Chrisily turns ONE!!

We had been anticipating this day for the last several months. We knew it was coming way too fast but we also knew there was no way to stop it. So, since we could not freeze time and keep our little girl a baby forever, we planned a big party to celebrate her 1st year of life. Jacob's parents and grandma were flying in from MS to celebrate with us and my family would all be in town as well. We planned a nice family dinner for the night of her birthday and then her party was Saturday.
July 4th, 2011 changed our lives forever. We met our baby girl for the first time and we learned what unconditional love really was. There is absolutely no way for me to explain my love for Chrisily to you. If you are not a parent, you simply do not understand. She is my heart and soul. I know that Chrisily isn't going to remember her 1st birthday, but that's okay. We will have a lot of pictures and videos to share with her. This celebration was as much for me (and Jacob) as it was her... We made it! We survived a whole year as parents and we think she is pretty darn cute and well taken care of!
July 4th, 2012 started off with Jacob and I going to get Chrisily out of her crib. We had the video camera and we sang Happy Birthday to our sweet girl. She got ready in her Birthday Girl outfit and we went to the Parkway House for breakfast (this is KK and Gramps favorite place to go and this is where we ate breakfast the day I was going into the hospital to be induced). She had her own big girl plate of scrambled eggs and a giant pancake.

After breakfast we drove around some different areas, scoping out places that Kathy and David might like to buy a house. YES, you read that right, they are going to move to NC (eventually, right David??)!! After that we went back home and just hung out and played around. Chrisily got to skype with Uncle Luke, Aunt Meagan, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Lindsey who were in Texas. They sang happy birthday and she opened their presents.

That evening my family came over and we grilled out, opened presents, went on a walk, and just enjoyed some family time with Chrisily. It is so nice to have everyone together like that. We missed the ones who weren't with us but we had such a nice time with everyone that came. Here are a few pictures from the evening:

Although it was the 4th of July, our sweet girl was tuckered out long before the fireworks began. We had a very fun filled day and we all went to bed a little early that night.

Fast forward from Wednesday to Saturday (in between there was a lot of crafting, shopping, preparing, etc). It's party time!! The theme was Bright and Bubbly. Just like our little girl. I had a lot of help with the prep work and set up/ clean up. And I HAVE to give a shout out to the guys, Jacob, David, Dad, and Jared- they helped with whatever I asked and didn't complain once!! We had a wonderful time with family and friends and most of all celebrating Chrisily.

We had all of our family and friends write a birthday message to Chrisily and take a picture with the board. We will have a 'guest book' with sweet messages to add to her scrapbook. She will be able to see everyone who came to celebrate with her!

After the party ended we were beyond exhausted! We had a pretty low key evening and enjoyed our last night with Jacob's family.

Chrisily had her 1 year appointment last Monday. When she was born she was 6 lbs 15 oz and 21 inches long. At 1 year she is 21 lbs 3 oz and 31.5 inches tall! She is average for weight but 99% for height. Lord knows she doesn't get that from her mom and dad!! :-) She is perfectly healthy and doing great.

My good friend, Melissa, took some family pictures and 1 year pictures of Chrisily too. When I get the disc with all of them, I will be sure to share them!

Sweet Summertime

This update will be short but I promise to be back soon with pictures and a recap of Chrisily's 1st birthday (it's in less than a week!!!!).
We officially have a walker. Chrisily began taking a few steps at a time and then slowly got more and more brave. Before we knew it she was walking all over the place. She has also masters standing up from a sitting down position. There is no more looks of concentration while trying, she mindlessly pops up and down and walks all around. She has the cutest little walk- I guess you could call it a 'toddle'. Does that mean I really have a toddler?! Oh man! She is so proud of herself and we are also so proud of her!
Since I last wrote, we have been planning and shopping for her 1st birthday bash and we took a week vacation to the beach with my parents. Chrisily LOVED the waves. She also loved the tide pools, but the waves were her favorite- hands down! While we were there we found a whole sanddollar in one of her tide pools. So. Special. So. Rare.
Other than that she has been walking all over the place and playing with her toys. She is saying new words.. "baby" "papa" "hush" "mmmhmmm" (for food/yum) "bye bye" "book"
That's all I can think of for now. I will leave you with a few pictures from our beach trip and a promise to be back soon with a 1st Birthday update!!

