Annabelle, you’ve turned the big 0-1! Yes, I know time flies but I feel as though it’s taken a long time to get to this momentous milestone. Every time I look at you, you’ve somehow changed. You’ve gotten another bruise, you’ve gotten more hair, your eyes have changed colors, you’ve gotten taller, your belly has gotten bigger, your voice have gotten more demanding, you’ve started running. It’s been an awesome year!

We celebrated Annabelle’s big day at home with family and friends! We’re so thankful to have so many people surrounding us that love Annabelle as much as we do (maybe a little bit less because we sure do love her a lot)! The birthday bash was as success! She loved playing with all of the other little kids at the party and devoured her chocolate cupcake.

Here are some other some fun updates! Annabelle’s saying a few words. She says mama, dada, and uh-oh. She says mama the most because she’s a bit confused on what it actually means. She says mama when she’s thirsty and wants some milk. This made a lot of sense when I was still breastfeeding but now that she’s been weaned, it means she wants her bottle or sippy cup.

Annabelle’s drinking whole milk now and drinks exclusively from a cup at school. At home during meals we have her drink from a cup (which we have to assist with) or sippy cup and at night she’s taking a bottle. I’m amazed at how all of a sudden kids know how to use a sippy cup or straw. We’d given her drinks from a straw and sippy cup on occasion for the past few months but she just wasn’t getting it. Then right as her birthday was coming around and we were starting her on whole milk I tried it again and she was all over it!

Annabelle’s a good little eater but we can tell she’s become more selective (picky). It’s never consistent though, some days she likes carrots, others it’s peas, sometimes she’s our little meat-eater and other times she digs for the pasta noodles!

We’re getting so close! Annabelle’s nearly to her first birthday! One week to go! This was my last week of summer classes before a week of prep and then fall classes begin. Of course, Annabelle starts getting sick. Towards the end of the week she was congested and she was starting to sound similar to how she sounded when she had bronchiolitis. My summer classes are actually mostly online and we only meet on Fridays face-to-face.  Needless to say Annabelle hit her limit on Friday and she needed to go to the doctor (why couldn’t she have gotten sick just a day earlier).  It was one of the saddest moments for me, not being able to take Annabelle to the doctor and having to be at work. Grandma Jane took her and everything went smoothly. She had another ear infection but no bronchiolitis.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but Annabelle’s no longer eating baby food. When we first returned to daycare, after our trip, I was sending a combination of pureed food as well as some other easy to eat things but it looks like Annabelle has no interest in letting someone else feed her. We were actually feeding her very little pureed food by the end of our Paris trip so it makes sense she didn’t want to start it up again when we returned. You can see below she’s eating toast, blueberries, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. And then pasta and chicken with some apples and grapes for dinner (she does eat plenty of vegetables, I promise).

One of our big adventures these last couple of weeks before Annabelle turned the big 0-1 was attending Rowan’s 1st birthday. A friend of mine had her son two weeks before I had Annabelle and we helped celebrate the little guy’s birthday. Annabelle had a great time playing in the yard with all the other kids! She’s a mover and shaker though and wanted nothing to do with the kids her own age. She’s way more interested in those older kids (you know, the ones that are three)! She had her first cupcake (it was vegan so I was feeling pretty good about it) and loved it! Makes me super excited for her birthday party in a couple of weeks when everyone will be singing happy birthday to her and she’ll be tearing into her own birthday cake. You have to love being young and being able to take your shirt off when you’re playing in the backyard!

Annabelle loves sitting on people’s laps! It’s so cute to watch her back her little tushy up to someone and then just plop her little rear-end down. Makes my heart melt to see her snuggle up to someone like that. While attending Rowan’s birthday party she decided the best place to be sitting was on Rowan’s mom’s lap! Gotta be where all the fun is!

Lots of zoo trips! We’re less than a 5-minute drive and have been three times in the past two weeks. Here’s a picture of some friends and us at the zoo. Hubbies also came but they declined to be in the picture.

Annabelle’s only taking one nap at school. I don’t know how they do it (she’s still taking two naps on the weekends) but all of her friends her age only take one nap and so does she. The first couple of days it was a little rough, she was going to bed even earlier than her early 7 o’clock bedtime but now she’s adjusted and does just fine.

Weekly pictures are getting even more difficult to capture. Most of the time we have to give her something to hold onto, otherwise she pops right back over and is standing before we’re able to get even one good shot.  This week we gave her some keys. I thought I’d see if we could take them for just a minute and get a few shots without the keys and this is what happened. And here are the captions: 1) You took my keys, 2) Give me my KEYS, 3) I’ve got my keys, and 4) I’m happy again!

Life is most definitely changing! Dining out with Annabelle are few and far between these days. This week we went out to dinner with some good friends of ours who have a two month old of their own. I was a bit jealous that their little guy slept the entire time we were out, while Annabelle on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with her food and hated that she was seated so that she wasn’t facing out to the rest of the restaurant.

Annabelle’s pretty much mastered clapping and getting really good at waving. She’s still a little finicky on when she waves though. Often times it happens after someone’s left. We’ll keep on practicing though and when she does get it right, it’s awesome!

Annabelle and I went to visit some friends of mine from college (and their spouses and children) while Dusty travelled to Milwaukee for business. Here are a few pictures of all the kids hanging out!

This weekend we also made our first trip to the zoo! I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to take Annabelle! Even though I knew Annabelle was a bit young I asked that my mom get us a family pass for Christmas. I’m sad that we’re just finally using it for the first time and it’s already July but we have plenty of sunshine left before it gets cold and snowy! I was so surprised by how much fun it was to take Annabelle! She pointed at all of the animals and just about everything else as well. She’s most definitely becoming aware of her surroundings. She loved the aquarium but was a bit fearful of the monkeys and gorillas.