Birthday Party!

Brynn had a fabulous birthday party on Saturday.  We were joined by lots of friend and family.  Brynn was her happy, cute self and had a great time making a mess with cake #2 and opening all of her fun presents.  What more could you ask for for your first birthday!

                                         BEFORE

                                         AFTER

 

Present time! In outfit #2 after wearing, I mean eating her cake!

  

Brynn had a lot of helpers to help her blow out her one candle and unwrap her presents!

Brynn got a lot of fun toys and clothes. I’m going to have to do a whole blog on just all of her new adorable clothes!  Baby girl clothes are the best!

 

Check out Brynn’s new ride!  She loved her new car and going for a ride around the house, especially when Tanner was pushing her.  She was so funny, she would point in the direction she wanted Tanner to go and if he stopped pushing she would look at him and say “AHHH!”    Enjoy this car Brynn, because we might be rewrapping it when you turn 16!

                                 Brynn and all her birthday loot!

 

So Brynn someday when you are curious about what you were like at age one, here are the highlights!

You weigh 21 lbs 10 oz and are inches long

You still love to eat and are NOT a picky eater (thank goodness!)  Although you have discovered that some foods taste better than others and therefore you will not eat any baby food or heavily puréed food anymore. You like your food chunky!  You current fav foods are: grapes (finely chopped up of course!), peas, Gerber Puffs, yogurt, cooked carrots (only if they are flavored from being in a stew or roast), and cheese.  You really don’t like Cheerios too much, which was about the only food Tanner ate at your age.

You cut your first tooth a week before your first birthday and your second tooth came a week after.

You love to “walk” with someone holding your hands and you can really get around “walking” around the couch and coffee table.  You will take a couple small steps to get from the table to the couch, but you still crawl to really get around.

You love stuffed animals and giving them hugs, but you are actually not really into cuddling too much.  You don’t like to be cuddled and rocked at night.  You want your bottle and then fight to sit up.  Right now (it could change within the week!) you are very easy to put to sleep for nap or bedtime if we have kept you on your schedule.  At night you go down about 7:00.  We read you a couple of books, you drink 4-6 oz of nice and warm milk and then we lay your down with your pacifier and your bunny in your crib.  You cry for about 1-2 mins and then you’re out! 

Unfortunately you are NOT out for the night.  You still consistently wake up between 1:00 and 2:00 am.  Mommy gets up and still nurses you at this time (because she is too tired to make a bottle and nursing is just so convenient!) and you almost always go right back to sleep.  Last night mom was only up for 17 minutes!  But we are going to work on that sleeping ALL the way through the night thing!

You are still taking two naps a day for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours each at 9:30ish and 2:00ish.  You are not a great napper!  You wake up very easily and if you are woken up by the phone or garage door you do not go back to sleep.  You also do not transfer well from one place to another when you are sleeping.  So if you fall asleep in the car I cannot get you into your crib without you waking up.  What a pain!!!  I am becoming one of those mothers that sings and grabs your leg to keep you awake in the car and puts notes on the doorbell to not ring the bell!   So you are easy to put to sleep, but hard to keep asleep.  Tanner was hard to put to sleep but easy to keep asleep.  I could practically vacuum Tanner’s room while he was in his crib sleeping but with you I can’t even vacuum the basement.  It is very frustrating and hard to get any  housework done!

You LOVE to look at books and be read to, but ONLY if the books have something you can touch on the page.  First thing you do is feel the page and if there is nothing fuzzy or rough or scratchy on the page you literally push the book on the floor.  It is very funny!  Your favorite books are the Usborne touch and feel books and the Peek a boo books.

You like to play peek-a-boo with a dish towel or behind a chair.  You get so excited playing peek-a-boo, it is the cutest thing to do with you right now.

You currently can say Da-Da (for daddy and when you play with the phone you say Da-Da into the phone a lot), Ma-Ma (You say this a lot, but not just for me.  You just randomly say it! I am trying to not take offense that you don’t say it exclusively for me!), Uh-Oh (when you drop or purposely throw something) and we think you have just started saying Nana for Tanner.   Yep those 4 words are your current vocabulary!  We have occasionally gotten a Moo out of you when we show you a cow puzzle piece you play with.

Mommy is trying very hard to put in bows or pigtails, but you want nothing to do with anything being in your hair.  Your hair is finally growing and we even have had to cut a few really long strands, but you’re just not into even having your hair brushed  – sigh!  All those cute bows just sitting in your drawer!

Besides books you have not really developed a favorite toy yet.  You love to put things in a bucket or container and then take them back out or hand us a ball and then take it back from us.  You find this highly amusing.  You also are showing great potential for being our little athlete.  You can already throw a ball pretty well (for a one year old), will roll a ball back and forth to us and kick a ball if we are holding you up.  It really is quite impressive! 

You are a very happy, easy, content, go with the flow, baby.  However, when you are not happy you have an amazingly loud piercing scream.  As in our ears hurt if we are holding you and you start screaming.  When your dad and I are deaf in our old age you are paying for our hearing aids.  Thankfully, as quickly as you start screaming you also stop screaming – usually by giving you food or whatever it is you want (yes, we are in trouble with this scream and I get what I want attitude, we are working on that.)  But again, 90% of the time you are a very happy, content baby and we like it like that!

You love your brother and the two of you are so great together.  He makes you laugh and you make him laugh.  Seriously your eyes light up when he comes into the room and when you hear his voice you immediately look for him.  I hope you two always have this special relationship!

We are loving every minute with you Brynn!