Don't Blink

I feel like our lives are flashing before our eyes. It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant and waiting to meet our sweet girl. Ith as been 10 1/2 months since she came into this world and I honestly don't know where the time has gone. I do know that I have enjoyed every single second of being her mommy. I know I promised to write more but things happen, life gets busy, and well, I need to sleep sometime. :-) When I left you last, we had just returned from the beach. We got back into the swing of things and before we knew it, it was time to go see KK and Gramps. {Rewind just a tad- Chrisily's third tooth broke through on April 28th. It was her top right lateral inciser. We thought for sure her middle teeth would come before those, but no, she surprised us!} On Saturday, May 5th we loaded up and headed to MS. We decided to drive straight through. We waited until after Chrisily's second bottle/solids and then left. She did so great! She got a little fussy right before it got dark because she was tired but couldn't go to sleep, however, once the sun went down, she was out! We got in around 11pm their time and Chrisily and I played with KK while the guys unloaded the car and got Chrisily's pack N play set up. We had a wonderful week with KK and Gramps. Chrisily is infatuated with Gramps and if he is in the room, her eyes are on him. He shared his dreamsicle with her. She wanted to play with the pups- T Beaux and Zoey. We went to Cock of the Walk and she tried fried pickles and greens. She tasted KK's yogurt and my BOPS. We went shopping and KK bought her lots of cute summer clothes. She also got to see some of KK's friends and coworkers (You know we couldn't go to MS without Kathy showing her off!). It was so nice to make the trip just to hang out. No weddings or showers or anything to do, just hang out. I know KK and Gramps hated to say goodbye but they were headed to San Antonio to Luke's graduation and they will be headed up here in July for Chrisily's 1st birthday.
We've been home a week and Chrisily has started doing so much! Her 4th tooth popped through on Saturday and her 5th tooth popped through today (her left inciser and her left front tooth). On Friday she was able to stand a few times without holding on to anything and on Saturday she took her first steps! My family was over to celebrate my birthday and I was showing them how she could stand on her own and all of the sudden she took a couple of steps to me. Jacob and I both were there and it was so awesome. She took a couple more this morning. She is still a little ways off from walking on her own, but I don't think it will be too long.
This year was my first real Mother's Day. Since having Chrisily I have a whole new respect for moms. It is the hardest job I have ever had and it is definitely the most rewarding. I didn't know I could love someone so much. Chrisily brings so much joy to my life. I am so thankful that I get to be her mommy. This Mother's Day was also special because Chrisily was Dedicated to the church. We invited our family to come and our church Dedicates babies that are one year and younger on Mother's Day if you choose to do so. We felt like this was very important. It was a very special service.
Celebrating my birthday was also special this year since I got to spend the day with Chrisily. My dad was off work so he went with us to lunch, to pick up Chrisily's birth certificate (yes, we are a few months late), and to walk around downtown. He also bought us ice cream. It's days like that I am reminded of just how precious life is and to enjoy the little moments because that is what life is made up of.. Sure we have some big events scattered in between, but mostly we live in little moments. Precious little moments.
I will leave you with some pictures from the last month.
Until next time...

 {Melts My Heart}



Spring is in the air!

We had a very mild winter this year and spring has shown up a little early and we are loving it! The 70 degree days are beautiful! We just celebrated Chrisily's first Easter. The Easter bunny came to visit her and she got some goodies in her Easter basket. Some of the things she got were bath toys, a little chick that hops, a stuffed bunny, and a float for the pool. She is too young to understand what Easter means but we did talk to her about why we celebrate. She loved playing with her new toys and having family over for dinner. We finished up the day by skyping with KK and Gramps. Here are some pictures from her first Easter.

What the Easter Bunny brought

Checking out her goodies

Excited!

It's not Easter without Cadbury eggs! Mommy let her have a taste.

She loves to clap and say "yay"

Who knew that pink eggs were so yummy!

