Happy Birthday Baby!

My child is one year old! It has gone by so fast. Allen and I discuss on a regular basis how much our lives have changed. It's hard to believe we ever lived without her. Some days I look at her and think "What did I care about or spend my time on before her?" Everything I do now revolves around her. Being a mom makes me feel so much more important and valued than anything else. I love it!

I had to be out of town for a few days, so I was gone for part of her birthday. I am a sentimental fool (plus I got the idea from Gilmore Girls) so I wanted to do something special at the exact time she was born. Ideally I would have been there to go look at her and remenisce, but since I wasn't, I made Allen wake up and take a picture of her at the exact time she was born. So at about 2:30, he took this picture. (Don't worry, she didn't wake up)


We had family in town for a funeral the week before Lizzie's birthday, so we had a little party then, and we did a party with just the three of us on her actual birthday, so this here is her 3rd first birthday party. We had some of her friends and famiy over and we had a fun time! She got some good stuff and I liked the attention for her. She was very chill that day, so she was kind of weirded out by all the eyes and cameras on her.

I decided that I want to be one of those moms who does birthdays up big, so I decided to do a Ladybug themed party. We decorated in ladybug colors and I made her a lady bug cake. I've never been that crafty, so it took me a couple tries, but I did it. I made an actual lady bug-shaped cake and I made a mini one for her.

She got red frosting up her nose, so for the rest of the day, it looked like she had a bloody nose. But she didn't. :)

Shenanigans

One of the best things about Elizabeth are the funny/silly things she does and says. She is an excellent talker, and has several words that she says regularly. She started off with "mama" and "dada" of course, but now she has added many more such as "hot", "ball", "juice", "pa-y" (for puppy), "up", and my personal favorite, "don't". She says that one with a serious face and shakes her finger at you. She had to learn that one in order to survive in daycare.
She has become a very funny eater as well. She will sit and eat really well for a while (depending on what it is), but eventually it turns into recreation. She likes to taunt me. She will take food and dangle her hand over the edge and give me this look like "I'm gonna drop it....you gonna stop me?" and then she drops it. (I don't particularly care...and you'll find out why.) Then, when she feels she is done eating and playing with her food, she takes her bib off and lifts her arms up and either just grunts or says "up". After she is free, I just put her tray with remaining food on the ground, and she comes back at her leisure to finish. (see below)

Anyway...back to daycare. A few weeks ago, I came home to find that my child's face had been maimed. She claims (she being my sister) that it was self inflicted, but when there is a 16 mo. old baby who has 10 pounds on her, I find that doubtful. Nobody makes my baby bleed her own blood!!! She handled it pretty well, however, and did not act like she had an owie at all. And fortunately, my sister has cute bandaids, so it wasn't too hard to deal with the bandaid on her face. Although when I took it off, it left a red mark for a couple days.
Elizabeth is a very good sleeper. 95% of the time she sleeps through the night with no problems. About 90% of the time she goes to bed according to her routine without even a peep. We have a good system. I wrap her up in the same blankets I have since she was born (though they don't quite fit the same), I put the blanket (usually the one her grandma Williams made) on her, and I hand her her glow bug. She hugs the bug, rolls over, sits up, flops on her belly with her butt in the air, and sleeps like this...

She is not like her mommy in the sense that she LOVES to talk on the phone. Those who know me well know that I am not much for phone conversation and usually just want to get to the point. She will get a hold of a phone, real or toy, and will play with it for a long time. She picks it up, holds it to her ear and says "Hi!" (with enthusiasm). Lately she even likes to put it up to my ear and then she says "hi". So much fun. She has a couple toy phones and she gets endless enjoyment from them. But my phone is the ultimate and she is always trying to get her hands on it. I try to keep it away, but sometimes she prevails.

She also likes to climb into weird places. She likes to crawl under her "Laugh and Learn Table" and she likes to climb up on my Wii Fit board and perch there for a while.

Here she is having an after breakfast snack. She likes to sit on the tray. Not next to it, on it. I spend a lot of time picking food off her rear end.

More Fun

Here we have end of January, February ish. We got to spend a lot of time with family (grandpa, aunties, uncles). Elizabeth loves being a Montana girl. She likes to ride horsies (made of wood or plastic) and play outside. She's always up for going outside. Even if she's fussy or tired, going outside makes her calm down. She's a very easy going little girl. She let's mommy and daddy drag her around to do lots of things.

Riding "Rascal 2".
Sitting nicely with daddy while somebody opens presents.

She LOVES being pulled in the sled. This was the first nice snow day we had on a day when we actually could go out in the snow in the middle of the day, so we took advantage.

Her first "in the snow" experience.

We like to play "roll". We are rolling that little basketball. For the record, I would like to say, that my living room is clean every day, and then this kid takes out ALL her toys. It only takes her about five minutes to make a complete mess of the house. But it's fun. And then she goes to bed, and I clean so she can have a clean palette to mess up the next day.

Stuff We Do

We have loads of fun at home! She is such a silly, funny little girl. These pictures are from around January time, I believe, so she was ten months. She makes every day so much more fun. It's nice having a buddy around all the time to play with. And it's interesting to see what entertains her, what she likes, doesn't like, what she doesn't care about. For example, she is not afraid of the vacuum. She actually really likes it. I used to pick her up when I vacuumed, just assuming the load noise and beastly machine coming after her would be frightening. But one day, I decided to give it a try, and she just sat and watched, kind of awestruck at first. Now when we vacuum she chases the vacuum and tries to climb on it. Silly kid.
These are just some pictures of her being cute that depict some of her awesome personality.

I was trying to take her picture because she looked cute, and she started climbing on me, trying to get the camera. She does that most of the time now. She loves cameras.

We were at my sister's house and her sons were "attacking" Allen. This is her reaction when her father is being tortured. Just an observer. And p.s. that is an Eyeore sweater. CUTE!

Elizabeth with her cousin Sammy.

We like to read. She is very good at listening when I read her a book. She helps turn the pages. After we have gone through the book once, then it is her turn and she turns the pages like crazy and I point out objects like "duck" or "soap" or "bird". She LOVES her books.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Hairdos and Don'ts

This time I put a cute little clippy. She was the prettiest girl at church that day!

This is the first time she had to endure two piggies. She is good for letting me yank on her head for one, but not so much for two.

She forgave me after I gave her a binky.

A few months ago, Elizabeth's hair finally got long enough to make cute pigtails and such. It's been "long enough" to get them in ponies for a while, but her hair was short enough in the pony that it would just stick straight up and it looked like little devil horns, so I didn't really fix her hair that way. But now it's long enough to actually be cute. So here are some pictures of her being cute and having her hair in pigtails or whatever...

Christmas

I'm behind, so we're going to play catch up now. Christmas was awesome. Elizabeth really enjoyed opening all of her presents. It was nice to have a Christmas that was all about someone else. We have a nasty habit of spoiling each other, so it was good for us to focus that energy on her. (We still spoiled each other a little bit though. Thank you day after Thanksgiving sales.)

Elizabeth wearing her Christmas outfit from Great Grandma and Grandpa Camp. SO CUTE. And playing with her cousins new toy.

He's a happy Christmas boy.
She was still very tired when we started opening her preent. It took her a while to warm up to it, but once she satrted playing in the wrapping paper, she livened up pretty good. She is very good at ripping paper and throwing it around.

She got new pajamas from Grandma Williams on Christmas Eve.