Hannah and her Tricks

I know there have been lots of picture updates lately, but beyond that I haven't really given a whole lot of info on Hannah. She's doing so many neat things and is having a lot of fun (as usual) exploring her house everyday. For starters, she had her one year check up last week and she is still on her normal track...really tall and skinny. She was 18 lbs. 9.5 oz which is somewhere around 13% if I remember correctly and 30 3/4 in which is 93% I think. She is growing well and the doctor said that if she keeps this up she could be a six footer! Wouldn't that be amazing?!? I always wanted to be tall and well, I'm not so I think it would be super if my daughter was tall...I guess it would make up for me not being tall. But then again, who knows...I guess we will know in 12-15 years! At the doctor's appointment, I asked about weening her and the doc said the best way to ween off of the bottle is cold turkey. So, that's what we did. The first few days Hannah was not a fan of drinking milk out of her sippy cup, but she's getting better. She's also eating more and more of what we eat which I have been a little stressed about because I am not the best lunch eater. I love breakfast and have been incorporating more fruits & veggies into dinner for a long time now. Lunch however...I fall short. I really don't like lunch and have always struggled with what to do for lunch because I really don't care for sandwiches. Anyway, all of that to say, I have issues, I know. I just found an amazing website though that has baby/toddler food, www.weelicious.com, and I am excited to try some out next week!

Sorry for the digression. I was talking about Hannah's "tricks." For one, she's walking now. She took her first steps several weeks ago, but was far more interested in crawling than walking, despite the excessive praise that she got when she walked. Then, after a week of people being at her beckon call to carry her everywhere she needed to go, she had to buck up and practice her walking. She's gotten much better, although she's still a little wobbly and goes back to crawling when she's tired. While that's exciting and all, it's not nearly her cutest thing that she is doing right now. She is so funny and you just never know what she's going to do next.

The girl is definitely my daughter. While I don't LOVE shopping and am very cheap when I do shop, I have always had a special place in my heart for shoes. Given the opportunity I would buy shoes over anything else. I love them, and so does she! This kid is awesome! She tries to put on any pair of shoes that she can. My sister was even trying on some shoes at the mall when she was here, and Hannah snuck over to try some on too! Hilarious! So needless to say, the picture above is not an uncommon sight in our house these days. Hannah will just be walking along and then stop to try on whatever shoe happens to be lying around as she is passing. Super cute!
This is just one of her many new outfits that she has been sporting lately. This is an outfit from Las Vegas, but as you can see in many of the previous posts, she is sporting some seriously cute clothes. My new favorite place to get baby clothes is H&M. It's a trendy little store in NY where my sister bought a bunch of stuff. I remember seeing it the first time I went to NYC in Time's Square and thinking that they had really cute clothes (they have adult clothes too), but I just figured it was super pricey (because it was in Times Square). I was wrong...it's really reasonable. Cheap+stylish=Super cute Hannah!

Is this adorable or what? How is it possible for this to be comfortable? I don't know, but apparently it is. I love watching her sleep. It's just so peaceful. Another thing she is doing is putting lotion on. Faking it of course. She pretends to do so many things. She fakes putting on lotion, brushing her hair, pretends to eat stuff, and my favorite is when she pretends to talk on my cell phone. She puts it to her ear and says "elro?" which we think is Hannah talk for "hello." So stinkin cute, but I am totally bias!

She is also facing forward in her carseat. Here she is sleeping, but normally she gets fired up in the car. We get to a certain place every time and realize that she has been chatting it up the whole time. It's like she can now be apart of our conversations or something. While she only know She's also been religious about giving high fives and blowing kisses!

And tonight she added a new cute thing...eating popsicles. She has eaten a few before, but never by herself. A friend of ours mentioned that a popsicle might help her teeth feel better, so I bought a box of those all fruit bars. Her favorite, of course, is lime. She likes any and everything that citrus, including lemons and oranges. I just thought this was so cute, so I had to snap a picture. And what's even more incredible is that she ate the whole thing! Things got a little dicey once she got towards the end because she couldn't reach the popsicle part anymore, but not to worry. She figured it out and just pushed it to the top of the stick. Well, I guess I can be done bragging about my sweet baby. I know that technically she's a toddler now, but until she tells me any different, she is going to be my sweet baby.

