1 Year

I knew it was coming. No matter how much I denied it. No matter how many glasses of wine I drank. 

You are officially not a baby anymore my precious girl. 

you are a year old and you are even more precious to us then you were the day we brought you home. Here is where I would insert the video of the day we brought you home but since I lost that in the great computer crash of 2012 I will just have to go with the video of the day you were born.

One July 27, 2011 at 6:05 a.m. our lives and our family was changed forever. This past year has been the most amazing, tiring, fun filled, loud, growing, changing, fastest year of our lives and we can't wait to see what the next year brings. I just can't imagine it getting any better then it already is. Sadly I can't even watch the video of your birthday because it causes me to cry like an idiot, but maybe after a few more glasses of wine I will be more drunk better. 


My precious Mckinley,with a little k, your personality fills the room whenever you are around. People can meet you and after a few minutes they always say you have such a big personality for such a little lady. My favorite thing you do is when someone walks past you you give them that now toothy grin and you just expect them to stop and speak to you. I swear if they just pass right by your face says "how dare you not acknowledge me and my cuteness". You are ALWAYS camera ready and the moment that little red light shines on your face you are cheesing. 


In just this past month you have changed so much and your personality has gotten even bigger and louder which is hard to imagine. You are such a free spirit and you love your new freedom to travel back and forth between your room and the den now that I have relocated all of the breakables on your shelves. Your new toy shelf is your favorites thing to destroy. You love pulling all of your toys, books, and animals out of their baskets and shelves and as I am trying to put them away you are right behind me pulling them back out so most days we just leave it. We like to call this the Hurricane Mckinley affect. 


You are still a peanut little one weighing in at 28 inches and 20 pounds. The doctor says you still have a little growing coming, but you are perfectly proportionate and just all around perfect (I could have told him that). He gets quite a kick out of you every time we visit and always comments on your personality and how you "shine" as he says, but who can blame him.


You are still a mama's girl, but every now and then when daddy is near you lunge for him to hold you which he loves. I still can't be on the other side of the baby jail unless you are preoccupied in something else. You love to scream at me if I am playing on the computer in the kitchen and you can't get to me. We still lay in bed snuggled together every night until you fall asleep and then daddy or I will put you in bed and we will probably do this as long as you let us. You won't let me rock you anymore, but you falling asleep in my arms right next to me is the next best thing.

You are a daredevil and you still LOVE being thrown up into the air and the higher the better. You also love when we pretend to drop you (don't worry we always catch you), and when we swing you around really fast. Your favorite thing is to fuss until we pick you up onto the couch and then you immediately turn yourself around onto your belly and slide down the couch. Fuss, Pick up, Slide. We do this over and over and over again, Your newest trick is climbing up onto your pink chair and standing up and now you are trying to climb up it onto the couch which gives mama a heart attack. 

You are still a chatterbox and you jibber jabber all day long and if someone isn't paying attention to you you yell at them and you yell really loud. Your favorite thing to say is Daaaaaaddy! You used to say Mama, but now I think you think my name is daddy because when I say "Say Mama" You say "Daddy".  You used to say Mama all of the time especially when we were at the beach you would yell "MAMA!" Anytime I would leave the room. Maybe you are just doing this because you think it is funny when I say "Say Mama" and you won't say it and I react or laugh. You are funny now and won't say many of the words you used to say like bad dog, dat (that). You still say woof woof, dog, stuck, yuck, hey, hey mama!, eyes, yeah, done, please, uh oh, and hot mess (you just do the inflection of this, but we know what you mean). Just recently you have seemed to be saying Go Away to Caddy whenever we are at Grandpa and Ya Ya's and we say that a lot to that crazy dog.

It is official as of July 19 you officially have 2 bottom teeth and someday I might try to get a picture. You are not a fussy baby and you hardly ever cry and we used to always joke whenever you did fuss for some reason that maybe you were cutting teeth, but we knew better because your daddy didn't get any teeth until her was probably 16 months, but this one particular night you cried and cried and cried and cried and rolled around the bed for hours and we couldn't do anything but sit back and stare at you and stare at each other. We tried baby tylenol, teething tablets, teething gel, but nothing worked. Finally after watching a little Sesame Street you passed out and wouldn't you know when you woke up the next morning those little bumps that had been hanging out for months now turned into 2 little teeth. It is still really weird to see you with teeth now that we have spent almost a whole year with that gummy smile of yours. We can see what looks like a few top teeth pushing through these days and we can't wait for another all nighter and some new teeth.

