Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Tomorrow we are flying out of the tiny little College Station airport to DFW, from there, on to O'Hare! I am still a little (ok, maybe a lot!) nervous about the flight. Typically when it's just Josh and me, I relax, read a book, play a game on my phone, listen to my ipod or sleep...none of that will be happening tomorrow. Since our flight is so short to DFW, around 30 minutes, we are going to try to keep Alex entertained without toys, snacks or the DVD player. We are saving the bag of tricks for the longer flight to Chicago. I have spent the last 2 days washing clothes, getting Alex's stuff together and running errands to get a few little last minute things. I think we are ready. Alex's stuff is 95% packed! I haven't even started on our stuff, but that's what we are doing tonight! I am crossing my fingers that tomorrow Alex will sleep at some point or if she doesn't sleep, I am praying she won't completely melt down and make us "those people" with the screaming kid on the plane!

Chicago, here we come!

Getting Ready!

I started several post over the last week and never finished so I figured I'd ditch them all and start over!

Last week we turned Alex's car seat around! She loves facing forward and just watches everything. The only bad thing about it, she won't sleep in her car seat now unless it's dark. We went to my parents on Friday night. I knew Alex was tired because she barely napped during the day so by 5:30 she was rubbing her eyes. I fed her dinner and gave her a bath while Josh loaded up the car. I put Alex in her jammies and off we went. She was wide awake until about 8:45 then she finally fell asleep...about 30 minutes from my parents! Alex usually sleeps in our room while we are traveling, but since she was a pill over 4th of July we decided to put her in a different room so she couldn't see us if she woke up. She was having no part of that! She screamed and cried every time I tried putting her down. Friday night, she finally went to sleep around 11. At 5:30 she was up. I laid on the bed with her for an hour, she was still tired, but wouldn't go back to sleep, at 6:30 my mom came in and got her so I could go back to sleep. She stayed up until a little after 11. Again, she screamed when my mom tried putting her down so they sat in a rocker and my mom held her for an hour and a half while Alex slept. Naps and bedtime were just way off the rest of the day and Sunday. I we spent so much time on the bed with Alex just trying to get her to sleep. She would lay with us, but never go to sleep. We finally just had to let her scream and cry until she fell asleep. I think she was finally getting used to the new room yesterday because we put her down thinking she would take a short nap like every other nap was then we could head home, but nope, she finally slept for a little over 2 hours, so we didn't head home until almost 6 last night. Again, Alex stayed up for the entire car ride. We changed her into her jammies, gave her some milk and put her to bed as soon as we got home at 9:30!

We had so much fun relaxing at my parents. We took Alex out on the boat for the first time. She was not loving the life jacket, but I think she liked being out on the boat. Alex finally started clapping and she said Daddy. Not just dada, but a very clear Da-Dee, so cute!!! I was really bad about taking pictures over the weekend, my mom took most of them so I'll have to get them from her and post them later!

I feel like I have so much to do this week. We are flying to Chicago on Thursday. I am so nervous about it because it will be Alex's first time flying. I am starting to pack and I'm a little stressed about it. Josh told me he would like to keep it down one suit case for the 3 of us!!! I am such an over packer that I don't know if I can do it! The only thing that is nice, is we are staying with family so I can do a load of laundry or 2 if I have to so we can pack a little less. We also don't have to worry about all of the little things for Alex because Josh's cousin has a little boy who is a little older than Alex so his aunt and uncle have pretty much everything we would need for her at their house! He doesn't want to have a ton of stuff to keep up with because he thinks we will already have our hands full trying to get through security with Alex, the stroller and whatever we pack to keep her occupied on the plane.

Baby Grand

Last week the birthday present we ordered for Alex finally came in! We had the hardest time figuring out what to get her, then I came a cross an adorable little pink baby grand piano and knew it was perfect! She adores playing with our big piano so we thought a little Alex sized one would be better for her. I showed it to Josh and he loved it. While I was giving Alex a bath and getting her ready for bed, he put it together. She was so excited when she saw it! She started banging away. She has been playing with it non-stop. One of her favorite things to do is play hers, then reach up and play the big one to hear the difference!

Alex's hair is getting so long, but it's a weird long. It's long on top and over her ears, but it's not as long around the sides. I've been playing with her hair on a daily basis and Josh just laughs at me! Here are 2 new hair do's we tried...I decided we'd wait a little longer to try pig tails again!

1 Year Appointment

We had Alex's 1 year check up today! Dr. H said everything looks perfect! We are clear on all foods, except nuts. He wants us to wait until she is 2 to introduce nuts/peanut butter. She had 4 shots today. She turned bright red and tried screaming, but no sound came out with the 1st prick, by the time she actually let out a sound, the shots were done. She cried for a few minutes, but it was more like a whimper.

current stats:

weight: 20 lbs (28th percentile)

height: 30 1/4 inches (80th percentile)

Alex currently takes 2, 1.5-2 hour naps a day, 3-4 sippy cups of whole milk, and loves water!

She adores being in the water and gets very excited when she sees she is about to get in the bath

She dances and loves music (moves her head around kinda like Stevie Wonder, rocks back and forth and most recently waves her arms around)

We let her watch half an episode Special Agent Oso once a day and she LOVES it! She gets very excited when they sing the catchy little song. (we started watching this because my niece, Izzy, does some of the character voices on the show!)

