Leah 1 Year Old!

Happy FIRST birthday Leah!! It seems like it has been FOREVER since I wrote your 11 month post! I guess your first birthday party took a lot out of me. I will blog about that fun-ness later... So now to your monthly update. Right now you weigh 20 pounds and are 31 inches tall. You are wearing 12 month clothes, but some of them have been a little big on you which is against your earlier growing trends. You're kind of on the smaller side. I'm interested to see how you stack up against other one year olds on the percentiles when we go to your one year well-visit.

This picture was a year in the making! I love how the bib shows how she is changing in size!

I wouldn't say that you are running quite yet, but you have definitely picked up speed. You have tried jumping, but you aren't getting much air at this point. You crawl up stairs at lightning speed, but you still do not go down stairs. You stand at the top and holler for me to come get you if you want to go downstairs. If you are about three steps up and you decide you want to go down though, you slide down on your belly. As far as climbing, you will stand on things that are next to something that you want to get to that is high, but you aren't getting on couches or chairs yet. This increased speed makes it harder to stop your sneaky messes!

You are quite the loud babbler! Most of your talking is nonsensical, but you have down mama and dada. We have been working on bye bye. We were over at Grandma and Grandpa H's house with the missionaries for dinner and you did a hand clap motion and said "buh buh buh." The next day at Walmart you did the same with the lady at customer service. The other day your daddy and I were trying to tell you that the front door was HOT from the sun because you kept on putting your hand on it and smiling. We kept on telling you hot and you walked around going, "hah, hah!" You seemed like you were trying to saying it. ('H' is not usually one of your babbling sounds.)

Boy! Do you love to eat! At this point, you are not too much of a picky eater. We got you some divided plates and silverware to eat with since you had been showing interest in eating like mommy and daddy. You can stab and get some food into your mouth with great difficulty, but you are very motivated so that is great! You still have only those two bottom teeth, so that makes eating difficult. You try just about anything that we put on your plate, but you mostly eat mandarin oranges, green beans, and different varieties of noodles. You love any sort of dessert or sweet thing! 

During General Conference, Grandma H usually has a bunch of veggies, chips, and cheese on the coffee table. We had put everything in the center where you had difficulty reaching it, so you walked around the room and gave everyone big cheesy smiles in order to beg food off of them. It was so cute! Your Uncle Johnny was laying on some bean bag chairs drinking orange juice and you literally tackled him and climbed on top of him to get some. Haha!

You have loved getting into my kitchen cabinets for a while and you are very good at pulling everything out of them. Your latest thing though is to walk around closing things - cabinets, drawers, doors, etc. If you are being fussy while I am cooking dinner, I'll quickly open up a bunch of drawers and cabinets in order to keep you busy while I get a little more of dinner done. We got you a play kitchen for your birthday present. It had so many little pieces that it took me almost 4 hours to put together! You so far enjoy opening and closing the cabinets and transferring your play food from the fridge to the sink.

Your determined personality still asserts itself often. If I try to keep you from getting into something, you always go right back to it. Sometimes, I think that you just like to do things to get into trouble, but I think your curiousity is just spiked whenever I tell you that you can't do something! We put hair bands on the cabinet doors whenever we visit Grandma and Grandpa H's house, but that doesn't keep you from getting in the drawers! You pulled out all the Tupperware and cookie cutters from this drawer and had quite the blast doing it!

You love animals and bugs and the outside. Now that it is Spring, you love any chance we take to go outside. Lately, you have started doing this high-pitched squeal each time I open the door to the outside. Yeah... That needs to stop. When you are inside, you get bored quickly and can become very clingy (even with your loads of toys!) But, as soon as we are outside, you don't even need a single toy to be content. Yesterday, you walked around and just picked up sticks, you sat next to a bush and watched bugs fly around... you were just happy. 

We go to weekly play dates at Miss Caitlin's and Brooke's house. You love getting kisses from their pug Sway. They also have three goats and a donkey that you love to visit when we are there. I am looking forward to all of the adventures we will have this year in the nice weather!

We have had some fun times recently on Grandma and Grandpa H's trampoline. You love to walk and crawl around on it (you aren't jumping on your own yet.) You love it when I pick you up and jump while holding you!

There are a ton of kids in our neighborhood and several nearby that you love to go play with. You are the youngest one in the bunch by a year, but that doesn't mean that you have problems keeping up! Most of your friends are at least a year older than you, but you find other kids fascinating.

As far as your schedule, you are still napping twice a day and nursing about 4-5 times a day. You wake up around 7:30am and go to sleep at 8pm with naps around 9:30-11am and 2-4pm. You drink whole milk in your sippy cup now, so weaning might be somewhere in your near future, but I'm not going to force anything. Some days it seems like you may be transitioning to one nap, but then other days you still get grumpy around 9 am.

I love you my little girl! You are so much fun!