My hope of catching up on Annabelle’s weekly updates before her first birthday have come and gone but I haven’t given up. I’ve taken the pictures and now it’s time to write the captions!

Now that we’ve been back from Paris for a couple weeks things are getting back to normal. We’re settling into our routines. I started back to work, teaching two summer classes and Annabelle went back to daycare. It was so great for her to see her friends and for me to get the house back in order! I’m horrible at having Annabelle at home and getting things done! The only that’s helping me is that on the weekends she’s taking two 2-hour naps! It’s amazing!

Being back at daycare has been a bit of an adjust to our little bean. She’s most definitely tired when she comes home. Playing is hard work. Some nights we barely have enough time to pick her up and get her dinner before she’s ready for a bottle and night-night time.

In other highlights, she’s started clapping. The simplest things can be so much fun to watch.

Chomp, chomp! Two more bottom teeth are coming in. She officially has eight teeth in that little mouth of hers.

Of course, a week back at school and Annabelle’s started tugging at her ear and has a temperature that just doesn’t want to go away. Yep, she had an ear infection! Darn those kids and their germ spreading (and catching) abilities.

It’s our first full week back and things are so much fun right now! Annabelle doesn’t start back to daycare until next week so Annabelle and I’ve had some really great days at home together. She’s getting much better at playing by herself and isn’t nearly as attached to us as she was last week.  She’s taking great naps! Two naps everyday, and for long stretches of 2-hours most of the time.

As you can see from some of Annabelle’s photos, it’s becoming more difficult to take weekly pictures of Annabelle. She’s not too keen on lying down and smiling for the camera or for wearing the pretty bows that look so adorable with her outfits! We seem to take enough to find at least one good one but there are always the others where she’s angry at us for laying her down for the tenth time even though she just wants to get up and run away or the ones where she’s taking off those pretty bows.

Annabelle has always loved spending time in the kitchen (probably because we spend a lot of time there) but she’s now discovered Tupperware.  In fact, we keep them in a container sitting out so she can get at them whenever she wants. Speaking of kitchens, we’ve been lucky that up until now Annabelle didn’t realize that she could actually open up the cabinets. Our cabinets don’t have knobs so there was nothing to pull on! This week Annabelle saw Dusty open up a cabinet and that’s all it took. We’ve now started baby proofing the kitchen cabinets!

Annabelle swam for the first time this week. And loved it of course! She went twice! It’s a bit scary watching her brazenly walk across the pool like its no big deal but it’s fun to watch her splash in the water. We’ll have to plan on swim lessons next summer!

She’s started biting again! It’s only me though. And she only does it when she’s hungry or tired and wants to be nursed. She’ll bite my shirt and it’s her way of saying, “Hey mommy, I’m ready for some milk and then to sleep.” I haven’t talked much about nursing in quite a long time. I have many conversations about nursing with my mommy friends though. I think it might be one of the top two things that I worried about the most as a new parent (sleep being the other).

Right now I only nurse Annabelle in the mornings and before bed. She takes two or three bottles during the day. I haven’t been producing enough milk since Annabelle was about six months old so we’ve been supplementing milk I’ve frozen and then while we were in France Annabelle started taking formula during the day. Now that we’re back we’re using up the rest of the milk stored in the freezer and then she’ll go back to formula for the last month until we start her on whole milk. I’m starting to feel the pangs of sorrow for when she stops nursing. Sometimes it’s the only time of day that she’ll snuggle with me and I know I’ll miss it tremendously.

I’m committing these next few days to catching up on Annabelle’s weekly updates (and ours too). I’m over a month behind! This week we ended our stay in Paris by celebrating our anniversary! We’ve been married for 7 years! Dusty made reservations at a super fancy restaurant for lunch and we got a babysitter all afternoon. We went to lunch and then walked to the Eiffel Tower for a relaxing quick nap on the lawn.

I haven’t mentioned a lot about our babysitter but here’s a picture of Solêne and Annabelle! We were very lucky to find her and hope she’s around next summer! Solêne was so good with Annabelle. When she’d walk in the door Annabelle would light up and walk right over to her.

