One-Year Stats

Our favorite little peanut had her one-year-check yesterday. I almost can't believe I just wrote that. It seems nearly impossible for her to be one year old already, but she is definitely nearing toddler-hood! Here are her stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 14 0z. - 60th percentile

height: 32 inches - greater than the 97th percentile

Head: 47 cm - 92nd percentile

I am VERY pleased with her growth, all I wanted was for her to grow, even a little, since she did ZERO growing between 6 and 9 months. Since her 9 mo. check she gained almost 4 lbs., grew 3 inches and has easily made up not growing those other three months.

She is a very curious girl. She constantly amazes me with what she knows how to do. This morning I found her holding a ponytail holder trying to put it in her hair - just one of many times I've found her doing something that surprised me. She's getting very close to walking and has even gotten up to 10 steps on her own. We're thinking she's almost there, she looks more confident on her feet every day.

This year with Sophia has been the best so far. We have enjoyed every minute of it (even the middle-of-the-night-minutes)!

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Party pics...

Brace yourself! There are a LOT of pictures from the party...I just couldn't pick my favorites. Thank you SO much to Bri, who took the pictures for us! She did such a good job and it was so graet that I didn't have to think ONCE about picking up the camera to make sure we captured the memories.

She does a great job - you can see more of her pictures on her blog - click here.

The Wuollet's cupcakes - YUM!

Syrupy sweet punch I found on one of my favorite party blogs.

Pretty flowers for such a pretty birthday girl
Yummy rice krispie treats found here.

We didn't have any official activities, but there were kiddos present, so we brought along a few items to keep them busy.

The BIRTHDAY girl!!

I learned from a friend that both Kowalski's and Bylerly's give you a FREE cake for a child's first birthday - this one is from Kowalski's - how cute?!

The only problem with the cake? Sophia wouldn't eat it! There was so much build-up and then she wasn't into it at all! She loves all things green and healthy, and this doesn't fit, so she woulnd't go for it. We're wondering how she could be our child because we both LOVE cake!

Sophia walked (okay, crawled) away from the party with many great gifts - thanks to everyone who came and was so generous! We had so much fun celebrating with friends and family!

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Happy First Birthday Sophia!

Sophia's First Birthday party was yesterday at the Lyndale Park Rose Garden in Minneapolis. It was SO much fun. It was a blast to have so many friends and family come together to celebrate our darling girl! She was low on sleep and not feeling 100 percent, but she seemed to have a good time and enjoyed some sweets as well.

More pictures to come once we get the professional pics my friend Bri took yesterday!

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One Month from Wednesday

SO excited for Sophia's first birthday! My favorite part of having a birthday is being the princess for a day (just ask my family...), and I'm so excited for Sophia to be the princess that day! Really, though, who am I kidding - she's been the princess of our household all year!

Birthday thoughts are pretty much all consuming right now - I'm having so much fun. The pictures at the top of our blog are a few of many we took at the location of the party - we were trying to get one for the invitation.

I LOVE this idea for table decorations! One of my grandma's passed away last year and never got to meet Sophia. She had a teacup collection, so I think it would be a fun way to incorporate her into the day.

(From the Creative Hostess)

My other grandma, who can't travel, won't be able to come to her party, but I now have some of her crystal punch cups(similar to the one below), so I think I'm going to put flowers in these too. It will be fun to decorate with something pretty from each of the grandma's who can't be there to celebrate!

P.S. The little monkey took a step tonight!!! I was in the other room and missed it - SO sad - but I can't wait to see her doing it again soon!

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10 Months!

What a happy baby girl!

Sophia is 10 months old and I cannot believe it has gone so quickly. I think that phrase is something you see on a lot of mom's blogs, but it's always true. The time goes so fast!

Apparently in her "old age" Sophia is getting to be very thoughtful. Just yesterday "she" brought home these beautiful flowers for me. What a sweetie!

One of Sophia's favorite things is eating finger foods. She will take only a few things from a spoon right now because she's having too much fun feeding herself. She LOVES banana, yogurt, turkey, cheese, blueberries and peas. I also discovered today that she's NOT into Cheddar cheese, so we will stick to American for now. :)

She also still adores her blanket. This picture is from her nap this morning and she's always got it very close to her. When she's really sleepy, she rubs the silky part on her face until she falls asleep.

And she has some new tricks - her favorite is clapping. She even claps when she's upset, which is super funny!

