Poor timing

Allie's been coughing for about a week and a half now, and she's had a runny nose off and on. Today it seems the cold has caught up with her. What a way to spend your birthday weekend! The nose really started running yesterday before her party. Today its worse and Allie's actually taken two naps. Not only that, she's very content to just sit on Mama or Dada's lap for long periods of time. She never sits in one place long, especially someone's lap. Thats how we know she is sick. Poor baby!

We had planned a birthday brunch for today along with giving Allie the rest of her presents. But both those events have been canceled and will happen next weekend instead. It'll be like a week-long birthday celebration, except that she's got a cold in between! We didn't dress her up in her Halloween costume today either. If she goes to daycare tomorrow, we'll dress her up for that. I hope she gets to wear her costume somewhere. What terrible timing!

Birthday girl

It was a crazy, hectic day. But it was also great. All the preparation was worth it. We had a really fun party for Allie and she definitely enjoyed being the Birthday girl, though she faded fast toward the end. We took some great pictures and video, but it may be a day or two before I post it. Mama and Dada are tired.

We'll do more celebrating tomorrow with a birthday brunch and giving Allie our presents. Everyone, the birthday girl included, was too tired to do more celebrating tonight.

I went back and read Allie's birth story just now. You can read it by clicking here, if you wish. Two things jumped out at me. First is that I was such a wimp! But the second is the miracle of our little girl. So many things tried to go wrong in her birth, but everything turned out perfect. She's our angel and she's 1 now!

 

Today you're 1!

Dear Allie,

Today is a very special day. Today you're 1! Its been a very special year for all of us. Dada and I have loved watching you grow over the last 365 days.

When you were really little, you slept and slept. You dressed up for your first Halloween in the hospital. You were a little, cute, pink skeleton, though only for about 20 minutes. You probably don't remember because you were sleeping. But I remember.

We took you home from the hospital where you met Monk for the very first time and dressed in your Colts gear right away. We rooted for the Colts in the Super Bowl, but they lost to the Saints. We didn't mind though because we like the Saints too.

You wore a pretty dress with a headband and satin shoes for Christmas. We couldn't do much for Christmas, but it didn't matter. We got the best present under our tree.

You met Santa and you weren't impressed.

Everyone was so impressed by how you got along with the Easter Bunny. We called you "One Take Allie" because you smiled right away when they took your picture.

I went back to work in January and it was tough on all of us. But we made it work. You were always growing and learning new things. Over a few months you rolled over, then you scooted and finally crawled. Nothing was going to stop you! After awhile you learned to stand. Just a couple weeks ago you started to walk and now you're practically running!

We've tried new foods. Remember the first time you had rice cereal? You didn't know what Mama was putting in your mouth! After a few tries though, you liked it. And off we went to try new foods. You liked squash and pears the best.

You jabber constantly. I love how you're always smiling and laughing. Every morning in the car you take off your socks and we have to put them back on before we can take you into Bridget's! We finally got you some shoes in hopes they would keep you from taking your socks off. But this past Thursday morning you figured out how to take your shoes off!

We've taken some fun trips. We went to the aquarium in Milwaukee and played on a ship. You got to help steer!

You really love the playground, especially the swings. I bet you'd swing all day if we let you. But we can't because if you stay in it too long, you start turning a little green!

 We've gone to the zoo a lot and had lots of fun looking at the animals.

You're already sharing in Dada's love of football. Touchdown!

I love having you at my races. Some day we'll run together, but only if you want to.

You're so smart and funny and cute. You found a secret passage and kept sneaking past Mama and Dada to get to the forbidden kitchen!

I love how you entertain yourself and us constantly. I love your funny faces.

Allie, the past year has been amazing. Its been so great to go through all the pictures, all the memories. I can't pick my favorite. They're all my favorites. You're growing up too fast, but I'm excited to see the kid you become. Happy birthday baby!

Love,
Mama

Friday Flashback: The day it all began

Around 6 a.m. Oct. 29, 2009, I went back to bed after being up an hour or so, unable to sleep. It had become a pretty regular occurrence as I had gotten more uncomfortable in bed. I started to feel what I thought could be my first real contractions. I tried to time them but they weren't regular and I fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later and they seemed to be gone, but my back was really sore. Turned out I was right, but the whole process took a looooong time.

I remember random things about that for the most part normal day. Doug came home for lunch and I made a frozen skillet meal and heated some garlic bread in the oven. I burned the side of my hand on the oven door taking it out. I told Doug I thought I'd been having contractions, but they weren't regular, it wasn't time to go yet and it could have still been a week or more. I met a friend for coffee in the afternoon and afterward mailed the second batch of thank you notes from my baby shower. I had the feeling I'd gotten them done just in time. We had Little Ceasar's pizza for dinner and I spent the evening laying on my side in bed while Doug finished packing the hospital bag. Called the clinic and the doctor on call told me I could go to the hospital because I thought I couldn't talk through the contractions. We were sent home with a sleeping pill and I later found out what its like to REALLY not be able to talk through a contraction (and that a sleeping pill doesn't help when the contractions get painful enough!)

