One-year-old Jane

A few things about Jane at 1:

Jane almost always has Buster (her bunny) with her.  She carefully grabs him by the ear before crawling around and uses him as a pillow when she gets tired.  She has two other stuffed animals she loves: Sprinkles (her duck) and Tommy (her Tiger), but Buster by far gets the most attention.

In the last couple of days she sprouted two new teeth.  Finally.  She got her bottom two several months ago and now you can see her two front teeth just broke through.  She handles teething like a champ.

Just this week Jane waved "bye bye" for the first time, blew her first kisses, and started doing a few of the actions to some of her regular songs.  

Jane's a pretty sensitive girl.  Sometimes other more aggressive but generally well meaning babies will grab at Jane's face or hair or take a toy from her and she doesn't handle it well.  She gets this look like "why are you doing this to me" and then slowly her lower lip slides out and she breaks down in sad tears.  Maybe a little brother will help toughen her up.

Jane weighs 17.2 lbs (11%ile), is 28 inches long (11%ile), and has a head circumference of 18 inches (71%ile).  I'm sure she'll grow into her head some day.

Jane loves eating and starts giggling and twisting from side to side when she sees one of her favorites on its way to her tray.  Some of her favorites include grapes, instant oatmeal, any kind of pasta, avocados, and yogurt.  She does NOT like tomatoes or bread. 

She doesn't walk yet, but she loves cruising around furniture or pushing anything that moves.  She stands by herself only when we stealthily pull our hands away.  As soon as she realizes she's standing independently, she carefully lowers herself to the ground.

Jane is really in to giving and receiving these days.  She loves to hand things to me and then holds out her hand for me to give it back.  When she hands me something, I always say thank you and consequently, she seems to understand that she is supposed to say something when she receives it back, but what she says changes all the time.

I think she knows the words ma ma and da da, but she uses them for more than just her parents so it's kind of hard to tell how often she really means it.

Also, how do you get her to smile from behind the camera?  Tell her the story of the 3 Little Pigs.  It's been a favorite since she was a few months old.  

 Isn't she so sweet?

These ones where taken at Lisa's house in Colorado Springs.

Birthday Girl

Jane's actual birthday was while I was in Colorado Springs visiting my sister.  We got a free cupcake from Barnes & Noble and decided to celebrate with a little candle and a happy birthday song.  Megan helped her blow out the candle and the cupcake was set in front of her, but just as she went to touch the freshly blown out wick, Lisa said "Oh, don't touch that," and quickly grabbed her hand.  Well, Jane is a sensitive soul and it was all over after that.  She had no interest in the cupcake and even her new books from Lisa couldn't stop the tears.  It was a good practice round I guess.

We celebrated her birthday a week later when we were home with Chris again.  Jane did much better the second time around.  As you can see, she still goes straight for the wick (and even tried to eat it), but we let it cool down more first.  Then, as we expected, she approached the cupcake slowly and cautiously.  Chris had to get some frosting on her tongue to get her excited about it.  

She got her little fingers in it a few times and then opted for the face directly in the cupcake approach. Still she remained dainty and feminine with her hands to the sides as if she didn't want to get them dirty.  Eventually, she got a little more handsy and after cleaning up the frosting, reduced her to cupcake to a pile of crumbs.  I think it's safe to say she liked it though.  

 

 

 Jane loves balloons.  She has had so much fun chasing these around.  She even dove on top of one and it flipped her onto her back so fast she had no idea how she got there.

 Jane got a new dress with cute little shoes, her first baby doll from her friend Mariah, and a set of blocks push toy thing.  Jane loves to push things around the house (ie her little rocking chair, the stepping stool in the kitchen, daddy's long board, etc) but none of them really work. When she stood up at the handle of this walking toy she was all smiles cruising back and forth across the room.  The only problem is she can't turn it around, so she smiles and giggles all the way across the room and then hits the wall repeatedly and shakes the toy until someone comes to redirect it.  Sorry, I really didn't get great pictures of presents time.

 

 

California

We ended up being in California for two weeks (Only slightly longer than we expected since our home wasn't ready for us to move into it yet.)  It was a pretty relaxed trip with multiple beach days and trips to the pool and of course lots and lots of games nights.  We love games nights with the Reids and it was so fun to see their tiny new baby only a couple weeks old.  

 

We also went to the Getty one afternoon and checked out some of the art exhibits.  I loved the architecture of the museum itself most of all. It's such a cool place.