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Thanks so much for all the feeding advice. We've moved to four bottles/feedings a day. We offer 6 oz. and she takes 4-6 oz. at each one depending on how hungry she feels.

The next thing I need to tackle is getting her to stop hitting me. Last week when she was sick it hit an all-time high, and it's always in the face. At one point, when I said "no" very sternly, we both ended up crying. It was just a realization that there are going to be many many times throughout her life(think teenage years...) that she may hurt my feelings and we'll just have to get through it. Not the most fun part of parenting, but I guess it's inevitable. It's a good thing she has a great smile to redeem herself.

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9 Months: Moving on...

Sophia had her 9 mo. check-up last week. Her stats weren't as exciting as they usually are because they were pretty much the same as her 6 mo. appointment:

Weight: 17 lbs. 14 oz. - 35th percentile

Height: 29.5 inches - 97th percentile

Head: 45.5 cm - 90th percentile

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She only gained 12 oz. in the last three months, which wasn't typical for her - up until 6 months she was averaging about 1 lb. each month. He wasn't overly concerned with her numbers, it was just a little different than usual. But, I know that on the days she is at daycare I bring home about a third of the amount of milk that she drinks from bottles while I'm not with her. To me, that says she wants more than she's getting. So, we are beginning the process of moving on from nursing.

It will be a slow process - we're not going cold turkey here, for both of our sakes, but it's definitely happening. At first I felt really bad, guilty, sad, etc., and I still feel a little of that from time to time. However, if we're being completely honest, the emotion that ranks the highest is RELIEF.

I don't find nursing to be that convenient. Just being real - mommy is the only one who can feed the babe, which means you are on call 24/7. It's not always inconvenient, but there are a lot of times when it is. If you're in the car and baby is hungry - pull over 'cuz you can't (okay - you can, but it's complicated!) nurse while baby is in the car seat. If you get a sitter, go out to dinner and give baby a bottle, you still aren't off the hook because you have to pump when you get home. You get my point.

It's starting to sound like I don't support breast-feeding, and I do. I have loved doing it for Sophia and I love the bonding, but there comes a time in every baby's life when it's time and I'm okay with it being time for us to start winding down. Really, I've been struggling with wanting to be done, but couldn't quite justify it. Nursing is free and I figured I would just keep going as long as it was working, so now I feel like I just got Dr.'s permission to start to wean guilt-free.

I've started a list of all the wonderful things that will come from this:

-Daddy can wake up first!

-All those great sundresses I want to wear that don't accommodate nursing(well, without flashing the world) - I'm bringing them out ASAP!

-I will no longer be supporting Lansinoh's company with all of those freezer bags we've been buying for the last 9 months.

-I've started putting away some of the Medela bottles and accessories since I won't be pumping as much, which is making it much easier to keep the bottle area of our cabinet organized.

-I WON'T BE PUMPING AS MUCH! HALLELUJAH!

I'm sure there will be more benefits as we go along. One nice thing is that I thought I might drop one or two feedings in the summer so I stocked up on formula last fall (no worries - I checked expiration dates, and all are safe), so once we run out of the frozen milk and start formula, we won't even have to pay for it for at least month, maybe longer.

***UPDATE***

I wrote this post last week. Let me just say I'm starting to see some of the conveniences of nursing as it fades away. Saturday during her 4am feeding, I was very happy that I wasn't thawing milk or mixing up a bottle - that would wake me up too much. Then, Sunday, I forgot to bring a bottle to church, so she had to wait until we got home - she made it just fine, but it could have been disastrous!

So, I guess, either way, we won't have freedom until she's one and is on sippy cups. Hmm...really? Because then I have to make sure to remember the sippy cup...

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Baby can move!

A few vidoes of Sophia crawling. The first one is a little hectic, as Davis is playing recorder music and Evie is cheering Sophia on.

The second video is of a very crabby girl, but she's still moving.

An unhappy baby - why? Partly, because she was sleepy...

And partly because this was making it's way toward her.

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7 Months

Sophia is 7 months old today! It's hard to believe the time has gone so quickly. I thought I'd share a video of her latest trick...

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First Foods!

6 Month Update:

17 lbs. 2 oz. - 75th percentile

29 inches long - greater than the 97th percentile

Along with new stats, her latest trick is not to nap AT ALL during the day. Let's hope this has more to do with her cold than a stubborn streak.

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Sophia had her first experience eating real food this weekend! We started with rice cereal and avocado. The problem was that I didn't think about the fact that Sophia needed a nap, so she was a little fussy, but overall it went alright.

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