I can't believe I am saying this, but every single one of your bottles are now living in the attic and you will only drink out of a cup with a straw. You are so funny trying to get the straw in your tiny mouth like a little shark. You will start to drink and throw down your cup or yank it out and then do it all over again. You are such a hoot to just sit and watch. We are also officially done with formula. I think I can hear a chorus of angels singing Hallelujah! Only big kids get to drink milk and you have transitioned beautifully. We started mixing the last of your formula with milk a while ago and once we finished our last can we were done. I loved my last trip to Target and not having to spend $21 on yucky formula. I am always so scared each time something changes, but you are so easy going and you always just roll with whatever we throw at you. It always seems much harder on mama then it is on you.

You are still a great eater  and you eat pretty much anything we place in front of you. We just tried strawberries and peanut butter the other day and thankfully no reactions and you loved both which is good for me because those are 2 of my favorite foods so I see many mornings of peanut butter toast topped with fruit in our future kid. Some of your favorite foods are watermelon ,pineapple, avocados, toast, any kind of meat, any kind of fish, quinoa, pasta, spinach, salad, food, food, food and more food. We have been very lucky with you and food and I pray you don't become a picky eater any time soon. I have thoroughly enjoyed cooking for you this past year and I look forward to trying many new things that maybe you and daddy

A few new things you have learned to do this month. You like to brush your hair yourself after a bath, you LOVE reading books and having us read you books. You will find one of your little Baby Einstein books or your all time favorite "If Your Happy And You Know It" and you will hold the book in 1 hand and scooch on your bottom over to us and hand us the book for us to read it to you. We usually don't get to make it through and entire book because you love turning then pages and will usually turn them faster then we can read them, but that's ok because you will want to read the book again and again and again so whatever pages we miss we might get to read the next 25 times. You love picking a new favorite stuffed animal everyday and you hold onto it and you will stop every now and then and lay your little head down on it and the softer the animal the more you love it. You love it when other people clap for you especially when you are dancing or acting silly. I am still shocked sometimes how much you like your pacifier now since you absolutely hated it from months 1 to about 7. We try to give it to you only in the car and when you nap or go down for the night, but if you find 1 of the 3 we own you pop it in and are happy. Last week when your teeth were coming in you seemed to want it to chew on and pacify yourself when you were really upset and since your daddy and I had no clue what else to do we gave it to you whenever you wanted. One more big event that happened recently was the switch from your baby carrier to your big kids convertible car seat. The day we came home from the beach we made the switch. I can honestly say I miss the carrier because it was so much easier popping it out and placing you in the stroller frame especially when you were asleep. Now I can't transfer you without you waking up, but you haven't freaked on me yet so we are doing ok. The darn seat is just so big! I can't wait to either turn you around or get a booster seat in a few years.

Whispering secrets may be my all time favorite new thing you do. We have aunt  Jean to thank for teaching you this. All I have to say is "Let me tell you a secret" and you lean your little head over to me so I can whisper in your ear. I absolutely love whispering sweet nothings in your ear and you think it is hilarious and we do it over and over and over again.

One thing I am proud of for all of us is we have officially made it a year in cloth diapers. Not that it was hard or anything. We did have a month or 2 when we had to buy maybe 2 big boxes of diapers because of a rash caused by antibiotics, but other than that it was all cloth all the time. I wish everyone could see how awesome and easy cloth is because if they did I know that would love it as much as we do. 

Triple stuffed

As of right now you are not standing or walking by yourself, but you will walk with us just holding onto 1 finger, but the second we let go you sit down. You have stood for a few seconds by yourself, but every time you don't realize you are doing it, but once you do you immediately sit down. You do a great job walking with your walker and we try not to laugh, but you get so frustrated when it gets stuck and you can't go anywhere and you cry or should I say fake cry until someone comes and rescues you. You can walk around the entire house holding onto the walls, but you just aren't ready to let go and I as your mother who will be chasing you around am ok with that. You can crawl as long as you want because once you realize you can walk and run we will never get to sit still again. 

The biggest event to happen this past month was a trip to the beach with Grandpa, Ya Ya, and Jen Jen. We had so much fun and you may not have liked the sand or the ocean when we got there, but you definitely came around by the time we left. You favorite thing to do was dip your paci in the salty water in your pool and suck on it. You were definitely our entertainment for the week.

It still amazes me how much you have changed from the day we brought you home to now.

Some of my favorite pictures from this past year

Even after getting 3 shots you are still a ray of sunshine.

Ole blue eyes

Chewing on the toilet paper roll.Notice no toilet paper attached because you love playing with it. And the door is either shut or the toilet down so someone can't play in it.

All 3 of your men came to see you all at the same time. 

Your future husband Noah.

Your favorite chair.

You love your walker and throw a fit when we have to put it up.

You climb in and on everything.

 You are so sweet and love to cuddle your babies and you are starting to cuddle more with me again which I absolutely love.

1 year checkup. 

