Goofy girl

We don't let Allie play in just a diaper very often, but she sure loved it! She had gotten her clothes all messy while eating, so I just stripped her right there!

Allie is really learning to explore and just be funny. One night this week she walked around for no less than a half hour with her rubber ducky in her mouth.

Its so much fun to watch Allie and Monk play together. They're each other's best buddy!

That is a t-shirt on Allie's head. Its one of hers. When I do her laundry, I bring it upstairs to the living room to fold. But a basket's been sitting there for a few days unfolded. Last night Allie found it and, well, she decided to dress herself!

She was playing with her clothes for close to an hour. This sleeper was a favorite, worn as a hood. So Dada took that message and that's the sleeper Allie wore to bed last night!

Sometimes it seems like weeks go by and Allie doesn't change very much at all. Then we have a week like this one, where she changed by leaps and bounds every day! She's really developing a sense of humor and she laughs constantly. And so do we.

Leftovers

Eeek! Its been a week since I last posted! Things have been crazy with varying amounts of sickness in the Durso pack. The good news is I think we're all finally on the mend!

I realized I had a bunch of leftover Halloween pictures here that I had uploaded but never actually posted. This is how we celebrated Halloween this year:

We did carve our pumpkin, so that was one item checked off the Halloween list. But Allie didn't dress up because of her cold. She looks so rough when she's sick, it just breaks my heart. She did, however, wear her Halloween shirt that she'd gotten from her Aunt Jeni the day before. That reminds me, we need to get her Turkey Day shirt out since Thanksgiving Day is next week! Where is time going?

Trapped in boxes

A week and a half later, five lonely boxes sit waiting to be unwrapped. They were bought a month ago, wrapped three days ago and the whole time have been waiting patiently to be opened and played with! Alas, they'll just have to wait a bit longer, as our house has been battling sickness and there still hasn't been a good time for the conclusion of birthday festivities.

Coat? Check. Shoes? Not so much

Allie got this adorable pink coat for her birthday from Aunty Jeni. Its not super thick but its perfect since she won't spend a ton of time outside during the winter just yet. She has mittens and a stocking cap to go with the coat. But she's missing one key piece of protection from the elements... shoes. Allie owns one pair of shoes right now, an adorable pair of pink crocs. But right now, one of them is missing. Oops!

Friday Flashback: Allie's first year

More than once last Saturday morning, I felt a surge of excitement. It was like I was preparing for my own birthday party.

Its the same excitement I felt many times while pregnant, even while I was in labor. I am so privileged to have Allie as my daughter. I remember this every day, even while Allie is becoming more of a handful.

She was so surprised to see her birthday cake lit up when I brought it to her. She was amazed as everyone in the room sang "Happy Birthday." She loved playing with the ribbons, bows, boxes and tags. I wish we could have gotten more pictures. We did shoot video that I have yet to look at.

There's a whole year's worth of video on that camera. Several times this year I've meant to put it all on a DVD. As Allie's birthday came closer, I figured I may as well wait until her birthday to document the entire first year on DVD. I do watch the video on occasion. I love watching footage from Allie's very first night and the following day. There's her first bath, all the photo shoots, getting ready to go home. I keep trying to work on her baby book, but thats something that gets pushed to the back burner too. I don't want to forget. Unfortunately I already have forgotten some things. Its my goal to give Allie a complete baby book, however. And I think I will be able to with the help of this blog.

The prevailing memory from Allie's first few months is that she slept. A LOT. We had trouble with breast feeding because she wouldn't wake up enough to eat and stimulate my production. I wish we'd breast fed longer. But I'm proud of myself for making it to 6 months considering I started thinking about weaning before she was a month old! And again when she was 3 months old.

