1 year!!

My sweet girl,
Today you turned 1 (well, actually yesterday). I can't believe it has been a year. While it was stressful at first, we have worked into a great schedule that has made you a super happy and wonderful baby. We are figuring things out! You have brought me and Daddy a lot of joy--you are super funny, fearless and adventurous and we love watching you grow. You are strong-willed and know how to get what you want. You play so well by yourself, making things easy for Mommy in terms of the business. For all the laughs and smiles you have brought us in the past year, I thank you. I want to hug, squeeze and kiss you all the time but Miss Independent wants to crawl and play. I love you tons and can't wait to celebrate so many mnore fun birthdays with you.

Love,
Mommy

I can't believe Cadence is 1! We had a great day yesterday--James didn't work and we did some fun things. Brooke came over for a playdate, which is always a good opportunity for us to learn how to share our toys with other kids. We're learning how to do that. We play much better with others at houses that aren't ours but we need to learn to play well everywhere. After her nap we went to Fair Oaks Mall and the Build-A-Bear workshop where we used a gift card from Aunt Jane to make Ro Ro (which is what Cadence was saying when she held him) the Monkey. He has a red checked shirt and overalls. Our kind of stuffed animal. Cadence seemed to like him and I think it was a fun experience. We had dinner at the mall and bath when we got home. Boy does Cadence LOVE to splash in the bath these days!

She still plays great by herself, allowing me to get lots of things done in the office. She has learned how to climb onto the couch and recliner all by herself but luckily, she has also learned how to climb off, feet first. No falls yet! She is quite the little monkey which is why we got a monkey at Build-A-Bear.

We had her 1 year checkup on Monday. Everything seemede fine. She weighed 18lbs, 6oz and was 29 1/2 inches long. She has to be rear facing until 20lbs. The doctor didn't say anything but I think Cadence is only in the 10 percentile for weight. She is in the 50th percentile for height I think.

We talked about changing over to milk and we started adding whole milk to her bottle on her birthday. She didn't seem to notice the difference and drank the bottle fine. She woke up a little upset around 9:45pm and I wonder if the milk was upsetting her stomach. But after I held her a little, she went right back to sleep and we didn't hear a peep from her the rest of the night. We have upped her solids so instead of formula between meals, I give her a snack of solid food then a bottle. We'll slowly get rid of the formula and hopefully start getting her off the bottle and into a sippy cup in the next few weeks. Lots of changes!

She can eat anything now and we give her everything we can. She ate an entire banana for dinner the other night! She will try most everything but makes her mind up quickly about whether she likes it or not. She doesn't seem to be a huge fan of carrots without flavor so I'll have to figure out how to flavor the carrots I cooked recently and froze.

She has gotten 2 more teeth on the bottom, making a total of 4 on the bottom and 4 on the top but then we realized that her molars were breaking through too! She had been a little fussy and no wonder! It looks like she has skipped a tooth (the cuspid) and gone straight to the back for the molars. That gives her 10 teeth at her first birthday, even if the molars have only just broken through and aren't fully up yet.

It is funny to watch her play. She has started sorting things and will move the pillows around or especially the blocks. She loves to dump them out and put them back in the container or take them out one by one. Sometimes she throws them. Like I said, she's great at playing alone!

No walking yet--still just cruising around the furniture very fast. She sometimes will walk if you hold onto her hands but on her tiptoes. It is too cute. One of these days she'll let go and balance!

We are getting ready for her 1st birthday party on Saturday. 40 people are coming and 10 of them are kids (under 7). Today is clean up the yard and mow and get the baby pools ready, tomorrow is get the food, bake the cake and do the shopping. The Maids come to clean tomorrow, thank goodness! James isn't working most of this week to help out. The weather has been very hot and humid this week but Saturday is supposed to be beautiful. That's good seeing as how I don't think 40 people will fit in the house. :)