I said it in my last post, but you will never ever know what a blessing you have been these past few months with everything going on. I am not sure if I would have made it through all of this without you sweet girl and I hope some day you will truly understand what you have meant to me, your daddy, grandpa, jen jen yaya, nonni, car car, and everyone else you come into contact with. You truly are sent from above and God must have know we would be needing a little of you in our lives. I hope you know how much you are loved and I pray every night that  you always know we love you and we will always be here for you no matter what. You just keep being you precious girl.

Happy Birthday To You

 We are all still recovering from the big day because we all had too much fun. I feel like the vision that I had in my mind for months now truly came to life. Nothing would have been possible that day without my family who helped me get everything set up the night before and put in place the day of.  I feel like I have been planning this party for months now and it was over so quickly that I feel like I didn't get to really sit back and enjoy it. Next year we plan on throwing a more layed back affair with a pool and a grill and a few decorations. If you know me or my family you know we don't do anything small so I say it will be low key, but only time will tell.

I do want to say thank you again to everyone who came out to celebrate our precious girl. We had a full house and it was quite chaotic and loud, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Like I said I feel like I started planning this party months ago and it all started with a dress and snowballed from there. I found most of my inspirations from Pinterest and online resources, but mostly Pinterest. I knew I wanted everything to be shabby chic and girly which is my go to decor. Not sure when I got to be all girly, but I guess that is my style now.

I might have written a few posts about my party planning endeavors

1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  and The 1 Year Post. Like a said just a few.

Thank goodness for blogging because it helps hold me accountable for things I say I am going to do. I feel like if I write it on here then I have to do it. Maybe I should write a post about losing 5 pounds. I swear I am more motivated and have a better schedule when school is in. I though I would have all the time in the world this summer to relax and workout, but being home all day with a 1 year old and keeping her happy, fed, dry, entertained, safe, takes up most of my days and when she isn't awake I am cleaning or cooking or playing on Facebook or Pinterest working on lesson plans.

Now on to the party. I only wish I had a better camera to take my pictures with because even ones that looked great on my viewer cam out a but blurry, but when can you do.

We started setting up everything the Friday night before the party and I thought it would only take about an hour. Skip to 3 hours later, some pizza, and a fussy little lady and we were pretty much done except for putting out the food and hanging her month picture banner which I sadly did not get a great picture of and I may hang back up in our house so I can get one.

Sweets table

Lanterns

Food Table

 

Cake smashing and present opening location

Birthday wardrobe

I have to show off all of the hard work poor Car Car did for us outside. We planned on setting up Mckinley's new water table and some baby pools and letting the babies play, but it was just too darn hot

We woke up early Saturday because we wanted to make sure the Little Lady took a nap before her party and I did some last minute party prep and thought we were good to go. Bless my poor sweet husband because he has to put up with me for the rest of his life and he should have known I would forget something and forget something I did. You see I had grand visions of a banner with all of the stickers I used on her monthly pictures and my favorite picture from that month. In true Roxanne fashion I forgot to take her 12 month picture the night before and order it to be ready for the next day and somehow I was missing a few of the pictures I wanted to use. This meant I had to wake the birthday girl up early to get it and I wanted her to sleep as long as possible.

Good news. I got the shot.maybe because I planted my happy bottom on the kiosk chair and chewed my fingernails off and I think he skipped a few people to get me my pictures because it only took about 20 minutes and I was off.

I was so thankful to my family because when I arrived almost everything was set up, but I still felt like a chicken with its head cut off. I immediately started working on hanging the month banner and quickly realized I was missing some pictures and started panicking, but thankfully my MIL who always knows how to handle my particular brand of crazy suggested I may have left them in this particular box I brought a few important things in and sure enough they were there. Sadly I some how misplaced a few month pictures, but no one knew by me so no big deal. Of course a few people (my family) showed up early, but it was nice to get to see them before the madness began. After that everyone started rolling in and the party got underway.

I wanted to get 1 picture before everyone arrived and we all got overwhelmed

The spread

 Month banner. Thankfully I thought to save the month stickers I used on Mckinley's onesies because I didn't think of this until a few weeks before her birthday I picked my favorite picture from that month and my favorite monthly picture. I place the month sticker on a white paper doily, hung 3 lines of rope and attached everything with clothes pins. Mckinley's name at the very bottom was made from letter my MIL had used at her baby shower. I just updated them with new colors to match our color scheme

I wanted to create a time capsule for Mckinley to open when she is 18 so I had everyone fill out a few different sheets saying where she would attend college, what she would be like in high school, what she will be when she grew up and then they could write her a little note. I also had everyone sign a special copy of a collection of Winnie The Pooh poems I have been keeping for years (I thankfully have 2 copies of this book so prepare to sign one for the next little). This was also where we set yo the plates and silverware.

A copy of Mckinley's birthday invitation and a note asking everyone to fill her time capsule.

