12 Months!

12 Months = 1 Whole Year Old!  I can hardly believe it.

Here’s what our 1 Year Old is up to these days:

• Her sleep schedule seems to be pretty set, goes to bed around 8 and wakes up around 7.  We don’t hear much from her throughout the neat besides a few occasions where she woke up screaming!  I think maybe she’s at the age where they start dreaming now.
• She weighs 19 pounds 10 ounces, wears size 4 diapers, size 3 shoes, and 6-9 or 12 month clothes. 
• She has her 2 bottom teeth and there have been no signs of anymore popping through.  She eats any and everything though.  Eating is one of her favorite things to do!  Her favorite foods are corn on the cob, bananas, watermelon, and a bite of whatever Daddy is eating at the moment!
• She walks all over the place now!  She can go so far without falling, it’s the cutest thing ever to watch.  She’s a climber too, the girl really never stops moving.  Even when she wants to be picked up, then she points where she wants you to take her!
• She is learning SO much these days!  She does sign language for “more”, “all done” and “eat”.  She can point to her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.  She says “uh-oh” when something falls.  She can say the words “drink” and “doggy”.  She actually calls every animal or moving thing “dogggyyyyyyy”.  Ryder thinks this is absolutely HILARIOUS! 
• She loves music so much.  She knows how to turn on anything she can reach that plays music and will dance and clap her hands.
• She is so into reading books right now.  She’ll grab a book, bring it to you and start grunting, which in Maisy language means “read this to me NOW!”
• She is still 100% Daddy’s girl.  He can do no wrong in her eyes and if he’s home she has to be with him.  Recently he went in our room and shut the door, she was on the other side of the house, heard the door shut, got there as fast as she could and just started screaming and banging on the door.  He opened it and said “Really Maisy, is it that serious???”  Yes, it was that serious to her, she needs access to him at all times!
• She got lots of new toys for her birthday which she is thoroughly enjoying!  Along with big brother!  I love to watch them play.

We are so excited to see what this next year has in store for our girl!  It hasn’t started on the best note though.  I took her to the doctor on Monday to get checked before I go out of town for work…turns out she had a double ear infection, double pink eye, and an impetigo infection in her nose!  Needless to say, she’s on a strong antibiotic now!  Funny thing is, all that was going on and it didn’t phase her a bit.  She’s such an easy going baby, love that girl! 

Look, she finally has her own chair!  This was her Birthday present from Mommy & Daddy :)

Maisy’s First Birthday!

What a fun day we had yesterday!  It was the perfect day for a First Birthday celebration.  The only downfall was that Maisy woke up with a runny nose and runny eye, but she’s such a trooper that it didn’t seem to keep her from enjoying her day at all.  For the theme I just went with colorful, polka dots, summer time, you know, all things that remind me of Maisy! 

Of course Aunt B always comes through with the perfect cupcakes and treats to top everything off! 

The bright beautiful Birthday Girl!  Love her!

Nicki sent me this idea she found on Pinterest to make a Water Blob, it was such a great idea and the kids had a blast playing on it! 

 

We had other sprinklers and water toys out for the kids to play with.

 

The Daddy’s and their baby girls :)

Lots of people came out to celebrate with us, I always say this but I can’t express enough how lucky we are to have such a great support system!  Life is so crazy and it’s hard to keep in touch but when life’s important milestones come along some people are just always there.

This picture is funny to me…Ryder needed to have a time out and get a talkin’ to by Daddy AND Poppy!  Look how hard headed he is, you can almost see the words going in one ear and out the other!

Daddy helping the Birthday girl eat her lunch.

Big Brother was front and center singing Happy Birthday to his sister. 

Her face cracked me up, she literally had her jaw dropped the whole time we sang.  Like “all this…for me????”

First in line for the cupcakes!…

I think her cake was finger lickin’ good!

Practicing sharing cake…for their wedding day!

Of course big brother wasn’t going to not help himself!

It took 3 of us to get her not looking like a smurf anymore!

Maisy and Jax toddling around together is SO cute to see.  They were up…

and then they were down!

She spotted this birthday present from across the garage, sat down and went into this “too much cake” trance.

Leave it to Jen to buy one for Ryder too!

Time for presents!

Not just for Maisy, Jen had to sneak one in there for Ryder too!

Maisy loooooves her babies :)

After all that, and an outfit change, she worked up an appetite, of course Daddy gives her a cupcake, like she needed anymore sugar!

My girl had a FABULOUS first birthday party!!  Thanks so much to everyone who made it out to celebrate with us :)

Today was her actual Birthday so Yaya came over with her favorite lunch (as you can see her eye is still swollen):

And Birthday presents.  A lot of people have been asking how Ryder is handling Maisy getting all the presents.  I have one picture that answers that question.

That picture has “It’s not fair!” written all over it!  Lucky for him his sister is pretty good at sharing (for now anyway) and she even lets him help open things.

Look at her supervising with her hands on her hips!  That’s my girl!!

 

We’ve had so much fun playing with all her new stuff today!  Up until now all of the toys in the house have belonged to Ryder and he “allows” Maisy to “borrow” them.  Now she has some bargaining power and is using it for leverage.  I love their dynamic, it’s hilarious to sit back and observe!

