Little Miss {one year continued}

Since I'm backing up, I wanted to share some of Kerigan's first year pictures.  She is actually almost 13 months old- I can't believe it!  She has grown so much and is really starting to communicate more and more, or at least...she tries!

Kerigan, I have always used the word "spunky" to describe you, but this month it seems even more appropriate.  You are just full of spunk, I love it!  You are fiesty and you don't let anyone (your brother especially!) take you down!

It is so fun watching the two of you.  Lately you have been "chasing" each other around the kitchen island at full speed.  You will just fly around the corner giggling and squealing, it is so funny.  Andrew is liking the fact that you can play with him more now.  You got the Little People Zoo for your birthday from Ga Ga and Papa, and Andrew will not leave it alone!  He takes the animals from you and sets them all up and gets mad when you take them down!  I think it's hard for him to understand that now there are toys in the house that belong to you, not only him!  Ha!

It has been fun lately to see the two of you start to share more.  Just the other night you were actually sitting together by the zoo and playing with it together.  I loved it!  You both love each other so much.  When you wake up, Andrew is usually still asleep and when he comes downstairs a while later, you just go crazy!  You smile and squeal and yell BUBBA!!!  

You are so into pretty things.  Any kind of jewelry, and now it's shoes!  Even when you wake up in the morning you'll say "shoes, shoes" Ha!  At least that's what it sounds like anyway!  It cracks us up.  And you know that word because you use it in context too, so I really do think you are dreaming of shoes all the time!  Welcome to the world girl!  I can't wait to take you shoe shopping!

You are getting to be such a good communicator now!  You tell us what you want, mostly by whining and leaning or reaching for whatever it is, but if I ask you if that is what you want, you nod your head yes, and it is the most precious thing ever.  

You also say "all done" now when you are done eating.  You sometimes throw food on the floor but I usually get you to stop by asking if you are all done.  Then you nod your head.  Silly girl!  You also sign "eat" and "more" (you have done "more" for a while now).  The new thing you are doing is bringing us a diaper and wipes when you want your diaper changed.  We think that is pretty smart!

You started walking full time shortly after your first birthday.  You walked a lot up to that point, but you would still sometimes sit down and crawl to go faster.  Now, there is no stopping you on foot!  You just stand up and go!

For meals we are weaning you off formula.  You only get one morning bottle and one night time bottle now.  But you are taking less (6oz) so we know you are getting close to being done.  You eat three meals a day of real food (no more of that baby stuff!) and snacks in between.  You drink whole milk like a champ and have since the day we set it in front of you in a sippy for the first time.  You just downed it.  I think you are going to be a milk lover like your mama and brother!

You were being very dainty and ladylike with your cake, which was funny because you are normally not really like that!  This day you were not interested in your cake at all!

You have the most beautiful, captivating, blue eyes and you are the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.  I could stare at pictures of you all day and most of the time I sit in wonder and awe when I watch you because I cannot believe you are mine.

You now have four top teeth and still two on the bottom.  My favorite thing is when you smile big enough for those top two teeth to show, but I haven't had much luck lately getting you to show them off!

You were so funny when you tipped the cake over...

You just threw your little hands up so cute!  Ha!  This cake platter belonged to my great grandmother.  The same great grandma whose dress we both wore on our baptism days.  She was a very special lady. Her name was "Mabel" and often times my mom calls you Mabel because your personality reminds us so much of her!  You are named after your great grandmother Irene, but you have Mabel's spunk!  Ha!

This is a perfect example.  You were not having it!  This is your face like "are you kidding me mom??"

Then you just cross your legs and give us this little stinker smile and we just have to laugh.

This is just too funny for words.  You were so mad and would not touch your cake (very unlike most babies during their smash cake photo session!) and so I took your hands and shoved them in it!  Ha!  You did not like it one bit!

You recovered well!  Ha!  You are just so funny.  I think while these pictures don't show any huge smiles, they capture your personality at 1, perfectly!