The sweets table Candy, candy, and more candy!, Homemade butter mints made by my awesome sister, Homemade cream puffs made by my sister and Homemade rainbow whoopie pies made by yours truly, and the cake. I love how this all came together.

Team D

Family and Friends

Presents!
Mckinley initially seemed to be interested in opening presents, but after 1 toy was opened she was over it and just wanted to play with that so I got to open everything which was quite fun.

Cake Smash Time! Sadly she didn't care for the icing on her hands so sadly no cake smashing actually happened.

After everything was winding down I wanted 1 "After" picture, but Mckinley was SO over having her picture  which led to these oh so happy memories

I just want to say THANK YOU again to everyone who came out to help celebrate our little lady. It really meant so much to us that you were all there.

What You Doin?

Imagine I am saying this in  Joey Tribaini voice.

This is what I am doin

These may or may not be for the munchkins birthday next Saturday.

I am also doing This


The husband is doing This

You might see something like this hanging in my laundry room someday soon.


And the Little is doing This

Just a typical Sunday evening around here.

Life's A Beach

For a few years now Brent and I have gone to the beach with my family and we were really excited to take Mckinley to the beach for the first time this year. We hadn't been able to go for the past year or 2 for one reason or another so when my dad said make sure Brent can get the week of July 4 off we did it right away. Then the worst thing I could ever imagine happened. We found out mom was really sick which meant the beach never got a second thought and we were all in treatment mode, or so we thought. I remember coming home and telling Brent that we were canceling the beach trip and he of course was the best and said we would have our own vacation and spend the week together since he was already off and we moved on. Skip to the next day when Mom and Dad are talking about when they scheduled mom's first treatment and how that fit around the trip[. If you don't know my parent's the one thing you need to know about them is they are awesome and I would rather travel with them then anyone else. Not just because they take us out to eat, but because they are really fun to travel with and they love to travel. Basically no matter what they were going to the beach with our without us and I am so glad we did go because I think everyone needed a break from the reality of what was happening and more then that we all needed a little sun,  rest, and pina coladas.

Let's rewind and go back to before we loaded up the cars and headed out. Mom had her first treatment and we were so excited because she was doing so good and then things started to go down hill, but that is another post in itself so we will skip that and move on. Even as we were walking out the door and climbing in the car we were a all a little wary about this 10 hour drive ahead of us. We knew with 1 sick mama and 1 baby we  might be stopping more then a few times. Basically we had no clue how this trip was going to go, but we were not prepared at all for what actually occurred. 

NOTHING!

This was the most uneventful trip to the beach ever. No one got sick. The baby slept almost the entire way or was entertained by veggie straws and movies. We never thought we would make it to the beach as fast as we did and we were so so thankful that mom was feeling so good.

We spent the entire week eating, drinking, and spending time together and of course being entertained by a Little Lady. We took some family pictures dressed all in white, then we took some pictures of the baby, and then we took even more pictures of the baby. We ate in most nights and either cooked or picked up some food which was my favorite (boiled shrimp, corn, and potatoes yum!) and we ate out one night which no one else really liked except me. 

The best part about this trip was it allowed us to all be together and to kind of forget about what was going on for just a few days, Now we are home and life has returned back to as normal as it can be right now, but I wouldn't change this summer or this trip for anything.

We made it!!! A little tired, but thankful we made it all in 1 piece.

Checking out the beach for the first time and not a fan.

Wild Woman

The beer was empty don't worry we don't condone underage drinking.

Happy 4th of July!

 Our beach angel

 On the road again.

And just in case anyone was wondering yes we took our cloth and it was a breeze to use while traveling even in the car. I packed a separate bag to hold all of my clean inserts just in case we needed them, but I kept my travel changing pad, wipes (we took a container of regular wipes just for the beach in case of messy hands while out to eat and to help wipe off sand), 6 liners, coconut oil and covers in my diaper bag which I kept in next to me in the car so I could easily grab toys, snacks, etc. Whenever we stopped I would unbuckle the girl travel to the back of the car where I already have everything set up with a diaper already snapped and ready to go, changed her, and then we spent a few minutes walking around and stretching our legs. I was shocked at how many places didn't have changing tables, but the ones that did weren't very appealing to me and using the back of the car was much cleaner and much easier. We thankfully had a washer and dryer in our condo right next to our bedroom so we just did what we usually do except we washed almost everyday since we seemed to change her more often and ran low on diapers faster, because we were changing her outfits so many times during the day (pajamas, outfit 1, swimsuit, outfit 2, another outfit because she got food all over herself etc). We had actually debated before leaving about taking disposables, but my wonderful husband said no we would take our cloth because it would be just as easy and he was right of course because he is always right (which always makes me so mad) and aren't I a good wife to be able to admit that.