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.