Our baby girl is one year old. It seems impossible, but it's really been a whole year. She is the most amazing little person, I feel so blessed to be able to be her mom and spend every day with her. She makes me laugh and she is so much fun- she is really growing up and becoming a little toddler. There have been some rough times for sure (especially in the middle of the night!), but to be honest you forget all about them the next day- the good memories overshadow the hard ones every time.
Some fun facts about Evie: she knows the word "no" now, and has said it clear as a bell. I'm going to save my sanity and tell you that "mama" was her first word, but honestly she's only said that a couple times for sure. But twice now in the last couple of weeks, we've asked Evie to do something, and she shakes her head and very clearly says "No!" She knows what she wants, that's for sure. ;)
Her favorite game right now is putting everything on her head and pretending it's a hat. Cups, bowls, bibs, blankets, clothes, books- anything. She puts them on her head and the grins at me and waits for me to say "hat?" and then she laughs. Other things that make Evie laugh include us putting random things on our heads, and crazy ticklefests with Daddy. She's also learning to point at different people and body parts- right now she knows "where's mama?" (point at me), "where's Evie?" (point to herself), and sometimes we succeed at "where's your nose?" (point to nose).
Evie actually sits and lets us read her books now, which is really fun and I love it. Sometimes she gets impatient and turns the pages quick, but usually she'll let you read her a whole story cover to cover now. Her favorite books right now include
The Very Hungry Caterpillar,
The Monster at the End of This Book, and a series of
Baby's Day Out books we have. I can read her longer books while she's playing with toys too, she likes
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
Evie has loved music for a while now, and now I sing kids songs with her and I'm starting to teach her the hand motions. She LOVES Itsy Bitsy Spider, and I hold her hands and do the actions. While we were taking these photos I was singing it to her, and she even started trying to do the motions herself!! :) We also do Patty Cake a lot, and I sing Wheels on the Bus- are there hand motions that go with that? I feel like there are... maybe I should look them up. :) She still dances everytime she hears music, which is adorable! As far as non-baby music goes- Evie has shown an affinity for Britney Spears (don't tell Aunt Allison!!), and she really likes
this song.
Evie is walking pretty much full-time now, it seems like it happened overnight!! She took her first steps about a month ago (March 23rd to be exact), and just within the last week has started walking all the time now. She has great balance, is able to bend down and pick things up without falling, and she often carries things around the house while walking. It's so fun to hear "the pitter patter of little feet", as corny as that sounds. :) It seems like she's been working hard on motor skills for a bit now, so I'm looking out for her verbal skills to pick up now that she's mastered walking. And she's burning the calories to prove it- she's our little peanut at 18 lbs. right now!
All in all, Eric and I are so blessed to have Evie in our lives, and we can't wait to see what this next year with her brings. We have so many exciting things planned- it's going to be a really fun summer!! I'm still going to continue with monthly posts for Evie (although thank goodness I won't have to battle with stickers anymore!! As you can see the 12 month one only made a brief appearance), and I'll keep doing random posts in between. I have a couple videos of Evie walking and such, but I don't know how to get them from my iPhone to the computer without them being sideways.... I'm going to attempt using YouTube, so stay tuned for those. :) Love to all!!
