop time and enjoy it a little longer.

One year later, I still can’t think of anything better than being Annie’s maaaaa-maaaaa and getting the opportunity to love on her every day!

More posts to come soon.... Birthday party pics, 12 month pics with Raggedy Annie, etc., etc.!

Blueberry Massacre

I'm afraid there were quite a few blueberries harmed during dinner last night.

Magellan

This little happy explorer can usually be found everywhere that she's not supposed to be.

Under tables....

On the stairs....

Behind the couch....

On the dishwasher door....

And in the fridge....

She currently has an activity table, ride-on car and two large baskets full of books and toys that sit prominently in the middle of the den, but of course she'd much rather be scooching into small spaces to find wayward screws, nails, food particles and TV remotes. I'm sure no one else can relate!

11 Months!

I'm either "all in" or "all out" with most things in life and this blog is no exception! This past month I've definitely been "all out," because we've been busy packing up the house, ordering a POD and U-Haul, canceling all our utilities, and then busy canceling the POD and U-Haul and re-ordering all our utilities. So now we live in a very packed up house just waiting for the moment that our realtor will call and say "The bank accepted your offer!" and we can move into our little short sale house. The whole house selling/buying saga is certainly another post for another day. I suppose I'll wait until we have a happy ending to give the whole report!

But on to Annie... she's 11 months now! She is continuing to develop quite the little personality and we get glimpses of this personality every day at every meal time. Feeding her 3 meals a day might possibly be the end of both Matt and I, but we're making some progress. Here's what else Annie has been up to:

- I think she weighs in the upper 18 range. We went to the doctor a couple weeks ago when she was sick and she weighed 18 lbs. 11 oz. Everyone always makes comments about her being so tiny... I just think she's long and skinny with an itty bitty head!

- She started cruising around furniture just a couple days after she turned 10 months. She especially is fond of cruising around the glass coffee table. I've just surrendered to the fingerprints at this point in order to keep my sanity!

- She's always been a noise-maker, but just after she turned 10 months, we started hearing her more audibly babbling with consonant sounds for the first time and she's pretty good with the "ma-ma"s and "da-da"s now.

- She started clapping on 4/17 and she thinks it's hilarious. Around the third week in April she started handing things to us if we hold out our hands. So cute!

- Around the end of the month she fed herself an entire meal - YAY! It has been quite the struggle to find things that she'll eat in solid form, but she's now a big fan of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, blueberries, bananas, pears and grapes. So we're making progress there. She's a little vacuum cleaner when you find something she likes, but she's not afraid to let you know when she's not a fan of something.

We love this little girl more and more every day!

I couldn't resist this picture. This is the face you get when you take away the joy of pulling things out of my purse.

11 months old with Raggedy Annie.

Yummy....squash!

When the parents are away...

Annie will play!

Matt and I went out for our 3rd anniversary last week and my friend Rachel stayed with Annie. She snuck in a few artsy iPhoto shots during her stay and I wanted to share.

I like my new teeth!

She looks a little like Pebbles Flintstone to me here.

When Matt's grandparents celebrated their first anniversary, they only had time to run out and grab ice cream sundaes. Almost 59 years later and every year since, they've had a sundae to celebrate. Matt and I decided to carry on their tradition by eating cheesecake every year since we had cheesecake wedding cake. YUM! And the only thing better than cheesecake? FREE cheesecake! Thanks, Sperry's!

My mom's parents were together for almost 62 years before my grandfather died and our parents have been married for a combined total of almost 68 years. We are so thankful to have so many examples of strong, Christian marriages to follow.