"Can I get a Happy Meal with extra happy, please?"

Chloe had her first Happy Meal over the weekend. She greatly enjoyed her chicken nuggets and milk. She didn't care for the apple dippers though. They were kinda sour and hard for her to chew.


"Come on mom! Open it! I know there's food in there!"


"OOOOHHH!"

While blogging about Chloe's birthday and birthday party I completely forgot to update her 1 year stats. So I thought I'd throw it in...

Chloe is walking like crazy anywhere and everywhere. She'll rarely crawl unless she just randomly feels like it.

Her favorite thing to do is read books. She likes, Bubbles Bubbles and Dogs the best. At least those are the ones we read the most often.

She still loves music and likes to dance a lot. While it's not a Drop-everything-you're-doing-right-this-second kind of song anymore, the office theme song is still her favorite I'd say.

Her favorite game is peek-a-boo. Although, a lot of the time she misses her eyes and cover's her ears or forehead.

It's hard to tell what her favorite toy is right now because she just got a bunch of new ones, so she's always playing with something different.

She still sleeps on her belly.

She loves, loves, LOVES to eat. Anything with cheese would have to be her favorite, but she won't eat real fruit, except bananas. I don't know why. She just won't.
I'm still breastfeeding as of right now. We're down to the feedings in the morning and right before bed. Today was actually the first time we didn't nurse in the morning. She still favors the right side, but the left side is her snuggling side so she can suck on her fingers, and she loves to snuggle with my hair. It's weird.

Most of her vocabulary still consists of the word she uses for just about everything (da da). However, she does know about 13 words or so that aren't "da da". Mama and dada of course, and uh oh. "ga gom" (all gone), "da!" (down), and shoes is kind of like "sheshz". "ka!" (snack) is very popular as well as "gog" (dog). She getting really good at saying "dang du" (thank you) and "no no no" (does that one really need a caption?). She's started calling a duck "ka ka" (quack quack) probably so she doesn't have to answer the question "What's a duck say?". A couple of recently learned words are "gook" (book) and "ah esh" (the end).
She's also learning her baby signs too. She knows more and please so far.

I think I have a very smart little girl on my hands. She knows where her nose, ears, hair, and toes are. She learned toes and hair from Bubbles Bubbles, a book Aunt Becca gave us. I may just be a bias mom, but I don't care. ;-)

Fun in the.... oh yeah, SUN!

Ok, I know my posts get a little out of order sometimes, but I blog about what's on my mind with our family at the time. The past couple weeks it's been all about Chloe's eye and birthday party and now that those two things are over and done with, it's time to take a few steps back and look at stuff that happened in between those two events...

Back when it wasn't raining everyday, and actually nice outside, we took advantage and had some fun in the.... what is that big, bright, yellow thing in the sky called again? Oh right, right, right! THE SUN!


She liked to play in the grass, but did not like it to stick to her hands. Unfortunately, daddy had just mowed, so sticking grass was a regular occurrence.


She had a horrible time walking in the grass. It probably didn't help that our yard is mostly a hill, but even on the flat part she had a hard time. If we ever get some sunshine we'll have to go out and practice.






My pretty baby.

Alright, I know I'm a mom, and all the other blogging moms I know, did a whole post devoted to their mother's day, but like I said, things have been busy. I sadly don't think I took any pictures on mother's day, but that's ok with me. I got several cards, including a homemade one from Chloe (the best one of all), and Kris got me a wonderful planner that I absolutely LOVE!!! He really is the best husband! I had to work in the nursery that day, so I also got a beautiful daisy! After church we went out to lunch with my parent's and brother to one of my favorite places! It was a good day! :-)

Chloe's Cupcake Party Palooza

May 15, 2010, Chloe had her first birthday party! It was cupcake themed, and so much fun to plan and see play out. I'm so happy with how everything went and the fun that was had by Chloe and her guests.
Ok, what you've all been waiting for... Here are the pictures.

I went all out with the cupcake theme...


Chloe had a cupcake outfit with her cupcake like tutu I made her and a "cherry on top" bow.


I made these cupcake invitations.


Everything was made to resemble a cupcake. Even the room had a ton of streamers draped from the ceiling leading to a "cherry on top" in the center. Think circus tent.


The tables were also decked out in cupcake fashion with pink icing and a cherry on top.


And a cupcake pinata was very fitting, and we had music having to do with sweets, candy, sugar, etc. playing the background.


We had a big, cupcake banner and balloons (sprinkles) everywhere!


Best Friends!









