worst gift

We had Savannah's 1 year check-up yesterday, turns out she got a terrible gift for her birthday - her first ear infection. She went to bed with a fever on Saturday night and woke up with a fever on Sunday, she seemed fine other than that so were hopeful it was just teething, but unfortunately it wasn't.  She started amoxicillin yesterday and seems to be feeling better already, since she's sick they couldn't do her vaccinations which I'm sure she didn't mind!

She weighed in at 21 lbs. 3 oz. and is 29.5 inches tall putting her in the 60th percentile for both weight and height.

I don't think I mentioned it, but she started saying 'ma ma' last Friday, it is the sweetest sound I've ever heard. Yesterday on the way home from the doctor she was just about to fall asleep and she was almost whispering it, it was so cute I almost had to pull over and smother her with kisses.


Here are a few more pictures from her birthday party, video and more pictures of her actual birthday coming soon.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

One-derful!

Our baby girl turned 1 today!  Her party yesterday was great, we were surrounded by people that love our precious girl so I really didn't expect anything less.  

As you can see, we went with a cupcake theme.  I didn't want to get too crazy with her first taste of cake so Savannah's huge cupcake was just a white cake with buttercream icing while everyone else had their choice of banana, pink champagne and cookies 'n cream cupcakes.  Pink champagne was by far the favorite flavor but thankfully we have a lot fewer cupcakes left than I thought we would.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

I am so proud of this banner, I think it turned out so cute!  I wish there was video of my mother-in-law and I trying to hang it, we started with hanging it over the sliding glass door but quickly realized we'd run into some problems if anyone wanted to go outside and get a drink.  I think it looked much better over the fireplace anyway.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

The birthday girl in her pretty pink cupcake dress made especially for her by her Gammie.

From SGN - 12th Month

She was not shy with her cake, she was very dainty and never smashed it but she definitely liked it.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

She even wanted to make sure that James and I got to try it, she really just offered it out to us!

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

She even did really well with opening presents, I never thought we'd get through the HUGE stack (she's got some work to do on those thank you notes) but we did and she even seemed interested in each gift!

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

To our friends and family - thank you so much for your support and advice over the past year, we wouldn't be the parents we are without each and every one of you.  Thank you for making her first year so wonderful and memorable!

In the Homestretch

Princess Savannah's 1st Birthday is approaching with unrelenting speed, I've tried everything I can think of to make her stay at 11 months and 29 (30?) days forever but my super powers seem to have failed me. 

I stalled on ordering the invitations only to freak out when I though they wouldn't be here in enough time to put them in the mail, only to get them in plenty of time - I like to think an amazing employee at Shutterfly took pity on me noticing that the date for her party was getting close and hooked me up with free expedited shipping.  I still haven't planned the food for her birthday party, something that is very unlike me and I haven't made her practice birthday cake.  I think in my mind all of the procrastination means it won't happen. But in reality, I'm only going to be stressed out at this time next week.

We are most definitley in the homestretch of nursing - she dropped her afternoon bottle last week, which took a lot of pressure off of me with pumping at work and I'm down to pumping once a day.  She still nurses in the morning and at night, in addition to a morning bottle, so she's still getting enough milk each day.  I'm very proud to say that she has never had formula, I know that being able to produce enough milk to pump and nurse exclusively for an entire year is rare and I am so thankful for it. I did smell like maple syrup for a month (which may have been in my head) from taking Fenugreek to boost my production but luckily everyone seems to like the smell of pancakes.  I've been slowly introducing regular milk back into my diet and so far she hasn't had any of the problems with it that she did before, so hopefully she'll be ok drinking it straight and we won't have to go the soy milk route.

As for milestones, she seems to really enjoy eating whatever we're eating - I made a turkey meatloaf the other night that she devoured and she seems to enjoy pasta as much as I do.  She is dangerously close to walking, constantly standing on her own now and will take a few steps (her record is 6!) in between James and I or between us and whatever object she can catch herself on when she loses her balance.  She has mastered the sippy cup and is really great at independent play.  She loves to explore new things and she has started flipping through books on her own, her current favorite being Pat the Bunny.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Cheese!!

Princess Savannah seems to love the camera now, instead of giving us a blank stare and fixating on the little red light she is embracing it and becoming quite the ham.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

Blue Steele.

From SGN - 12th Month

Hey, there's a cute baby in this mirror!

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

11 months!

Savannah was officially 11 months old on May 27 - wow, that was fast!  It seems like just yesterday that she was just a couple weeks old and it seems like I repeat something very similar to that every couple months.


Here lately she seems so much more like a little girl than a baby.  She is becoming as independent as she can be right now, standing up on her own for longer periods of time and taking a couple steps between James and I sitting on the floor.  We keep saying that we aren't encouraging walking (like we did crawling) because walking very quickly leads to running but that really isn't true since we seem to take every opportunity to help her learn.

From SGN - 12th Month

She doesn't really like to be fed anymore, so we're done pureeing everything and we are now cutting everything into tiny pieces so she can feed herself.  A lot of it ends up on the floor for the dogs but she manages to eat quite a bit.  This week we began giving her whatever we're eating for dinner which has required a lot more planning on my part since one of us used to fix our dinner while the other fed her. Now I have all of our meals planned out and groceries purchased for the next 2 weeks and doing all but cooking the meal the day before.


When we have a meal that really isn't fit for her, such as the chicken we had the other night with chilli powder in the seasoning, we're giving her chicken nuggets and veggies.  But last night we had a ravioli dish and she LOVED it, she loves the chicken nuggets too.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

Is all that for me?

From SGN - 12th Month

We just went ahead and stripped her down to just a diaper for the ravioli, turns out it wasn't as messy as we thought it would be.

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

She's also becoming quite adept at the sippy cup but she does not like it to be on her tray, if we put it there she knocks it to the ground immediately.  (This is the worst sippy cup ever, it started leaking after the first time it was dropped!)

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

She is also quite fond of dog food, she's gotten it in her mouth plenty of times and isn't eager to spit it out or for us to remove it so apparently it tastes pretty good.

From SGN - 12th Month

Her reaction to, "Savannah, no."

From SGN - 12th Month

From SGN - 12th Month

"Savannah, no." Notice it's already in her hand.

From SGN - 12th Month

Getting closer to the mouth.

From SGN - 12th Month

Success!

From SGN - 12th Month

And yes, I did watch my daughter put dog food in her mouth just so I could get a picture.

Here's video of another round of dog food fun about 4 minutes later, this would probably get to be pretty irritating if that little smile wasn't so darn cute.