Since we’ve returned from Paris we’ve had a lot of people ask how Annabelle travelled. Well little lady, you did great! We had no problems on the way to Paris because she was pretty darn sick, had a really hard time breathing and because of this, slept the entire way. And then on our way home, we got lucky and scored a row that had an empty seat so Dusty sat by the aisle, I sat by the window and Annabelle sat in the middle seat and was able to roam on the floor in between our feet. In the end, our flight from Paris to Newark went better than expected and we got Annabelle to take two decent naps. I think the flight would have been painful if we would have had someone sitting next to us because she wouldn’t have had any space to herself.

We had a long layover in Newark so that we’d have plenty of time to go through customs and get checked back into the airport (if you haven’t flown internationally, they essentially make you pick up your luggage and re-enter the airport and check-in again). Long story short, our flight was delayed several times and then cancelled after a long evening in the airport. Annabelle did awesome! We had our a little stroller so I was able to cover it with a blanket, stroll her around the airport and then get her to go to sleep. We were exhausted but I’m happy to say that there was no meltdown from Annabelle or me! We ended up taking a taxi into NYC and getting a hotel there so we could spend the next day sightseeing until we could catch a plan home in the evening. So, Annabelle had her first visit to NYC this week as well!

Once we finally got home Annabelle had pretty much adjusted to the time difference and started to sleep through the night. If there was one reason for coming home, it was to have our little lady back to her own room! Now that we’re back Annabelle’s taking one long nap each day (so many people to see that we haven’t been able to take a second nap) and sleeping at least 10-hours straight. No more waking up at 5am and not wanting to go back to bed! Or not wanting to take naps!

Now that we’re home I’ve noticed Annabelle is a bit attached to Dusty and I. Not surprisingly, our place in Paris was small enough that she could see us at all times and she had grown used to it. Now that we’re home and have more space, she doesn’t like it when she’s on one side of the couch and I’m on the other and she can’t see me. She’s most definitely aware of her surroundings. I can tell she loves having the extra space to walk around though. It’s so crazy to think that 6-weeks ago when we left for Paris she wasn’t walking yet and now she’s zooming around the apartment. And yes, we’ve bought baby gates!

We had a busy first weekend home. Everyone wanted to see Annabelle so we spent a lot of time with all of Annabelle’s grandparents. If you can believe it, I think Annabelle saw all of her grandpas and grandmas in one weekend. Here’s just one picture of Grandpa and Grandma Howe who came to visit from Oklahoma, Annabelle and two of her cousins! And one last update, Annabelle has started waving just a bit. Not all the time but if we wave to her, she’ll wave back!

We had a great time in Paris and can’t wait to go back but it is good to be home!

This is our last full week in Paris so we tried to spend as much time out in the city as possible. The weather was beautiful so Annabelle and I went to the park a lot and went for a couple of long walks!

Annabelle had a bit of a rough week sleeping. She didn’t want to nap at all and when she did it was only for short spurts. And she’s waking up at 5am.  We’re taking turns again, getting up with her for a couple of hours. And then the other getting up while the first takes a nap.  This trip has really helped me appreciate that Annabelle has her own bedroom at home and that it’s very dark! I just hope she transition back to Nebraska time alright. I’m a little afraid of what might happen with the 7-hour time difference.

And then of course, the day after the doctor leaves (our friend Allison) Annabelle falls and cuts her tongue. She cut it just enough that it looked almost like snake’s tongue. It wasn’t bad enough to go to the hospital but for the first few days I was a little worried it wouldn’t heal correctly and she’d have a little slithery tongue. But of course, it healed just fine and you would never have known she was sticking part of her slithery tongue between her teeth!

It’s been 4 weeks since Annabelle started walking and she really is becoming quite good.  Here’s a video to show you how fast she’s getting.  She’s still a bit wobbly but she’s got the basics for sure!

