One Year. One Week. One Day

On Dec 21st, Arden was One year, one week and one day old. On Dec 21st, Arden started walking. Not just a couple of steps. I'm talking across the room. Now, she can walk from room to room, yes, still wobbly and of course she still falls, but she's not crawling very much...unless she's being chased! She usually walks with her hands up or out. So cute.
Here is a short video from December 21:



Nonni taught Arden to give hugs and it's so cute. I'll try to get a picture of it. She has been giving kisses since the first week of December too.

Christmas

Arden's loot

Ok, so the rocking horse was a birthday gift she hadn't seen yet so we added it to make her pile look better.
On Christmas Eve she got to open a gift from Nonni and Grandpa which was the train in front that she loves. She was very careful and s-l-o-w when opening her gifts, but she seemed to know what she was doing.

Aren't her little Christmas pj's adorable?!


Ever since I can remember, I've had fried dough Christmas morning. Well I found a recipe for cinnamon rolls that sounded amazing and I really wanted to try them, so we decided to make the fried dough Christmas Eve and the rolls Christmas morning. Well the dough didn't rise enough in 10 hours, so we ended up doing the fried dough Christmas morning and the cinnamon rolls the following morning. I have never made cinnamon rolls before, but I do think that these were amazingly perfect. I'm not sure what everyone else thought, but my house smelled like Cinnabon. The icing wasn't too sweet, they were so soft, but the only thing I would've changed would be the amount of cinnamon/sugar inside. I loaded the stuff on and actually thought I put too much so I didn't use all that the recipe called for, but after they cooked, you could barely see it. It just disappeared! They were still amazing. They actually weren't very hard to make, just time consuming.



After Arden's nap, we went to my dad's. Arden made out like a bandit. My dad bought her a shopping cart and filled it with toys. She just loves to push her cart around, but she doesn't like anything in the basket. She's OK with her baby doll in the front, but everytime we put something in the basket, she stops throws the toy out and continues. I guess she's a saver not a spender...or she just expects everyone else to buy her what she wants. =)



Clarisa got boots!




Here is Little Miss thing skipping out on her morning nap so she could spend a little more time with Auntie Becky, Uncle Paul and Madison before they went back home.

Battle Of The Colds

We've been battling sickness around here for the past week and a half. It all started with Arden and she probably picked it up from the doctors office from her WELL 12 month check up.

(Arden and Uncle Greg)

Dec 19th she woke up 3 hours early screaming. Later that day, the runny nose came.

Arden and Grandpa just before he left

On Sunday night, Derek's parents both started feeling sick (both have colds). On Tuesday night, Arden woke up vomiting and shivering. I got her out of bed and she threw up on me, so I took her to the bathroom and she threw up again. I gave her a quick bath and got her dressed and rocked her to sleep. That usually isn't possible because she likes to move and climb and play even if she's tired. She is definitely NOT a cuddler. So when she laid on me without moving, I knew she felt pretty bad. She went back to sleep pretty quick and woke up in a good mood.

Sick, but still a cutie pie
Unfortunately, Derek's mom was sick her last week visiting. The Tuesday before Christmas, I started feeling bad ad had a sore throat. Christmas Eve, I felt better and was fine until Dec 28. It hit me like a brick. I felt horrible Monday and Tuesday but today I feel good and Arden is totally over her cold.

Milk

I have been expressing milk for ONE YEAR (plus a couple of weeks but whose really counting?). I can't believe it. When I first had Arden, I decided that I would pump from the get go since I was going back to work (THAT was short-lived!)and I didn't want to have any problems getting her to take a bottle so we went straight to the bottle. I also felt it was very important to give her breastmilk if I was able to for all the nutrients and immunities that you can't get from formula. I was gonna do whatever it took to reach my goal of one year. How quickly, in those first couple weeks my goal changed to three months. That's all. I just wanted to make it to three months. Three months passed and I said, "well maybe I can go to six months." Then Arden turned six months old and pumping was second nature to me. I was on a schedule like Arden, pumping 5 times a day, until a few weeks ago, I dropped down to four.

At the beginning, they told me I would have to supplement. There was no way I could give Arden breast milk exclusively because pumps 'just aren't as strong as a baby's mouth in getting milk out" so I wouldn't produce enough pumping alone. The first 4 days of her life, I supplemented with formula, until my milk started picking up. The third week, she was having a growth spurt and I had to give her formula for one feeding. She had one taste and threw it up. Since then, we never looked back.

I have produced so much milk that three times, I have donated it to other babies. Approx. 300oz each time and I'm about to donate again.

My first donation of frozen milk taking over our freezer when Arden was 5-6 months old



That first donation went to a three year old boy with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He is confined to a bed or wheelchair that lays flat and can't talk, move or digest proteins and since breast milk is broken down, it's one of the best things for him.