Even though she slept a lot it was really hard putting her to bed for the night those first few months. She wouldn't sleep in her crib without about a two hour prep time first that often included multiple feedings and diaper changes. I couldn't get her to sleep in her crib for nap times either. She did, however, sleep through the night very early.
As Allie grew, she went from hating tummy time to rolling over, to scooting backwards, then scooting forward, crawling, standing and finally walking. She went from all breast milk to rice cereal, to fruit and vegetable purees, dairy products and meats.

Its astounding to look back at everything Allie did in her first year of life. She went from 8 lbs 13 oz to 23 lbs 14 oz, 20 inches to 29 and a quarter. We have boxes and boxes of clothes she's outgrown.

So what's next for you Allie Kat? Where will you go from here? We can't wait to see.

Party time

Saturday morning started really early for me and Doug. We did some cleaning during the week, but we still had plenty to do before Allie's birthday party. Luckily, Allie slept in so we were able to get more done. After Allie got up and had eaten, she and Dada went to do the grocery shopping and then she took a nap while we finished cleaning.

Finally the cleaning was complete. The food was pretty simple finger food that I had made earlier and just had to set out. The hardest part was making Allie's birthday cake. It was a lot of work for a cake that really only had two pieces eaten, but at least I can say I made her first birthday cake.

It looks like cookies n' cream, but its actually cream cheese frosting with raisins. If I were to use this recipe again, I'd leave the raisins out. I actually liked this cake and it turned out well. It was my first time making a layer cake. Allie liked it and would have eaten more this week if she hadn't been sick.

There were plenty of treats for the party guests. Jeni made pumpkin bars and we bought a second cake from Target. Even though Allie wouldn't be eating the second cake, we still got the princess 1st birthday cake because she's our little princess!

We really like Target cakes and it was way easier than making two cakes! The 1 that was on the cake I made actually came with the Target cake. We'd bought another number 1, but when I was taking decorations out, I left that in the bag and the bag got thrown away! Good thing we got the 1st birthday cake from Target!

I still have my lamb chop from when I was a baby, and now Allie has a lamb chop too! She got lamb chop from grandma and grandpa Swanson. She was more interested in the tag though.

She got fun princess stuff from Uncle Justin and Aunt Kira along with an awesome Hello Kitty card.

Allie loved the bow on the box more!

Perhaps Allie's favorite actual toy she got was this crawling worm toy she got from Ryan, the baby she's in daycare with. In the craziness I forgot to take a picture of those two together! Ryan is two and a half months younger than Allie.

Allie got lots of clothes and toys but she definitely loved the bows and tags and tissue paper more.

Look at those red cheeks! Hopefully Allie won't be sick for her next birthday.

Allie really liked her cake. She ate almost the entire piece, and it was pretty big!

And after the party, we finally got to relax. Because Allie was under the weather, we postponed the rest of her birthday celebration until this weekend. The good news is, Allie is recovering nicely and will party again on Sunday!

It was a great day and a great year. I can't believe how fast one year with our baby has gone by. She is an amazing child and I can't wait to see what she does next.

12-month stats

At 12 months, Allie is 29 and a quarter inches tall, which puts her in the 55th percentile; and 23 pounds 14 ounces, in the 89th percentile. Everything is perfect! She's also got a big head. Her head circumfrance is 47.8, I think centimeters? I can never remember what the unit of measure is. Her head size is over the 97th percentile! She's got a big head. I'll call it a big brain and that she's so smart because of it!

The only thing not perfect about Allie at 12 months is that she has a cold. The doctor said she's either got a cold thats on its way out or a sinus infection on its way in. At this point she couldn't really tell which it is. So she gave us an antibiotic prescription to fill if Allie's not better in a few days. Colds usually run their course in about two weeks, the doctor said, so if she's not better its probably the sinus infection. Well, Mama and Dada have caught whatever Allie has, and it feels like sinuses for us!

Between being sick and getting four shots today, Allie was ready for bed early. We put her down at 6 and she was asleep by 6:30! We kept her home today and are planning on staying home tomorrow. Hopefully all this sleep she's getting will zap the sickness!