She can listen and follow a direction, example, when she is standing at the baby gate and we ask her to sit down (so we can get through) she will.

Says Mama (and knows it's me!) When you ask her to say Dada, she will say Mama. It's quite funny, to me, not Josh!! She will say Dada on rare occasions, but prefers Mama!

"helps" to get dressed and undressed (will pull her arm out and take a shirt off her head when getting undressed and will put her arms through the arm holes when getting dressed)

"helps" to get out of her car seat. if we loosen it and unbuckle it, she will get her arms out of the straps and sit forward so we can pick her up

plays peek-a-boo

She has 3 teeth (lower left and right central incisors and upper right central incisor)
Wearing size 3 diapers

Clothes: wearing mostly 6-12 or 9-12 month clothes but can still wear some of her 6-9month stuff

Eats 3 meals a day. (loves strawberries, blueberries, mozzarella balls, cottage cheese, yogurt, cherries, broccoli, avocado) She has some foods that she may like one day and refuse the next...sometimes she'll even eat them at the beginning of a meal, but not at the end...cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes and fresh steamed green beans.

She can drink from any straw and uses a sippy cup

She can self feed and is pretty good at feeding herself with a spoon if I put food on it and hold it in front of her. She can take it from me and get it in her mouth!

She loves playing with a remote we have for a lamp in our room. She can click it to turn it off and on and is very aware of what buttons to push through out the house to turn things off and on.

She loves playing in the kitchen! She has a drawer that has silicone molds, spatulas and a few cookie cutters in that she can play with forever!!!

quick recap...and pics

I feel so behind with the 12 day countdown to Alex's birthday. So much happened during those 12 days so here's a quick recap and pics!

A visit to Nomi and Popi's over the 4th of July weekend. Josh and I got to have a date night while Nomi and Aunt Pam watched Alex. The next day we had the 1st pre-party, cake and presents!

the cakes

cake #1

presents! Alex got her first American Girl doll, Bitty Baby!

the family relaxing!
Alex and Ita watching Daddy
Happy 4th of July!

Then we were off to Josh's parents lake house on the 4th for a second pre-party, cake and presents!

Cake #2 (by this point I had made 4 cakes and was over baking, but still had to make 2 more cakes for Alex's party the next weekend!) Opening presents with Corbi, Sabrina and Sam! During all of the cake eating and present opening, we completely transitioned to organic whole milk. I decided to try one sippy cup of milk to see what she thought about it and she sucked it down. After that I changed my plan of mixing formula with milk and making a slow transition. The next day we did 3 sippy cups of milk through the day with breakfast, lunch and a snack then a formula sippy cup before bed. This continued for about a week until we were completely out of formula so July 5th was her last official bottle/sippy of formula. I cried because I realized my little girl was growing up so fast!

The last bottle

And, tooth #3 made it's appearance! Alex now has her top left central incisor! The right one is on the verge of breaking through the gums so I'm sure we'll see it in the next few days!

Alex got sick the day of her birthday. We went to the doctor and she had an upper respiratory infection. My poor little thing. She was put on an antibiotic because Dr. H could hear a little congestion in her chest and wanted to kick it before it moved completely into her chest and became bronchitis. She is doing much better and has been fever free since Friday! We have another date with Dr. H tomorrow morning for Alex's 1 year check up!

Party Time!

We had Alex's birthday party today! I've been working on stuff for it all week and my parents came down last night so they could lend a helping hand this morning. Josh's parents also came down early today to help too! We have the best parents!

My poor little sickie did great! She napped until the first few guest arrived and took a few minutes to warm up, but one she did, she was perfect. There were only and handful of kids, but it was a perfect amount! We had burgers, dogs, cake and ice cream! I realized I didn't get a good picture of Alex in her dress, but it was sooo cute! It had a little brown bunny on the bottom.

The Birthday Girl!

Playing Peek a Boo

The Cakes!

(the first, and probably last birthday cakes I'll be making!)

the adorable letters my sister cut for me!

hanging pictures of Alex from the last year!

The Stafins

Present time!

My little bunny!

The cake!

Holding on to make sure the cake didn't get away!

Digging in!

I think she liked the cake!

We had so much fun, but it was exhausting! After everyone left, we all crashed and took a 2 hour nap!

A day of first...

Yesterday was a big day of first...First Birthday, First Step (only one, but it was still a step!) and first sick day!

Here is her 12 months picture in her chair! I have more to share to show what a wiggle worm she is! I remember the days when I could sit her in the chair and she would sit while I took pictures. Now she is either standing in the chair or trying to get down. It takes a book or toy to keep her still enough for a few quick pictures.

I'll post more later...the last week was busy. We had 2 small pre-parties with family and her big party is tomorrow so I'm running around trying to get stuff done.

We didn't do anything special on her actual birthday for 2 reasons...I didn't want to do another cake since she has already had 2 and will have her third tomorrow.

But the main reason we didn't do anything was because my poor baby was sick on her birthday! She was snotty and congested before she went to bed Wednesday and wasn't too much better in the morning. She had a 101.6 fever by the afternoon. The fever went down some before she went to bed last night, but was still at 101.1 this morning. A morning dose of Tylenol didn't help and her fever was a little higher an hour later. She has a doctors appointment this afternoon.