Hannah's First Bubble Bath

If you can't tell, she loved it! Not only did she love playing with the bubbles, but she also thought they tasted good. So far she doesn't have the runs from eating soap, but we'll see how long that lasts!

The Par-tay!

Sorry it has taken me so long to put these pics up. Blogger has been super slow at uploading photos so I lost motivation. These are some of the pictures from the big day, which ended up being a super success (at least to us). We had the party at our new house which was so much fun. It was so great to have a place to entertain people again, as our house right now feels cramped with just two or three additional people! Enjoy!

Jon and Cindy (his mom) decorated the basement before the party. They did a fabulous job!
Cindy playing with Hannah in her new car. The kid loves that thing and now when we go to the new house, the first thing she does is walks right over and climbs in.

Jon's hanging the streamers.

My dad and I were just down there checking the place out...we can't actually claim that we helped with any of the decorating!View of the whole basement, almost totally decorated.

"Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Hannah. Happy Birthday to you!" By far her favorite part of the whole party was when the entire room turned to her and started singing!

Cake with her grandmas!

Nibbling on her cake while posing with Grandma Cindy.

Yes, that's a monkey pinata hanging from the ceiling fan! Well done, Jon. Well done.

Balloons! I know you aren't supposed to let babies have balloons because they can choke or something, but Hannah LOVED the balloons.

Monkey Cake! This was a group effort, although I have to say that my sister's decorating skills are what made the cake!

Sweet monkey & banana cookies that we made...there were also sheep!

Hannah, wearing her birthday crown, with her Auntie.

Jon and Cindy relaxing now that the party is underway!

Hannah with our friend Sally...so cute!

Now this cracked me up...Hannah does and always has shoved food in her face. It's like she stores it in her chipmunk cheeks. Not the case with the cake...I guess she wasn't all that crazy about it or something because she took tiny little pinches and ate them. Totally opposite of what I expected! She got a little messy, but it took a while and we sort of helped her along with it. Funny girl!

Jon, Hannah, and me posing with our friend Chrissy. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of Chrissy's kids in here...they were so good at playing with Hannah and helping her open her presents! Well I guess there will be other opportunities down the road!

Me, Chrissy, and Sally.

One last family photo to wrap up the post!

Hannah's Birthday Week

It was a wild an crazy week to say the least. It all kind of started the weekend before when we met up with Jon's parents and grandparents in Denver. Hannah was a major grump, in part due to her new tooth that she was getting, that weekend so we didn't get to take that many pictures. Then my sister came into town on Tuesday, Dad Wednesday, Mom Thursday, and Cindy Friday and the party on Saturday! My sister, Hannah, and I did a lot of shopping (at least for me anyway), we all helped plan the party, ate out, and baked up a store! It was a great week, although I have to admit, Hannah and I have been sleeping in and napping a little this week in order to recover! These are just going to be pictures of the things going on in the week. I will do a separate post of her actual party.

This was Hannah "helping" me get our house ready for guests! Those DVD's that are on the shelf eventually came down too, so I just decided to pack them up for the move.
My sister came into town bearing large amounts of gifts, as she finds great baby clothes in NYC for Hannah. This was on of the gifts that she brought for Hannah...every one year old needs a birthday crown to parade around in all week. Isn't it adorable?

My mom sent Hannah some sunglasses and I have been trying to get her to wear them lately. The sun is harsher here in the higher altitudes, so it's always good to start early with the shades.

Sporting one of her new sundresses from her Auntie along with her new shades, while practicing walking.

We had to go to Party World (or Galaxy or Center, whatever it's called) for some party supplies and had to take a few moments to pose in some sweet shades with the birthday girl.

My poor Dad got into town when we were on our way to the mall, so he had to meet us there. What a trooper, eh? I think the little girl to the right made it worth it for him!

Trying on her Auntie's shoes while her Auntie was trying on her shoes.

Gotta give this guy a shout-out! We went to the zoo, one because it was finally nice out, and two because Jon and I got Hannah a family membership to the zoo for her birthday. The first exhibit in the zoo are the giraffes. You can buy crackers for them, feed them, and pet them. They are super close and really cool. It's one of the things I love about the zoo here in the Springs...the animals are so interactive!

