03.22.14 - 1 Year!

It probably sounds silly, but the 1st birthday makes me a little bit sad.  Sad that my baby is not so much a baby anymore, and sad that the 1st year went by WAY too fast!  Babies definitely don't stay little long enough, but I also really look forward to watching my baby grow and to all the great things that will take place in the future.  Each new milestone is exciting and fun to look forward to--while still enjoying the moment we're in :)

 Savannah's 12 month stats:
Weight: 23 pounds (89%)
Length: 31 inches (96%)
Head: 46 cm (78%)

At 12 months:

-Savannah has only taken a couple steps on her own so far.  She's done it several times but always sits down after she takes one or two.  I think she just needs to gain a little confidence.

-She can walk pretty well when we hold just one of her hands.  We're trying to help her walk more and more to help her gain the confidence she needs to do it on her own.

-She is such a happy girl and has the cutest happy squeal when she's excited about anything.  I love her happy squeal!

-She can wave and blow kisses--noisy kisses, I love it!, she holds her face in her hands when she's sad -She can throw a ball, and pretty much anything else, really well.
-She won't wear a bow on her head anymore and you'd think she's going to die when I try to put a clip in her hair.  She cries and screams and throws a fit about it.  Silly girl.

-She loves to poke Rori's belly button whenever she gets the chance :)

-She seems to be getting a little more snugly sometimes.  She lets me rock her and sing to her for a few minutes before I put her in her crib at nap time or bed time.  And she lets me just sit and hold her in the mornings when we get a chance to sit and snuggle.

-When she wakes up in the morning she usually calls for Dada but she's totally a Momma's girl :)

-She loves playing with Aurora's toys and we frequently find her in Rori's room playing really well all by herself.

-She can climb up on Rori's bed all by herself and loves to sit and bounce or throw all of Aurora's toys off.

-She learned to climb up on our coffee table.

-As soon as I open the dishwasher, she's right there with me helping me unload it, even if I'm trying to load it up with the dirty ones :)

-She also loves to "help" with laundry.  She always throws the clothes out of the basket, and loves to sit in the basket too.

-She sleeps 10-11 hours at night and still takes 2 naps on a daily basis.

-She was completely on formula just after 11 months, but now we get to give her cow's  milk!

-She's a really great eater and sometimes eats more than Rori does.

-She likes to stand up in the front window and wave to Daddy when he leaves for work.

-She's such a great, happy baby!

Savannah's Vocab:

Momma

Dada

Rora

Hi

Bye

Uh-oh!

Savannah's Signs:

More

All Done

Milk

Savannah's actual birthday day was pretty low key.  Aurora got pretty sick the night before, and it was rainy outside that day, so we mostly stayed home and took it easy, which was totally okay because we had her big birthday celebration the week before. I still took lots of pictures though :)
She fell/climbed into the tub all by herself!  I was really impressed that she caught herself so well.  This girl LOVES the tub!

 Daddy decorated with balloons and ribbons all over the house the night before.  She was so excited to wake up to lots of balloons--but popped 5 or 6 of them right off the bat.

Our beautiful birthday girl!

Most of her pictures turned out like this though



She LOVES her Hopson!!

I think it's cute that she likes to sit in the rocking chair almost as much as I do.  She's getting pretty good at rocking herself, but mostly she just scares me by standing up to rock it and continually almost falling out of it.  She loves it though.

Watching the rain come down outside her window

Daddy brought home an awesome balloon bouquet for her

She got tangled in it and stayed like that for a long time :)

Taking her balloons down the hallway





After we finally got her untangled, we pulled out the birthday hats and noise makers

They only lasted so long :)

Cute birthday girl!

Poor Rori was so sick and felt so miserable :(  She insisted on wearing a party hat though.  What a trooper!

Daddy always gets flowers for me and the birthday girl.  I love that he does that for us!  It's one of my favorite traditions.


Vannah got to open lots of presents the week before at her party, but I wanted her to be able to open something on her actual birthday too.  We got her a little something with some birthday money she got the week before.



She got mad when I took it away to get it out of the box :)

She started throwing fits on the floor around 10.5 months.  I'm pretty sure she must have picked it up from Aurora because I don't remember Rori doing it when she was that young!

Happy girl again! :)


We made her another giant cupcake for having cake and ice cream that night.  A certain person who shall remain unnamed accidentally dropped the cake on the floor while icing it.  Savannah certainly didn't mind :)

Love this picture!!

 We ate homemade pizza for dinner and then let her dig into her cake and ice cream again :)


Happy birthday, our Sweet Savannah!  We love you so very much and we're so blessed and grateful to have you in our family.  You bring such an amazing spirit into our home and we love each and every minute we get to spend with you. Thank you for bringing more sunshine and happiness into our home than we ever could have imagined.  We love you, Savannah-Wannah!

Photos of Savy from the last month:
Little trickster learned how to climb on top of our coffee table all by herself!

So proud of herself :)

Cutie girl playing with the sandbox toys



Trying out her new car seat

She got to feed herself oatmeal one morning--so messy!  But she loved it!