Almost 39 hours after that first real contraction, I finally had my baby in my arms.

That day made the terrible year of 2009 completely worth it. Giving birth was the hardest thing I've ever done. I was blown away by the intense love I felt for my little girl. I still am blown away by it even now.

Hugs

Allie is getting so cuddly lately. Tonight when I was picking her up to take her to bed she snuggled up against me and gave me a hug! And she was all about Mama tonight, she didn't want to hug Dada. Her other new trick is the drop game and walking in circles. It is so amazing the new things she's doing every day. Just under 48 hours until she is officially 1 year old!!

Birthday cake

I'm baking Allie's first birthday cake, using a recipe from the What to Expect book. Its a carrot cake and uses wheat flour, wheat germ and apple juice concentrate, to name a few of the ingredients. I honestly don't know how people cook all natural all the time. The ingredients are expensive! I didn't even know what wheat germ was or where to find it in the grocery store. Its a layer cake, which I'm both excited and nervous for. We're ordering a second cake as well, but I was definitely going to bake Allie's first birthday cake.

Halloween preview

Its supposed to be a surprise, but I can't keep these pictures to myself any longer! Stay tuned for the full costume. She's adorable!

Looks like we made it

There were so many times I didn't think we'd make it through the first month, let alone the first year! Yet here we are 360 days later with a happy, well-adjusted baby girl. Only she's not a baby anymore. She's a big girl. She's my big girl!

I started using the Friday Flashback tag so that I wouldn't end up flashing back every time I wrote in this blog. But in the week before her birthday, I think I just can't avoid it.

A lot of moms I know were sad at their babies' first birthdays. I'm suppose I am sad, but also excited. She's becoming an awesome little kid and I know it will just keep getting better. Every day she learns something new. She imitates what we do, she makes funny noises, she entertains herself with the most insignificant playthings, she eats grown up food. There are no limits to what Allie can do.

I definitely believe that in addition to celebrating Allie's first birthday, her party on Saturday will be for Momma and Dada too. After all, we made it through our first year as parents!

Hail to the Redskins

Momma is a Colts fan, and Dada is a Redskins fan. He's more than just a fan, he's a nut.

Allie's favorite song, for whatever reason, is "Hail to the Redskins," the Redskins' fight song. From Allie's very first day, Dada sang that to her. And still today when he sings that to her, she smiles.

But Allie wore a Colts onesie the day she came home from the hospital. We didn't get her any other sports team apparel until a Badgers t-shirt.

Well, Allie does have a Redskins shirt. And Dada was surprised when she wore it this afternoon.

Because the shirt is about 6 sizes too big. Grandma and Grandpa Swanson bought Allie that shirt and a Colts shirt at the Old Navy Outlet in Johnson Creek last year. Its an extra-small in kids size. Her sleeves are rolled up four times and it went down to her knees!

It was so cute though! It was even more comical with the jeans she wore today. Those jeans were too big too!

But we changed her into a better fitting shirt after she pulled her arm out of the sleeve, the shirt over her head and got stuck in it!

Perhaps the gigantic shirt was good luck though, they did win!

Having a ball

We've been teaching Allie a lot of fun new things lately. She's at the stage where she imitates what she sees us do. Dada's been teaching Allie to throw a ball. She throws it to Momma and Dada and she also throws it in the bucket. She learned this using one of Monk's balls, but then I remembered she had her own ball up in her closet. Its a little too big though for her to grab with one hand, so she still steals the dog's ball too.

Friday flashback: Waiting

I look back at my belly pictures, and I still can't believe how huge I got. Its not hard to see why I have back problems now!

This time last year I was just waiting. I was expecting a longer wait than I got. I knew the stats that many first-time moms go late. I was pretty patient considering how uncomfortable I was. I remember how I kept begging Doug to get a pumpkin to carve, but he kept saying we might not be home on Halloween. I insisted we would be. He was right!

This was my last picture, taken at 37 weeks, 5 days, just 10 days before giving birth. I couldn't bend over. I had a tough time sleeping and I slept in a fortress of pillows. I got the ultimate reward though for that discomfort!

Taking a stroll

Corn-rific!

Allie is trying lots of interesting new foods. One that she really seems to like is corn bread.

Allie's baby book

In the craziness of life, we barely have time to keep the house clean. So its no surprise that I haven't kept up Allie's baby book. But I have... here in this blog! I've been working on the baby book over the last week, quite time consuming and difficult when I hadn't looked at it in at least 6 months. I wouldn't remember much without this blog. But I've been able to look back here to remember when she did things, like when she started crawling or go when she went swimming for the first time and more. This blog is Allie's baby book!

I found a link awhile ago to a web site where you can actually make your blog into a book. I plan on doing that with this blog. It will be so neat to look back at it. I was thinking about making it for her birthday, but now I think I'll save it until after her first year and make it for Christmas. I will still work on that baby book. Allie won't have any trouble finding out about her first year!

