Twelve Months/One Year

How on earth has a year gone by already? I can’t even wrap my head around how quickly my little Chubby Chicken has grown. It seems like just yesterday we were terrified new parents bringing her home from the hospital. Regardless, Happy Birthday to my little Lovey Love, my Missy Miss, my little Isla Emily!

At one year …

She:
– Weighs 23lbs

– Loves to tear around the house with her walker and walks while holding on your hands. I’m not too worried that she’s not walking yet – in fact, I prefer it because she already gets into enough mischief crawling and using her walker! But, with the amount of unassisted standing she’s been doing, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before she’s running everywhere. *sob*

– Still only has 4 teeth. There’s a couple teeth just waiting to bust through, but they’ve been teasing her for quite a while. We have our good and bad teething days, to say the least.

– Has had her first haircut! At the beginning of the month I finally took her to the salon to have a little trim. She did SO well and it only took about 15 minutes to trim everything up! No more baby mullet and no more crazy hair in her eyes!

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The top two photos are the “before” pics and the bottom two are the “after.” It was seriously impossible to take these photos. She was a very squirmy girl that morning! The sad this is that her hair is already starting to get long again. It must grow fast like her mom’s!

– Happily feeds herself and now eats whatever we eat for dinner! So far she seems to love pasta, blueberries, steak and peanut butter toast. She took the transition to more flavourful foods very easily and was really excited to experience different layers of flavours. No more plain, boiled chicken & veggies for this little girl!

I:
– Am now starting to contemplate how insane my life may or may not become with two kids. Kyle and I know we would like at least one more (a boy), if not two (to try for a boy if attempt #2 yields us an XX). Like I said before, it still feels like I JUST had Isla, but really, a 2-year “gap” between our kiddo’s ages is what we’re aiming for. Am I ready to be pregnant again? Will the next one be the same as my pregnancy with Isla? What if it’s horrible the next time around? Ugh.

– Have adjusted to life as a SAHM. Yeah, sometimes I crave interaction with the public (“What? We need to go to the store? YAAAAAY PEOPLE!!!!”), but in the end, raising Isla the way I want to is what it all boils down to.

– Overall am loving being a mom. Growing up, bearing children was never something I dreamed of doing, nor was it something I was against, but something eventually “clicked” inside me that made my head and heart know that I wanted to be a mom. Sure, I’m not the perfect parent (who is?), but I think I’m doing a damn good job raising a pretty awesome little girl. Being able to watch Isla explore, play, and learn something new everyday is amazingly rewarding and feels so good for my soul.

Photo:

12 Months

One month
Two months
Three months
Four months

Five months
Six months
Seven months
Eight months
Nine months
Ten months
Eleven months

Listy … whatever

I was going to write a post for Friday, but got busy with awesome stuff life, so I’m doing it today!

– Isla’s been doing a lot of walking along with her little walker for a few weeks now, and since her legs are getting stronger, she’s been doing an amazing job at standing on her own two feet with no support! It started out as a couple seconds, then 30, then longer and longer! It’s only going to be a matter of time before she’s full-blown walking, at which point I can kiss my sanity goodbye.

– How stoked are you for Instavideo? Okay, so it’s suppose to be Instagram’s competitor for the Vine app and I must admit that I like it. It’s great because it’s already integrated into the Instagram app, so there’s no need to open an completely different app to take short little videos to post. I never downloaded Vine (because it’s not like I needed another social media vice) but I’m loving the little videos you can take. Here’s one I took yesterday of Isla playing outside with the garden hose, and if anyone knows how to actually embed them into WordPress, that would be a fun little tidbit of info I’d love to have!

– When Kyle and I moved into our house back in 2011, we were depressed by the hideous wallpaper job that was in our laundry room:

Laundry room - That wallpaper is GOING!

It was starting to fall off in some places where the previous owners wallpapered on top of wallpaper for a “border” and really? It was just not our style. (Like that shouldn’t surprise you.) So, on a whim last week, we finally decided to buy wallpaper stripper and see how much work it was going to be to remove it. And? It came off relatively easily! There’s quite a bit of glue left over on the walls, but with a little TSP and some elbow grease, it’s coming off slowly but surely. We even took the “country bumpkin” border down off of our little dining room window area, and amazingly, it opened up the room!
The one thing that is super annoying and a little strange is this bright yellow paint that’s on just one wall in the laundry room. It almost looks like the previous owners started to paint the room yellow, said to themselves, “Screw this! Painting is too much work!” and put up wallpaper. (Which I personally think would be more work). Regardless, we’re going to have to do a couple coats of paint to cover the awfulness back up. Ugh. In the photo you can see the wallpaper while it was still on the walls, the mess we made taking it all down, and the yucky yellow crappy paint (which is MUCH brighter in person, I swear).

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– Tomorrow Kyle starts his holidays from work and I’m super jazzed that we’ll be able to spend some time together! He got the time off for Isla’s birthday (more on that later) and we’re really looking forward to getting to just be a family. It’s also his first Canada Day off in what seems like YEARS, so we’re looking forward to heading to the park for the take and take in all of the sights and sounds. I’ve already bought Isla a patriotic onesie to wear for her first REAL Canada Day celebration. (The first one we were all too exhausted to care!)

– Isla’s birthday is on SATURDAY!!! I still can’t believe she’ll be a year old – How does time go by this quickly? It’s not even fair :( Tomorrow it will be a year since I was actually due with her! I digress … I am planning a fun little get together with all of her favourite friends and family. I think there’s about 25 people coming because I got a wee bit carried away with the guest list. Regardless, it will be a fun time and we’re looking forward to celebrating her big day!

– My little brother is in town for 10 days or so, so it’s been nice to be able to see him and for him to spend some time with his little niece. I thought for sure she’d play shy, but she warmed right up to him immediately. He’s even going to be here for his birthday, so it’s a bonus!

– I don’t know what it is – if it’s because my house backs onto green space or if Mother Nature is just being extra evil this season, but my allergies have been extra awful this year. When I was pregnant last year at this time my allergies weren’t bugging me at all, but this year? UGH. If you see me on the street looking like a hot mess with snot running down my face, it’s just allergies. I swear.

– Last week was my first official week as a Stay-at-Home-Mom. I’m 50/50 about my feelings towards it so far. On one hand I enjoy being at home with Isla and raising her, but at the same time, I miss bringing home a bit of the bacon and feeling like I’m contributing financially to the household. One day I’m sure I’ll get back into the workforce, but until then, I’ll just chill out with my little spawn. And I told Kyle that if I ever suggest that I start selling Avon, Mary Kay or Tupperware, that he is to shoot me.

I suppose that’s all for today.

Happy Monday!!

June21,2013