I tried to take you outside and get some good ones right after your birthday but it was so hot out, almost unbearable.  Daddy was tired of entertaining you and Bubba wouldn't even come outside!  I was sweating bullets and just gave up!  But you did give me some cute poses once in a while!

You were pretty much on the move and obsessed with the neighbors dog more than the camera!

I thought this one was so sweet.  You are not too fond of grass, but you are getting used to it!  You definitely love to explore!

Seriously?  You are eating your bow instead of the cake!  Ha!

Sweet face!

Kerigan, now that you are one, you are going to continue to grow up and change so much right before our eyes.  You are a little person now, no longer that tiny baby we once cradled in our arms.  Your first year definitely flew by, but it has been so fun to watch you grow and change and become the beautiful little person that you are today.  

Every month when I added your picture to your monthly collage I would sit and dream about what you were going to look like as the months went on and you got closer to one.  I absolutely love how your smile at 3 months and 11 months is exactly the same.  That just shows that is truly who you are, Kerigan.  You have always been the smiliest, happiest and most laid back baby.  You fill us with joy every single day.

And as I filled in the last spot tonight, I could have never dreamed one year ago what a beautiful and precious little girl you would become.  Inside and out.

We are so blessed.

rewind

Normally I like to do my posts in order, but since I had so many vacation updates I didn't get to post them before Kerigan's birthday.  So now I'm going to rewind and share a few posts of what we've been up to since we got back!  First, I had several people ask about how I made the Minnie/Mickey ears for Kerigan's party, so thought I'd share a few quick pictures.  I must admit I first began by using craft foam and thinking I was just going to attach it to a headband somehow, but it was not happening.  I had to resort to looking online because my idea was not panning out!  I found this tip and tweaked it (by making it easier!)

One website suggested using regular felt and cutting circles with foam and putting the foam inside the felt.  Why not just get the heavier duty felt and remove the tedious step of cutting a million circles out of foam?  These didn't need foam inside!  I just used a circle pattern and left a small area for the headband.

Just use the glue gun on one side and press together

No glue on the non-circle section so the headband can slip through and press tightly.  Once it's in the right place, put a dot of glue to secure the ear to the headband.  Another time saver?  Buy headbands that are already black.  Why waste time wrapping/gluing ribbon around a colored one?  I got mine at Hobby Lobby for $1.00 for a 2 pack.  Totally worth it.

One extra step for the little Minnie's...attach a bow.  I just tied a bow and used the glue gun to attach it.  I liked it better on the side than in the middle.  But either way works.

Andrew was my official Minnie ears tester!  Ha!  Kerigan was napping when I did my first one so I wanted to make sure everything was placed correctly!  Wallah!  You have Minnie/Mickey ears made easy!  And they were so cute on all the kids at the party!  My kids are still wearing theirs around the house for fun!

We borrowed a bouncy house from a friend and the kids had so much fun in it at the party.  I didn't put Kerigan in then because #1, I was too busy at her party to really watch her and #2, there were so many kids I was afraid she'd get trampled.  But the night after her party, we had left overs and still had the bouncy house so Uncle Jay, Aunt Rachel and the kids came back over!

And we ALL got in the bouncy house! (Yep, even me!)

And let me tell you, it was so fun being a kid again!

Kerigan just loved it!  She giggled and giggled!  She really liked it when I held her and jumped.  And the kids noticed that when the grown ups jumped, it made them bounce much higher!  Ha!  Afterwards I felt like I had worked out for an entire day, but it was worth it!

Kerigan was so cute in the pool.  She loved the little slide!

She'd hang on and then let go and splash in the water and just giggle!

We even got the sprinklers back out (it was like the same party, but less people!)  And I feel like Kerigan got to do more.  She even went in the sprinkler!

I could not believe it, but she did it and she liked it!

