1 amazing year, 1 beautiful daughter.

Brailey one year ago!

One year ago I gave birth to such a beautiful little girl. This wonderful baby who was so dependent on me for everything just grew up into this spunky little toddler. She has so much love and energy to give that it just astounds me. Its one of those bitter sweet feelings to know she is already a year old. I so very much miss those days when she was tiny and I could just fold her in my arms and she would fall asleep there. I miss feeding her and just being able to stare into her eyes. I miss how much she really needed me (she still does, but she is already so much more independent). But I love that her personality is growing and expanding, that I get to see her learn new things and say new words. I love that she has such a big heart already and that it can only grow more.

All I can say is that these days go by so fast! I can not even tell you where all that time went. For me, its hard because my brain doesn't retain memories very well anymore. This is why I blog as much as I can and take lots of pictures and videos. The only thing I will never forget is the moment I first saw Brailey and held her in my arms. Love at first sight. I know its real because I experienced it. I loved her when I first knew I was pregnant, but this love is so much stronger, so indescribable, and it only continues to grow.

We celebrated her birthday on Sunday the 20th for a few different reasons... one is that we wanted all our family and friends to be able to come and since most everyone has Sundays off it made it the obvious day to choose. It was also the only day that Jordan could go with his work schedule and school schedule since he has school during the week. Anyway, I made Brailey her own cake and then another one for everyone else. I did NOT have a fun experience making these cakes like I thought I would.

Here is the story, I wanted to make this round "polka-dot" cake that I saw on pinterest. (The polka dots are colored and on the inside not the outside). You basically just make cake balls (not the kind with frosting just already baked cake)...  and then you bake them in another set of cake batter. Sounds pretty simple right? WRONG! At least for me. I sprayed the pans with crisco, but the first set of cake balls broke in half when I took them out. Then the round pans I got weren't tall enough to cover the cake balls. And when one batch finally covered them enough the cake fell apart when I tried to get it out of the pan. I made a total of 4 cakes that all ended up in the trash because they all broke or got messed up. At that point I was so frustrated that I wanted to just go buy a cake, but they wanted $20 dollars for one at Sams Club. So Jordan just told me to make a few more. I decided I would still do the polka dot thing, but I didn't use the round  cake pans, I used normal 9x13 pans and then I used a smaller one for Brailey and just kept them that way. I didn't need another epic fail from this terrible baker.

Such a cute messy girl!

Well... after that everything went much better. We had the celebration at Jordans parents house so that we could fit everyone and so that it was close enough to where all our family and friends live. The theme was sorta supposed to be "flowers" so I blew up balloons and tied them together to make them look like flowers. Sorry, no pics! Only problem was that Brailey absolutely HATED the balloons. Whenever they are in the air at the stores she always points and laughs and wants to grab them so imagine my surprise when one starts floating towards her and she FREAKS out. She started crying and crawling really fast toward me and I was already blowing up another balloon so she gave me the most disgusted/scared look like "you're the one creating those monsters!" It took her quite a while that night to get over it and even then if one came by her without her approval she would start grabbing whoever was closest and hold on with a death grip and then proceed to cry if it still pursued her. lol. She is so funny. I sometimes can't figure her out.

Finally, everyone showed up and we sang happy birthday to her, watched her play in her cake, gave her a quick bath because of how messy she was, and then opened presents. It is crazy how spoiled she is. Its good to know everyone loves her so much and wanted to get her such awesome gifts! I have never seen so many gifts for such a little girl. I'm not sure she even knows what to do with all of them. ha ha. She has so much to distract her now.

Love these cute little hands digging in the cake. :)

It turned out to be a really great birthday celebration. I love my little turkey so much. She lights up the darkest rooms and is the rainbow to my rainy day. No experience beats being a wife and a mother.

So happy!

A $2 Dollar bill! I love these and I know Brailey will too! My great grandma gave me one when I was little and now Brailey has one from her great grandma. Eventually this will be framed! Wish they still existed in our money system. How cool would that be? I guess you can technically still use them, but I wish they still made them!

Braileys cousins wanted to help open presents with her since Brailey was getting so distracted. lol. 

Surrounded by all her toys!

Hugs goodbye to friend Liam! :) So glad that Brittany and Derick were able to make it! It was a great surprise.

 All her presents out of their boxes and at home! Goodness that took forever and now Brailey has a lot of stuff to play with. ha ha.











Now for the update on Brailey!

• She loves pointing at everything now. She is so curious.
• I started having her drink cows milk about 2 weeks before turning 1 and so far she LOVES it. The past couple months she would never finish her formula and I was so worried that she wasn't getting enough nourishment. She just refused to drink it... but as soon as I switched to milk she can't get enough of it. She actually cries at me when the bottle gets empty and that is after eating 4 oz of food and then 8 oz of milk. 
• She loves opening and closing things as well as turning things on and off. 
• She can say "hi" just doesn't know when. 
• She gives the best hugs! I feel like the most important person in the world when she wraps her arms around me. She holds me so tight and just lays her head on my shoulder. Best feeling EVER!
• She loves to stand up, but still refuses to walk on her own. She has gotten as far as holding only one of my hands and walking like that. 
• She goes down the stairs so GOOD. She learned so quickly! I was always so scared she would fall down the stairs because we decided not to use gates for the stairs and instead just make sure to teach her that its not okay to go up without me or dad behind her. She did really good at listening to us and now she is amazing at going down the stairs. I wanted her to learn not to go down face forward cause she could fall. So she basically crawls/slides down on her knees. 
• She has 6 teeth in all so far. 4 on top and 2 on bottom.
• She shakes her head "no" all the time. Right now its cute and funny to watch cause she moves her body with her head, but I know I am going to regret it later.
• She "dances" by shaking her entire body all around. Its similar to when she is saying no but its more side to side versus back and forth and she moves a lot more. 
• For some odd reason she loves to rub her head on the floor and finds it hilarious. 
• She loves her feet still and uses them to pick things up.
• When I am dressing her in the morning she knows I am about to put her pants on and sticks one leg out and then the other. Its so cute.
• She loves to bounce.
• She eats all her veggies really well now... including peas. (never thought it would happen, but she actually likes them now)
• She has so much fun with all her toys and stuffed animals and gives them hugs.
• She LOVES her daddy. She hardly gets to see him now with his school and work taking up most of his day. She usually only sees him while I take him to and from school and a few minutes in between. So days that he gets to play with her are her favorite. She absolutely adores her dad and always has the biggest smiles for him. 
• She loves watching her disney videos. 
• She tries to read her books. Of course she can't really read just yet, but its fun to watch her turn the pages and babble like she is reading out loud. 
• One of her new toys has a microphone on it to sing a long. She put it up to her ear and started talking into it like it was a phone. SO adorable. She is so smart. Guess she see's mama talking on the phone with dad quite a bit.
• We just had her appointment and she weighs 17lbs 12 oz, she is 28 and 1/4 inches tall and her head is 17.5 inches around. She hasn't gained much since her last appointment so she is in the 6th percentile for weight, but she is in the 24th percentile for height so that has gone up a little. And 33% for her head. Doc said that her weight will fluctuate a lot now that she is moving and learning to walk so she still looks good.
• I can start giving her table food like eggs, macaroni, peanut butter, etc. I am so excited for this! I have let her have little bits of egg and macaroni before, but now I can just let her eat these things for meals! And fruits and veggies are the snacks. :)  

Well I think that's it for a little while. I won't be updating every month like I used to, but I will still blog about other things as well every now and again. I will probably have another one on here sometime next week. lol.  Sorry for the long update. :) Hope you enjoyed.