Love this girl!

Playing on Rori's bed--throwing all her "friends" off :)



Starting to play dress up--she's played dress up before, when Rori wants her to.  This time Savannah was the one asking to wear a tutu :)


How I love to kiss those cheeks!!

Happy Birthday, Savannah Belle!
We love you more than you know!!

P.S. Don't forget to read our other 3 recent posts below :)

1st Birthday Celebration

**Warning!  Lots of pictures in this post!  Some of them might be redundant, but I can't help it!  I think she's really cute!!**

I wasn't planning to do anything big for Savannah's first birthday.  Then my friend, April, who's little girl is 6 days older than Savannah, suggested we have a combined party for the girls.  So we did.  And I'm so glad we did because it all came together really well and we all had a great time.  Thanks for the suggestion, April!

We had the party on March 15th, a week before Savannah's real birthday, and the day before Mia's.  We got to the church just after Daddy went to start setting up tables and chairs.  Savannah was still napping when we needed to leave for the church so we gave him a head start.  We took lots of pictures of Savannah.  (And a HUGE thank you to Tracee and Becca who helped a TON by taking pictures for us so we could focus on other things during the party.  Thank you!!!!  You guys are the best!!!)  And, I'll just make a disclaimer that I hate how the lighting in the church building makes pictures look yellow and/or fuzzy sometimes.  Mostly we just need to invest in a new camera at some point though.

Our beautiful Birthday Princess!

April made the girls' cake--so cute, huh?
She carved it by hand and it tasted delicious!  Thanks again, April!

The cupcakes she made for the girls to demolish :)

And, April makes the best cake pops ever!

The set up for the gift table--I'm glad April thought to do some decorations.  We kept it pretty simple, but decorations never really crossed my mind.  Haha.

Mmm! The food was so yummy!!  Thanks to everyone who pitched in!

Just before we were ready to eat, Savannah tried to crawl under one of the chairs and got stuck.  Being the mean parents we are, we grabbed the camera to take pictures of her before we got her unstuck :)  She was totally crying while took these pictures.

Poor thing.

Her eyebrows turn red when she cries.  Cutie.

Grandpa got down right on the floor with the girls as soon as he got there.  They sure love their Grandpa!

Then it was time to eat!  Aurora had a couple bites but she was too excited to be with so many friends and cousins that it was hard to get her to sit still and eat.  She mostly ran around the church with the other kids.

 Our favorites Aussies!
[And our friends, Denise and Carson in the background :) ]

I'm so glad some of my family members were able to come down and join us.  Thanks for coming, guys!
Bri, Koda and Hannah
(Present but not pictured: Nanny, Grampsie, and Liam)

Daddy with the birthday girl!

Oh, how we love this little sweetie!

After dinner we had the kids hit the pinata April brought.  The birthday girls got to go first.  Savannah loved it so much she got to go twice.


Rori taking her turn--they went shortest to tallest so she was one of the first ones to go too.

I thought it was cute that Tracee snapped this picture--I was instructing Aurora that there was candy with peanuts in it in the pinata and that she needed to ask Mommy or Daddy if it was safe for her before eating any of it. :)

Me and my cute girls!

Savannah having her 2nd turn at hitting the pinata.  One of the perks of being one of the birthday girls :)

More of our good friends: Jimmy, Becca, and cute baby Whitney

Liam wearing the cupcake top of the pinata after Miss R broke it open :)

Our family--the girls weren't very cooperative--no smiles from the girls. Oh, well.

The birthday girls with their mommies:
Me and Savannah with April and Mia

Time to open presents!  Savy and I sat at one end of the table and April and Mia were at the other end and the girls opened their presents at the same time with all the adults sitting around us.  The kids were busy enjoying their loot from the pinata and/or running around the church again.  We planned it that way to distract the kids while the girls opened their presents :)

She did pretty good at least attempting to open them on her own

It eventually became a family affair to help Savy with her presents :)

Happy girl!

We gave Savannah another bunny like her special bunny, Hopson, that Aurora gave her when she was born.  This one, Carrots, is a little bit different and she could tell.  I'm glad we got it for her though.  I really felt like we needed a back up in case anything happened to Hopson.  She LOVES Hopson, but she warmed up pretty quickly to Carrots too :)

Getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to the girls

Rori and I got to help her blow out her candle

At first she and Mia both wanted to just pick the sprinkles off the top :)

LOVE this picture!!

She eventually got brave and started digging into it


Cute little Mia enjoyed her cupcake too!

Tasting the cardboard.  Silly girl.


Cute baby Whitney trying out her first cake pop!

Savy loved Mia's balloons.  They kept her occupied while we worked on getting things cleaned up.


And that wraps up the birthday celebration!  Thanks again April, for all you did and for suggesting the combined party.  It was SO FUN to have a party for both girls at the same time.  Thanks to everyone who came to support us and this sweet, precious, munchkin we have in our lives.  We're so blessed and grateful to have our beautiful little Savannah!!