It startled her a little bit when the water moved and splashed her face, but she kept right on playing in it and didn't shed one tear!  I love how my kids are not afraid of anything!

My beautiful one year old dolly... She is just delightful and fills us with so much joy daily!

Too bad the bounce house had to go back the next day, but we had a great weekend celebrating one special little girl!

Lots more summer fun to come...

road trip home

On our last day in San Diego we decided to hit the beach one more time on our way home.  We had flown in and had planned to drive back in our van with Ga Ga and Papa.  Daddy had to leave a day early to get back to work.  We were all looking forward to the trip home because we had some plans to make it fun!

I loved taking the kids to the ocean.  There is just nothing like it.  It is so beautiful and peaceful.

Andrew loved playing in the water!

Look at those huge waves!

Little miss was still traumatized from her experience at Coronado, so she was having none of it!  She only wanted to be held!

I plopped her down anyway and tried to get her to splash and have fun and she refused!  Yep, she's bawling her eyes out in this picture but it's cute anyway!  I figured I'd get them from behind instead!  Ha!

She did better on the towel far away from the water.

She was fascinated with the sand all over her!  Ha!

I got some "half" smiles!

We enjoyed our time at La Jolla Shores!  We cleaned the kids up and headed for St. George, Utah... 

We were going to stop in Las Vegas, but ended up coming through pretty late and the kids were asleep so we figured we'd just keep on going.  Let me tell you it was SO hard for me to drive through Vegas and not stop!  Ha!  I absolutely LOVE it there!   We found a nice hotel in St. George, ate a yummy breakfast in the morning and did some swimming before heading out towards Glenwood Springs, CO.

This is the place we really had planned on spending some extra time.  We got there earlier in the afternoon so we had time to get a hotel and make our way to the hot springs!  It was such a great way to break up the trip a little bit.

This is the neatest place!  Mom and Jim had been here before and had always wanted to bring us.  We loved it!

It is bigger than a football field!  And as warm as a bath tub!  Sooooo great!

My silly kids!

We had so much fun.  We could stay in as long as we wanted because it was so nice and warm!  I think Andrew and Kerigan could have stayed all night!

They had these neat seats that you could put in quarters and they would blow bubbles like a hot tub!  It was like a massage chair and so awesome!  Kerigan loved it!  I think we both could have stayed there all night!  Ha!

In the morning we got up, took our time and walked around Glenwood Springs for a little while.  It is such a cute little town nestled in the mountains!

There is a neat little bridge you can walk across the river and see the hot springs from up above.

To the left in this photo you can see the Amtrak station.  It is pretty cool you can take the train from close to where we live, all the way here!  Ga Ga and Papa want to bring us back on the train sometime in the winter!  Sounds good to me!

This was such a cute story... We had seen these Jake and the Neverland pirate boats at Target before our trip.  Andrew was so thrilled about them.  I told him he better wait because at Disneyland they were going to have a lot of things he was going to want.  At Disney he looked all over for Jake stuff, and they didn't have hardly anything!  Definitely nothing as cool as this ship!  So Ga Ga said she would get it for him at Target (she had promised to get him something at Disney but since he didn't find anything- he waited!  Of course, mommy bought him some things from Disney though!  Ha!)  Anyway, so in Glenwood Springs we stopped at Target and he got the ship.  He literally played with it the entire rest of the way home (all the way through Nebraska!)  I was amazed.  He did so great in the car.  Both kids really did well in the car.  Kerigan only got fussy a few times, but she was pretty easily consoled.  We figured out how to strap Andrew's portable DVD player over her seat so she could see a TV too (since she is backwards and can't see the one in our van).  We spent one more night in Nebraska before making our way home.

This ends our vacation updates!  I have loved going back through and writing about our memories.  It is always such a fun way to document everything and tell all the stories from our trip.  And I finished just in time because I have lots more to share of some other summer adventures before school starts in a couple of weeks!  This summer flew by!