So now we officially have a one year old on our hands, I hope this next year goes a little slower!

A Letter To My Daughter On Her First Birthday

Maisy ~

It’s hard to believe that it has been an entire year since you were born.  I remember that day like it was yesterday because it feels like it just happened!  Having a planned c-section takes a lot of the excitement out of the whole labor process since you know exactly what day & time your baby will be born.  Everything goes exactly as planned until the second they pull the baby out.  At that second, things get exciting!  You gave me the joy of experiencing that very second for the 2nd time and those are 2 seconds, out of my whole entire life, that I cherish more than anything.  When you were born all I had to do was look at you and hear your little cry to know that we were both in love, all over again, with our second child and I couldn’t WAIT to get to know you.  If there is something that I wish you could see more than anything, it would be the look on your Daddy’s face the second you were born.

Thinking back to the day you were born really puts into perspective how much time has gone by.  You are now walking and clapping and smiling and laughing and learning.  Oh how I love to hear you laugh and watch you learn.  You have brought so much sweetness into our lives.  The way you cuddle against us when we hold you and your eyes light up when one of us walk into a room are things that make your Mommy & Daddy’s heart melt.  You definitely have that power over us to melt us with just the smallest thing you do. 

You have quite the spunky side that balances out all of your sweetness!  You don’t put up with a lot of crap from your brother and put up a good fight when you’re not getting your way.  Not much slows you down, you have always been in a hurry to get moving and nothing in the way stops you.  You love nothing more than to be thrown around by Daddy, always coming back for more!

I love the bond between you and your brother.  Even though you guys both pick on each other it’s so obvious how much you love each other.  I can’t wait to watch you guys grow up together.  I hope that you each realize how important it is to have each other and that you will stick together through thick and thin.

My baby girl, I can’t believe you are turning one.  As you grow into a little lady I hope that you stay happy.  I hope that you love Jesus.  And I hope that we keep the special Mommy/Daughter relationship that we’ve formed over the past year. 

I love you baby and Happy First Birthday!!

~ Mommy

Catch Up

I figured I better catch the blog up before the big FIRST Birthday festivities this weekend!! 

Last weekend Alan & I had some alone time together, which doesn’t happen very often.  Friday evening we came to MD so he could get fitted for a tux, then had dinner with some friends.  Saturday we woke up early and met up with my brother then rode the bikes up to the mountains.  I was taking pictures from the back of the bike!

It was a beautiful ride, we stopped for breakfast, then headed to my Aunt’s house for my cousins graduation party.  My mom drove all the grandkids there and we spent a great day with my side of the family.  We don’t get together often so this was such a nice treat!

Poor Ryder trying so hard to get to those itches!

  

Maisy being passed around from Yaya to all her sisters!

 

I love my husband, he’s such a good sport!

And Ryder looooooves his cousin Kacy!  (A little too much sometimes, huh Kacy?!)

I love my cousins too <3

That was such a nice visit, I can’t wait until we can all get together again.  There has been another visitor in the area this week…Pappy Weir has been visiting over at Nana & Pap’s where the kids go all week.  I love him, what a sweet, funny old man!  I promised him we’d get a picture together before he left, and I always try to make good on my promises.

Other than that, just the normal stuff going on around our house.  You know, Ryder being a super hero, the kids eating chips off the floor, and Maisy walking everywhere.

I can’t believe my baby girl is going to turn ONE already!  She’s so grown up already.  Off to get working on party preparations…get ready for Birthday overload coming soon :)

Doctor Daddy

Somehow I don’t think I mentioned that Ryder got his cast put back on Friday!  After a 2 week break we decided to move forward with one more round to reinforce the new skills he gained.

 

He did so well getting the cast back on and immediately went right back to using lefty.  He shocked us by being able to turn the reel on the fishing pole with his left hand!

This morning Abby emailed me to check on Ryder and I expressed some concerns I was having about how much he has been complaining about the itchiness inside his cast.  This cast was waterproof and the new material was much tighter to his arm, so I couldn’t see down in his cast to check on his arm, nor could I slide anything down in there to take care of his itches.  After reading my email she called and said she wanted it to come off immediately.  His arm had broken out pretty bad from the last cast and since we re-casted so soon she didn’t want to leave it in the cast if it was already getting irritated.  She asked me to bring him up there as soon as I could, but when I called Daddy he told me there was no reason to drive that far when he could take it off. 

LOL yeah I had the same reaction…huh???

But I trusted my husband and to Doctor Daddy’s office we went. 

He Prepped

And Snipped

 

And Tugged

And Pulled

(Little Sister was there for support)

And within 5 minutes, the cast was off! 

It was definitely a good decision because his arm is pretty irritated.  He made me sit there and scratch it for 5 minutes before we could even go wash it.  At one point he told me “Don’t Ever Stop Scratching!!!”  Poor thing, I’m sure it’s been bothering him so bad.  But it’s off now and he’s a happy guy to have both hands back.  We’ll see what happens from here…