New shoes

Allie has never really worn shoes. She's had several cute pairs since before she was born, but none of them ever fit! It made me sad because there were some really cute shoes she never got to wear.

But now that she's walking, Allie will need shoes to walk around outside! She's not supposed to wear shoes all the time though because walking barefoot helps develop the muscles in the foot.

Anyway, when we went to Goodwill on Saturday, we picked up this cute pair of pink crocs.

When she wore them at the pumpkin patch, she was fascinated by them. Try as she might, she couldn't get them off either. One of the side benefits to her wearing shoes will be that with shoes on she won't be able to take off her socks in the car! Every morning when we're driving to daycare, Allie takes her socks off. This morning we couldn't find them both and took her in the house with only one sock on.

Our perfect day

Yesterday was a perfect fall family day. We started with lunch at Applebee's and then we headed to Goodwill to get Allie's halloween costume. But the real fun came when we got to the pumpkin patch. Actually, I say pumpkin patch, but this farm is a lot more than pumpkins! We went to this one last year with some friends while I was still pregnant, so Allie's been here before too.

First we walked around the barnyard, where Allie's favorite animals were the turkey...

... and the donkeys. We also checked out their pig races, but couldn't get close enough to take pictures or for Allie to realize what was going on. It was cute though.

Allie and I rode the barrel train. She loved it and do did I, but that barrel was hard to get out of! After the train, we watched them fire the big pumpkin cannon and then we got on the hayride to the actual pumpkins...

... and imagine our surprise when we found a baby out with the pumpkins!

We picked our pumpkin and got back on for the ride back to the farm. We're hoping to carve our pumpkin sometime this week, so right now its just sitting out on the porch waiting.

After that, we walked through the little corn maze they had in the barn. In this maze were a bed of hay and a corn box that Allie will play in when she's older. But right now she'd just eat it.

They had all sorts of fun cutouts in the barnyard for picture taking. Allie and I rode the cool bus.

And then Allie pretended to be a scarecrow.

There was a fun picture that said "how tall this fall?" that we tried to use to measure Allie. But she wouldn't stand up because at first she was wearing her new shoes (we got her a pair of crocs at goodwill, stay tuned for pics!) and then because of the gravel. So we'll measure how tall she is next fall.

We finished our perfect day at the farm with some fudge, kettle corn and drinks and headed home, where we watched our Wisconsin Badgers beat the Ohio State Buckeyes! And the perfection of the weekend continued when Allie actually slept until after 8 this morning.

Tired girl

Allie plays and plays with seemingly endless energy sometimes. But then there are the times when she just needs a break and she will lay down where ever she is.

Friday flashback: Movin' and shakin'

This is what Allie used to do when placed on her tummy. I never thought she'd become mobile.

And now look at her.

Some days

Some days, I have it all together. I thaw something in the morning so I can make dinner when we get home from work. Its prepared quickly, the kitchen stays clean and I actually have time to play with my baby. We play together, have dinner together and put baby to bed and still have time left over before its time for momma and dada to get to bed.

And then there are the days where I go to dress Allie in the morning, and find that she has no clean pants! That was this morning. Luckily I found this dress. But then I found that all her tights are too small! Such is life.

The self feed tray

We tried a Gerber Graduates Pasta Pickup ravioli meal last weekend. It is billed as having a "convenient self-feed tray." Well, you can see here what Allie thought of the tray! She looked at it funny, ate one ravioli and promptly dumped the pasta out. She didn't care for the chicken and carrot ravioli. We'll try again in a few days with the cheese ravioli.

She's growing up

Allie is trying new toys at the playground. Tonight she ate a whole banana with her dinner. And she walked. A lot. She's officially walking, 12 steps at a time. Tonight she was more steady than over the weekend. It looks like she'll walk and we can't stop her.

Allie is learning the meaning of "no." And she's also learning how fun it is to disobey when momma or dada say no.

She's growing up so fast. We're starting to plan her birthday party. Yesterday Doug and I bought her birthday presents. I think we may have gotten too much, but the first birthday only comes once, right?

I keep thinking about last year at this time. I was putting the finishing touches on Allie's room. I was moving through my to-do list, cleaning and organizing. I was so excited to meet Allie and to be able to bend over again. Its so surreal to see how she's changed and how we've changed. Now we're planning a birthday party and trying to figure out what other babyproofing has to be done now that she's walking and getting more adventurous by the day.

Tale of a naptime

This picture was taken at the end of our Sunday morning walk. Allie was so exhasted she fell asleep in the stroller even while Doug and I were talking, we were going over bumps and whatnot. It was past her naptime. So we thought we'd take her out of the stroller and straight upstairs where she'd nap for a few hours. Well, she had other thoughts on this. She proceeded to stay awake alternating crying and playing in her crib. She did this for one hour and we didn't go get her because surely she'd fall asleep. She did... an hour later. And she only slept for one hour. Naps are definitely hit or miss these days!