Jon and Hannah, up close and personal with some "skunk monkeys" as Jon calls them.

Us three girls posing for a moment. Notice Hannah is wearing her shades! She really liked them when the sun was shining in her eyes.

Posing for another photo.

Her new favorite thing..."pushing" the cart or stroller. She can do it forever...there was a bar near the bottom of the cart at Hobby Lobby that was the perfect height for her when standing up and she pushed it all over the store like this! It was so funny, yet it's also difficult to hold her when she is trying to push!

Climbing up the stairs...one of her favorite past times!

The same way that the family came, they left...one at a time. My sister was the first and the last to go. She did that on purpose so that she would have some time to hang out with Hannah alone. So, we were helping her pack her stuff since she had a lot of stuff to bring home from our multiple shopping excursions. Hannah came into the room and immediately climbed in to the suitcase! She spent the next 30-45 minutes climbing in and out of the suitcase. It's the little things that are most entertaining sometimes!

Where to Begin??

How about the beginning! These last few weeks have been crazy busy what with Hannah's birthday and all. It's amazing to think about how much she has changed herself and changed us in this last year. She has gone from this completely helpless little being to a walking, talking (at least in her own way), squirmy, and independent little girl. It has been one incredible year and I cannot imagine our lives without her.

Easter

We had a great Easter this year. Our church was asking for volunteers, so rather than attend a service, we decided to give back a little and volunteered in the nursery. So Hannah went to her normal room and we went downstairs to hang out with a bunch of four year olds! It was fun, but we were super exhausted after playing with 20+ four year olds...Jon after all, was the human jungle gym for all the kids! We also had stayed up late the night before, and slept terrible at our new house the night before that, so needless to say we were pooped at the end of the day! Then we went to our new house and Jon and Hannah took a nap while I made sweet potatoes and did a little cleaning. We went to our new place because it is only five minutes from the place that we were going for lunch. So then we had a late lunch at our friends house and ended up hanging out until 6:30 or 7:00 eating, playing old school Nintendo, and just visiting. It was so nice to have people to hang out with and share Easter with. Otherwise, Jon, Hannah, and I would have ended up having a ridiculously overdone Easter meal for 10 because I can't cook meals like that for less than that! So anyway, on to the good stuff...pictures, right? Well here goes!

Sorry about the poor photography skills on these, but I decided to make Hannah some "Easter Eggs" for her Easter Basket since she can't really have candy yet.
So I wrapped them up individually in saran wrap and decided that I would take them to lunch once we were done using them in Hannah's basket.

You didn't know that the Easter Bunny was so stinking cute did you? I thought it was really funny and appropriate that she was sleeping in a white onsie the night before!

"Hmm...What's this?" It's an insulated sippy cup which she will need for her milk in a couple of weeks once she doesn't have to use a bottle anymore!

Big smiles! She was loving being on the table next to her basket...and she was definitely cheesing it up for the cameras that were flashing (that's right both our real camera & our cell phones).

I love this picture because it really looks like she was trying to open up the cookie for a bite. But really, she was just trying to eat the plastic...it's a bad habit that she's got. That and eating paper products like toilet paper and kleenex.

We had to try on both of her headbands that she got in the dollar section at Target. Jon's favorite is the flower, but mine is actually the bunny ears!

Dressed and ready for action! I don't know what she was trying to eat...maybe my camera lens or the camera itself...don't know, but it makes for a funny photo!

Looking pretty in one of her Easter dresses. She has a few more to sport but I wasn't on top of it this time around, so she will have to wear them after!

Hannah LOVES the stairs. Have I mentioned that before? She knows anytime you forget to close the baby gate. In this case, we were at our friends' house and they did not have a baby gate. Let me tell you, I spent A LOT of time on the stairs chasing Hannah!

Good view of her dress. Isn't it adorable?? I LOVE Target!

Snapping a shot of the two of us when we were playing.

Oh man, is this flower picture amazing or what?? My friend Sally took it and it came out great. Hannah was really enjoying Easter, can you tell?

Finally, a picture of the three of us. It didn't turn out so well because Hannah's not looking at the camera, but it's the only one we got from the whole day so it will have to do!