Second donation when Arden was 8 months old



My second and third (at 10 months old) donation went to a little girl who is a few days younger than Arden. She was slow to grow and ro get on the charts.
There is a group called milkshare that I joined to find recipients. I'm sure some people think it's the weirdest thing to have your baby drink someone else's breast milk and I'm not saying I'd ever do it, but there are a lot of people out there who feel that it truly is 'liquid gold' and the best thing for their babies even if it is someone else's.
When I first decided that I needed room in the freezer for food and I should probably get rid of some milk and I couldn't keep up with rotating it, I looked into donating it to the US Milk Bank but you have to be tested before you package the milk up you want to donate and since I already had some that needed to go, I found MilkShare- a group of people looking to donate and a group of people looing to receive. Also- it's very disappointing that the Milk Bank charges an arm and leg for milk they get for free!

My Medela became my best friend. That thing has been everywhere. I pump in the car, while feeding Arden, while sewing, and apparently while sleeping. One night, so very long ago when I was back at work, I was EXHAUSTED and pumping my last pump for the day. It was about 10PM and I fell asleep. I woke up TWO HOURS later...still pumping. ouch.

I am so thankful that I was able (and still am!) to give Arden the best milk for her first year. I plan to continue with it until winter is over for the immunity factor. I figure if she's going to drink milk anyway, why not.

Merry Christmas!

(obviously Arden wasn't about to sit on santa's lap alone) I was not planning to have my picture taken this night and I wasn't planning to use this as our Christmas card, but due to rain canceling our photo shoot and other activities, it's all we had =)

Playdates

Arden's first playdate ever was with Trey. We met Trey and Rebecca at a place called Romp N Roll. Arden seemed to enjoy it and loved climbing.

She constantly went in and out of this pool:




The following week, we had another playdate with a group of babies. Our next playdate with Trey was to a pumpkin patch, but I already posted those pictures.
On 11.19.09 we went to Monkey Joes. Trey didn't really like the inflatable stuff because of the way the bottom sinks in when you move, but Arden loved it. She really loved the slides too.



Here is Arden watching 'Monkey Joe' walk away to say 'hi' to the other kids. He spent a few minutes playing with Arden and she LOVED it. This girl loves characters dressed up. We took her to a Checkers game and she loved Chubby the mascot so much that she cried when he left her. They brought the mic over to her and tried to get her cracking up on the jumbo tron but they couldn't get the camera guy over (they were shorthanded that night and didn't have a camera on our side like usual). Everyone in the sections around us were watching and laughing. Chubby would barely touch Arden's belly, and Arden would laugh hysterically. EVERY TIME. So so cute.



On 12.10.09, we went to the mall with Trey to have their pictures taken with Santa. They LOVED it.


Afterward, they played with the trains at the bookstore.




On 12.16.09 we had a play date with a cute little girl from church, Emery. She is a few weeks younger than Arden. They have played together very well at church a few times, but seemed to do their own thing most of time this date, and Arden was somewhat clingy.

The Party

On Saturday, Dec 12th, we had Arden's party with just family. I think that was still a little overwhelming and overstimulating for her. Not to mention she is also VERY clingy to her mom lately and she's teething (the big guns are on their way!) I spent way too much time on her cake, but it was delicious. I started out making a "mad hatter" or "topsy turvy" cake, but I didn't cut enough of an angle to really tell because I decided to put a cream cheese filling in between and if I would've angled it more, it wouldn't have really worked.

I started making the cakes the night before the party and it took two hours with Derek's mom helping me! Saturday morning, I made Arden's cake and the filling and put everything together and frosted it which took me right up until 5 minutes before people were to arrive. That morning I did my relaxing before the chaos and Derek and I went to our church Christmas Breakfast for some yummy food.

We were so happy that Derek's parents and brother made it to the party from Buffalo, and my aunt and uncle came from TN.


Arden didn't care much about opening anything, but she loved her cards.



Arden had no problem wearing a birthday hat at her buddy, Trey's party the week before....



...so I made one for her to wear at her party and of course she wouldn't wear it.

Not even for one picture.

Arden wasn't interested in touching her cake. She seems to be a clean freak. She would only eat it if it was fed to her. I guess the icing is too messy for her liking. Silly girl.
This was her first taste of it.


This picture below really trips me out because Trey did not want anything to do with his own birthday cake, but he demolished Arden's! He didn't care about eating it, he just dug in and Arden was bothered by a crumb on her hand. They are so funny.



Miss Arden and Miss Clarisa



I just love the beginning of this video when Arden is telling Derek with her 'sign language' to feed her some cake. hehe.