Nana and Papa got her a small chocolate bunny (she did NOT get to eat this)

They also got her some sand toys for our beach trip the next week

Family Picture!

 The day after Easter Chrisily and I left to go to Holden Beach for a Girl's trip. My friends and I were taking our kids to the beach and leaving our husbands at home. Between the two houses we had 6 adults and 8 kids. Melissa (+ Noah), Lauren (+ Lawson and Grayson), and myself (+Chrisily) went down on Monday. Susie (+Rebekah) and Shannon (+Sophie, Chloe, and Sutton) came down on Wednesday. We had beautiful weather on Tuesday (in the 70s) but it cooled off on Weds and Thurs but was still beautiful. We enjoyed playing on the beach, eating dinner together, and going out for ice cream. This was Chrisily's second beach trip but she was only a month old the 1st time she went, so she had a lot more fun this time. She wasn't too sure about the loose sand but loved crawling around on and eating the more compact/wet sand. We had a little pop up tent that she was also very content playing in. It was too cold for her to get in the water, so that will be a first during our family beach trip in June. We went fishing on Friday before heading home.. we didn't catch any fish but we did see three dolphins playing in the waterway. Very cool. Chrisily was so good about going with the flow. I was tired by the end of the week but I had a great time too.
Today is the last Saturday of Tax season and I can say that I am beyond excited to have my husband back! I know he is glad to be through with it as well. We have about three weeks and then we are headed to Mississippi to visit KK and Gramps. I'll try to update between now and then... who knows how much will have changed in 3 weeks?! Chrisily might have gotten more teeth and begun walking! The teeth can come.. but I am okay with her waiting to walk for a little while!
I will leave you with some pictures from our beach trip.

Up, Down, Touch the Ground

I haven't been good about writing lately. Chrisily is keeping me very busy! She has gone from rolling/army crawling as her mode of transportation to full out crawling and she is even doing some 'cruising' (walking while holding on to furniture). She has been crawling for several weeks now. She is a pro at it and very rarely reverts back to army crawling. At first she would drop back to her belly to do the army crawl since she was faster that way, but not anymore! Her vocabulary has also expanded. She says mama, dada, nana, and sometimes it sounds like she repeats 'hi' or 'hey'. She is still the happiest baby. She has learned to pull up on things to stand and she does it All.The.Time. She is starting to experiment with letting go for a second or two. She is also perfecting her 'sit down' from standing. It seems like every day she masters a new skill or says something new. Just the other day she climbed the doggy stairs. You read that correctly, she climbed the doggy stairs!
It is so hard to believe that she is already 9 months old. She has now been out in this world for as long as she was in my belly. At her 9 month appointment she weighed 20.6lbs (72%) and was 29inches long (92%).
These last 18 months have been the happiest of my life. She makes my heart smile. It melts my heart to see how excited she gets when Jacob comes home from work. She loves her daddy so much. Ihad planned to write more but Chrisily has decided to only take a 45 minute nap, so my motherly duties call!

Dada?

When you become a parent, you look forward to the moments when your child can say mama, dada, when they can give you a hug and tell you they love you. On Valentine's day, Jacob came home from work and was spending time with our sweet girl while I cooked dinner. She was sitting (or standing) on his lap and all of the sudden she says "dada". I turned around and said, "Did she just say that??". He was grinning from ear to ear. Since then it has gotten more regular. She has said mama three times but doesn't do it consistently yet.

Proud Mama and Dada

The title of this post says it all.. Jacob and I are so proud of Chrisily. We have been showing her some baby sign language to help her communicate with us. I must say that I was a bit skeptical and therefore I didn't do the signs as consistently as I should have. Yeah, the thought of it was pretty cool but I just didn't see how a little baby was going to pick up on it. Well, Chrisily proved me wrong the other day. I was feeding her lunch and showed her the sign 'more'.. I noticed she kept doing the same movement with her hands but it didn't click at first. All of the sudden, I realized she was trying to show me 'more'! I got so excited. She did it a few more times then I had to get it on video. Take a look at our smart girl in action: