I have seen tons of posts of Instagram of montages of pictures from profiles throughout the year and of course I had to jump on the bandwagon. I loved seeing all of the pictures from early in the year that reminded me how tiny Henley once was and of how far we have come.
I got a notification on my phone from Google + and it was another video montage and this one has to be the best!
I honestly cannot even begin to summarize 2013 in a way that will truly convey what a year it has been! We rang in the New Year by going to bed at 8pm with a 2-week old baby, being woken by fireworks, pooping up in bed to watch them over the river and immediately falling back asleep to enjoy a few minutes of sleep before Henley's next feeding. (longest sentence ever!)
Through all of the late nights, tears, pain, healing, growing, rolling over, crawling, eating, and walking I have learned that life is flying by. I have loved this year and am excited for what is to come in 2014.
We have all of the pictures back from our photographer, Niesha Rose Photography, and she is amazing!!! Niesha was so patient with Henley and took some great candid shots. I would highly recommend her to anyone local looking for some awesome pictures. She gave us a lot of shots but I thought I'd share some of my favorites here:
See!! She is amazing!
For all of the family out there, we will load these to a site and you can purchase prints if you'd like.
We made it. Henley is exactly one year old (almost to the minute of me starting this post) and what's even more exciting is that Ted's cousin just delivered her little girl! Birthday twins just one year apart, I'm waiting to hear what the exact time was because it should be really close!
Ted and I took the day off today and spent the whole day enjoying our perfect little baby. We started the day with waking at 6. By waking at six I mean we went to bed and didn't wake again until 6. This is the first time this has happened since I was pregnant. It was the perfect start to the day. We had breakfast and played with her new toys from her party. After nap time we went to Chik-fil-a for lunch then headed to the C'mon (Children's Museum of Naples). It was so fun!
This will be the last post for her monthly updates but don't worry---I'll keep updating you for her exciting and adorable pictures :-)
Today was the big birthday party, Henley's Winter Onederland! It was so amazing!! I cannot even put into words how grateful I am to have such loving and supportive friends and family in our lives. (warning this post is picture overload!)
I tried to do as much as I could for the party myself, mainly because I am totally addicted to crafting, but also because I wanted it to be special! I did get a few great things from Etsy though.
A few nights ago I got my scrapbook paper and cutters out and went to town on some paper garland. I strung it around the mirror in the dining room and on the window.
I also made Henley's outfit for the party.
I got some really cute decorations Etsy from Toadally Cute Parties. I got a packaged deal with the jpeg file for invitations, a high chair banner, cupcake labels, and a front door sign.
I also ordered personalized M&M's that said "Henley is One!" and "Dad and Mom Survived" ;-)
Luckily I had awesome awesome help for the party from my husband, sister, and bestie!
Party time!!
Henley has tons of cousins and friends that were able to come celebrate:
Smash cake time!
This day was truly special and we thank everyone that stopped by and was able to hang out and celebrate. I cannot believe she is one!! We will save the sobbing "I can't believe my baby is 1" talk for her actual one year post on Wednesday (you got a sneak peak at the chalk board here) :-)
It's coming to an end and it's so bittersweet. For the last year, I have been the main source of Henley's nutrition. I have provided her with everything she needed for the first six months exclusively. It is now coming to an end. While I am super excited to have my body back, I am extremely mourning the end of this relationship. The end of lying in bed nursing her while snuggling so sweetly. The end of nursing her while rocking with lullabies playing in the background. The end of her rubbing me as she nurses so sweetly.
I wasn't one of those people who always knew they would breastfeed. My mom never did it and it wasn't something I gave much thought to. Over the last 10 years or so, I have really become more conscious of what I am consuming and putting into my body and with this conscientiousness, I have learned that nature really knows what it's doing. When I got pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed and started educating myself right away. I read articles and blogs, discussed with friends, and took a class at the hospital. All of these were instrumental in preparing me for the journey I was about to begin with Henley.
When Henley was born, I was lucky enough to be able to have immediately skin to skin contact. I held her in my arms for a full hour (God bless my husband for giving me that time!). She latched immediately and nursed for a good thirty minutes or so. From then on this bond was created.
When we were in the hospital she nursed every one to two hours and continued this at home. Sometimes in those first few weeks she would nurse for 30 minutes straight every 45 minutes. It was exhausting, tiring, and at times painful. I worried she wasn't getting enough, wasn't gaining weigh fast enough, was overeating...actually I just worried. Being a first time mom brings so many unknowns but I have learned that mama's usually know what is best.
Henley nursed steadily every two hours until she was about nine months old. She almost always wakes one to two times a night still to nurse and nurses (almost) to sleep every night. She loves it!
As I rocked her tonight as she nursed, I kept thinking how crazy this life is and how fast it goes. She will be one in two weeks and I know I will look back on this last year with love, pride, and awe thinking how blessed I am to have been able to do this with my daughter as long as I did. Not everyone has this chance and I am so appreciative that I did. I truly love being a mom---it is definitely what I was meant to do!
Not quite sure on her weight. We haven't been to the doctor (thankfully!) in a while.
Health:
Henley is doing great and has been healthy for a while now. I think all of the sickness in the beginning of day care really boosted her immune system.
I would say however that she is getting more and more injured just from moving around. She thinks her arms are longer than they really are and ends up face planting or crashing into the furniture she was reaching for. I have a feeling this is going to get worse before it gets better.
Sleep:
Henley has been going to bed great. Our sleep training from last month is still sticking pretty well. However she is still getting up once or twice a night, I am extremely ready for this to end. She still wants to nurse in the middle of the night. I am holding on to the hope that once the nursing ends, she will start sleeping through the night. Dad is getting up and rocking her sometimes which is a great help!
Clothing:
She is just starting to grow out of her 9 month clothes. I am super excited for all of her 12+ month clothes, especially her colder weather things, they are so adorable!
We wore tons of cute Halloween outfits this past month :-)
We went shopping this past weekend and Henley was wearing her Toms. They were randomly falling off and we noticed that the seam totally ripped (bummer! She only wore them a few times).Since we were out, we stopped and got her some adorable crocs. I am definitely not a huge crocs fan, but seriously! how cute are these!
Diet:
Henley's diet is definitely evolving. I am pumping way less than she is drinking so we are using frozen breastmilk almost daily plus giving her whole cow's milk in her BM bottles (50/50). I am thinking of doing a whole milk bottle straight soon so we can get her used to the taste. I gave her a sippy cup of just milk and she wasn't a fan so we have some work to do before my freezer stash is totally gone. I was pretty bummed about this but I think we have a solid game plan and things seem to be going pretty well.
As far as solid food she is eating like a champ. She loves pretty much everything although she isn't totally sold on meat yet. We have been giving her small bites of yummy snacks and she definitely loves sweets!
Baby Gear Love:
One thing that has really been useful for us lately are Henley's bibs that have pockets. We got these at Target and while they don't catch everything, they definintely help the situation although Fitz would prefer they fall on the floor.
We got Henley a new car seat for my car this month. We replaced the infant seat in Dad's car a while back but since the infant seat was still working, we kept it in my car. Since I know she is getting close to the height limit, we decided to use some AmEx points and get her the Maxi Cosi Pria 70. Henley loves this seat and so far, so do I. It's high enough where she can see out of the window and it's so adorable to see her looking out of the window so curious with everything she sees.
Speaking of the car, I finally found a way to ride with Henley without keeping my hand back there. Henley sucks her two fingers, and when she is tired, she rubs something with her other hand. In the car, the something was me. I love touching her but it does make it difficult to drive reaching back like that. I had the idea to bring back the Taggies blanket and success! She plays with the tags and usually passes out shortly thereafter.
Henley has loved carrying around her puffs in a little snack container we got. It took her a little while to figure out how to get the snacks out but now she is a pro and actually is sharing her snacks with Fitz. It's seriously adorable.
Another thing Henley is loving is the Fisher Price Singing and Storytime Puppy. She loves playing with it and will even dance with it. Pretty cute if you ask me!
Crying:
Other than Henley learning that she can cry to get our attention (hello drama queen) she really doesn't cry that much or too often. We are lucky!
Social:
We had a great month with Henley---every one is more fun than the last.
On October 26th, we took Henley to a local Fall Festival with a group of our friends that all have babies close to Henley's age. The crew of little dressed like the Wizard of Oz gang. It was nearly impossible to get them all looking at the camera in unison. They were so adorable and everyone was so good, no tantrums even considering it was 90*.
We got a cute gift basket for Halloween from Grandma
Halloween was so fun. Henley wore her Batgirl costume to school and everyone loved it. We originally planned to change her into her Dorothy costume but Daddy loved this so much, she wore it trick or treating too. We put Henley in her little trike and when down one street to Trick or Treat. I felt a little guilty taking candy being we were going to be the ones that ate it but it was still fun to see her all dressed and super cute!
This past weekend we went to the Outlet mall with my mom and sister. I didn't really think she would have fun but she loved it. She liked looking at the coy fish in the little "ponds", she loved the ducks, and wanted to jump in the fountain. It was actually really fun seeing her so excited.
Postpartum:
Mom got a girls night this month and a date night!
Milestones:
We have some exciting milestones for this month.
We finally have the beginning of a tooth popping through. You can see it on the bottom and it is fully broken through now it just need to grow. I bet she is waiting for us to stop nursing before getting all of the chompers ;-)
On Halloween we took some serious step with no hands and no this past week she is full on walking---it's so exciting but like I said, this has meant an increase in injuries!
Cannot believe the next post like this will have been one full year with this amazing munchkin in our lives! Amazing!