Happy Birthday Little ONE!!!

Happy First Birthday, Arden Brielle!!!! Arden had her 1 year check up today, and here are her stats:

Weight: 22.7lbs ((75%)
Height: 31.5in (99%) (after going over the stats, the Dr said she would be about 5'6", MAYBE 5'9" pssshhhh. whatever)
Head 46cm (80%)

We are SO grateful to have Arden in our life. This has been a wonderful year and she is just so fun.
She loves music.
She laughs when she sneezes.
She loves to talk on our cell phones.
She laughs when other people laugh.
She loves to climb on things and people.
She likes to throw her toys.
She loves books and prefers to read them on her own.
She waves a lot.
She loves meat, especially chicken.
She loves Elmo.
She likes to dance.
She thinks feathers and dusters are so funny.
She loves baths.
She is dainty.
She is shy until she warms up to people.
She loves to put on a show.
She likes to hide.
She loves to walk with someone holding her hand.
She is so stinkin cute.

Last Friday (12.11.09), she took two steps to her dad and Tuesday (12.15.09) she took two steps while holding onto her balloons and tonight she took three steps while talking on my phone.
Arden is down to 4 bottles a day. She eats breakfast (usually a slice of whole wheat toast- sometimes with babyfood fruit spread on it, sometimes plain and she likes livermush! score!!) lunch and dinner. She likes most things as long as she can feed herself, except peaches. It seems like she only eats them if I feed them to her. She's so crazy!!

Music

Short video of Arden dancing with her FAVORITE hat on. She LOVES this hat.

Meals.

Arden clears her plate for every meal....

The food may not all get eaten, but she makes sure it's not left on her tray. Drink included.

ThanksGiving

This year, we enjoyed two thanksgiving dinners...hmm well actually every year we enjoy two. The more food, the better in my book! We had lunch with my Dad's side of the family, at my aunt's house. I brought Praline Pumpkin Dessert (which I think puts pumpkin pie to shame). When I was baking it, I was attempting to multitask and I left it in the oven a little too long and burnt half of it. I was thankful that I could at least salvage part of it though.
For some reason, I didn't take any pictures there, but hopefully my dad got some good ones. This was Arden's last "first" holiday...well other than her first birthday. She had her fist taste of turkey and ham. No surprise that she liked both. There isn't a meat that she hasn't liked yet. She usually eats her meat first. I have started giving her veggie burgers, which she also gobbles right up. She also had cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, cornbread, carrots, and sweet potato casserole. She doesn't like carrots as much as she used to, but she can surely eat some green beans.
Arden kept wanting to climb the stairs and I had already gone up twice with her and didn't really want to keep following her up. My uncle came in and went up with her and they were up there for maybe 30 minutes and when he brought her back down, she had the biggest smile on her face. It was soooo cute. If you know Arden, you know she doesn't really like 'strangers.' My uncle loves kids and is so good with them.
After a few hours, we went home and put Arden down for her nap and Derek and I ended up falling asleep ourselves while the carrots were roasting to take to Ashley's house (thankfully I did not burn those too!). I woke up at 6PM-when we were supposed to start eating! Luckily their turkey was still frozen so they were moving to plan B and we weren't late!

Arden enjoying her 2nd thanksgiving meal in her cousin's highchair and wearing his bib, because for the life of me, I cannot remember to but a bib in her diaper bag!
My crazy sisters and brother in law 'hitting the bottle'. shame on you Ashley drinking while you have a precious baby sleeping on you!

Arden spotted the jewelry, then attempted to take it all. Jewelry is what the girl loves.

Train.

Two nights ago, Derek and I went to see Train perform.



One of the Best. Bands. EVER.





It was a very great show- other than the beginning when I got into a fight with a total weirdo. He kept leaving and coming back to his spot (standing room only) and putting his arm in my face to take pictures. After like the fifth time leaving, he was gone a few minutes so I thought maybe he got enough pictures and wasn't coming back and so I moved up. Well what do you know that grease ball came back and was trying to push myself and another lady who had moved up as well. So be both turned around and laid into him- me in one ear, her in the other telling him that at a general admission concert you can't come and go as you please that close to the stage and expect to get your spot back. He started cursing and saying things we couldn't understand and then tried to push me over so he could stand in front of me. I wasn't moving. Derek was a few feet behind so when he saw the pushing match, he stepped in. All the guy could say was "you don't know me. you don't know who I am." blah blah. total loser. Other than that, the show was AMAZING.

Me and Pat two years ago on his solo tour-

Five Years Down....

and many more to come....
(I ate too much Dessert Pizza tonight. Can we say stomach ache?)

I have many updates running through my head...hopefully I can blog about them soon!