It’s either time to go home or time to go shopping for new clothes! I brought mostly size 6-9 month clothes and now that she’s almost 10 months, they’re a bit tight. It’s fun to see how much she’s grown since we’ve been here. I feel like we’ll leave next week and she’ll be a new person!

There’s so much to catch up on and so little time! Even though we’re back in the States I still have weekly updates from our time in Paris. I mentioned it last week, but Allison stayed with us this week and Annabelle, Allison, Dusty and I did a lot of walking/strolling! We went to a couple different parks, toured the Louvre, and pretty much walked across Paris!

With all the walking this week I’m happy to say that Annabelle has no problems sleeping in her stroller. In fact, Dusty and I can predict (with some degree of accuracy) when she’ll go down for her nap and we’ll plan our meals out and drinks at a cafe around her naps. She goes to sleep and we find a spot outside at the closest cafe. I know this won’t always be the case, so we’re taking full advantage of the time we have when we can take her with us!

There are so many adorable things (or at least things I find adorable) that Annabelle does that I want to remember. One of them is that Annabelle does this funny thing we like to call “poop shakes”. When she gets done pooping, she’ll give a little shimmy shake and it’s the cutest thing. She’s no longer doing it just when she poops though. She does it when she gets up in the morning or from a nap, after she gets done eating, and after she gets out of the bath.  If you’re wondering what it looks like just watch this video I found on Youtube. Her shimmy shake is adorable!

We tried to celebrate Father’s day but it ended up being a complete mess. By Sunday Annabelle was fed up with our erratic schedule (having friends in town really messed up her schedule) and she was a complete wreck! Dusty and I were both exhausted and Annabelle was too. She cried most of the day and fought all of our attempts to get her to take naps.

My only other Annabelle update is that she tried salmon! She ate it but I can tell it’s not her favorite! And do you see that bruise on her eye and chin! She loves to try and climb on everything!

The weather has been really great while we’ve been in Paris, which means nice outings for Annabelle. The first half of the week was a bit rainy so spent some time in doors but the weekend was beautiful (even a bit warm for Paris at this time of year). We managed to go on lots of walks and check out some more parks.

She’s becoming quite talkative! She jabbers on and on. She’s also getting louder! She’s realizing her voice can carry. No words yet but we’re working on mama and dada. She does give us “smooches” or at least we like to pretend. When you blow a kiss you make what I call a “smooching” sound. Try it. You make a sound, right? Well, she makes that sound to us. She’s really just imitating what we do to her when we kiss her, making that “smooching” sound but it’s so adorable. She looks at one of us, makes the sound and then gives the biggest grin.

Annabelle has officially gotten her sixth tooth, so now she has four on top and two on bottom. This tooth didn’t seem to give her too much of a problem. We’re still working on not biting though! With these new teeth of hers, she likes to munch on everything, including us. I can’t blame the girl, she’s just trying to figure out how those little teeth of hers work but those mighty bites hurt.

Funny thing in the past week or two is that Annabelle’s started “tasting” her food before she eats it. Before, she’d pretty much inhale anything I put into her mouth but now, if I put a spoonful of something in her mouth, she’ll spit it out into her hand, look at it, and then put it back in her mouth, slowly chewing. You can tell she’s trying to taste what she’s eating and deciding if she likes it or not and if she remembers eating it before. After a few tastes she’ll eat everything just fine but it’s fun to watch that little brain of hers as she deciphers what she’s eating.

And we officially have a walking machine on our hands! It’s crazy that just a little over two weeks ago she started to walking and now she’s strolling across the apartment like she’s been doing it for months. Did this child ever crawl? We’re seeing very little crawling and fewer stumbles. When we go to the park I have to chase her around because she loves walking over to our neighbors and try to steal whatever they have laying out (food, bags, etc.).

One of the best things about being a parent, being able to dress your daughter in adorably cute French inspired outfits. I’ve been searching all over Paris (at all of those souvenir stands) and finally found a beret that (almost) fits Annabelle. I’m still trying to get her to wear it long enough that I can take a good picture of her but until then, here she is, my little Parisian!!!!