Addie was more interested in Chloe's presents than Chloe was. For the longest time she was walking around trying to get someone to read her the book from the last picture.




"...happy birthday to yooooouuuu!"


All that practicing paid off and she blew out her candle all by herself!


She started out so dainty and lady like about it.


"Whatcha got up there, Chloe?"


There we go, that's more like it.


Blowing a cupcake kiss!


She enjoyed her cake...


Chloe pulled the magic string that let all the candy out!


CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Chloe picking out candy that she won't be able to eat...


What's going to be our yearly tradition of letting party balloons go with a note.


I think she had fun. This is her in the car on the way home after about 30 seconds.

As I said at the beginning, it was a ton of fun to plan her party, but it was stressful too planning a party this big, so I'm happy to say that we'll only be doing big parties like this for the big, milestone birthdays (1, 5, 10, 13, etc.). I hope you all enjoyed the pictures!

Birthday Girl!!!

My baby is no longer a baby :-(. I can't believe Chloe is 1 already! It's so crazy, and went by so fast.
I didn't take as many pictures on her actual birthday as I meant or wanted to, but I was so busy preparing for her party (like all week) that all we really did special on her birthday was open presents. I feel kinda bad about that, but it's not like she'll remember, right? I think she had fun. Besides, tomorrow is the big party day!! I know she'll have lots of fun then.
Here are the few pictures that I actually did take.


Chloe on the exact minute she turned 1. 11:42am


"Yeah! I'm 1!"

When daddy came home from work she opened her presents from us. She got a pool for this summer, a little toy for the pool, and a big book of dogs.
She was so cute and polite. I handed her a present and she said "da du" (thank you), and such fun was had ripping the paper.





"I can't believe you guys are letting me rip this to shreds..."


"gog gog" Yeah!
This was her favorite thing by far. She got just enough paper off the front of the book to see what it was and she lost all interest in ripping paper and began to zone in on how to get that book out and open! We read it all night long.

All in all, I think she had a good birthday. I'll post pictures and stories from her party afterward.

Huge Praise!

I know, I know. Posting 3 days in a row is a bit much to hear from me, but I couldn't helping blogging about this huge praise!
Ok, here it is...
Most of you that read this blog or know us well heard that Chloe had surgery on her eye Monday morning to fix her blocked tear duct (thanks again for all the prayers). They said that her eyes would be a little tearful and red for a little while after, so I was expecting that, but by Monday evening the tearfulness turned into a little bit of gunk. Seeing this was very disheartening to me because we had the surgery to fix this problem. The next day Children's Mercy called to check on her and they said to watch it and if it continues to call the eye clinic to see if it's normal or not. So that's what I did. On Tuesday at first it didn't seem too bad, but after she woke up from her nap it continued to get gunky more often and in greater amounts. Wednesday morning I called the clinic and told them about it and they forwarded my question to Dr. Hug. So while waiting to hear something back I began to read a little about what a stent is, which is what she would have to get if the initial surgery didn't work. THAT was a BIG mistake. I had no idea that a stent was a small, silicone tube that was inserted into the duct and left in for 6-12 mo, and then another procedure to remove it had to be done as well. That was a scary thought for me.
Well, a couple of hours ago I got a phone call from Dr. Hug and she gave me the best piece of news I could ask for! She said that a little discharge is normal and nothing to worry about. Some even better news is that the discharge, at least today, hasn't been a problem really at all! I'm so excited I can barely stop smiling even while typing this post! My God is SO GOOD, and to finally see an end in sight to the gunky eyes is a big relief and huge answer to prayer!

Color Me Happy

Chloe got her first set of markers over the weekend. We went back to the store and got some crayons too because of this:


You can't really see it here, but she was multicolored by the time we were done. Good thing it was bath night!

Ok, here's Chloe "making her mark on the world".






This one is mostly her work


and this one mostly mommy and daddy's work while trying to get her to do her work.

On a different note of color... bum bum bum BUUUMMMM! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... Chloe's first set of painted toe nails!


Snacks worked wonders for getting her to sit still.

And before coming to a close, a small preview of what she'll be wearing at her birthday party. It's way cuter in person by the way.

Chole's Surgery

Yesterday we had a very busy morning. It was the day of Chloe's surgery and she couldn't have anything to eat after 4 am. So mommy got up at 3:30 (it's not like I was really sleeping anyway) and nursed her so she could have something in her stomach and wouldn't be super cranky at the hospital. We both went back to bed after she was done, but for mommy it was only an hour. Kris and I had to get up at 5 to get ready and be there by 6:30.


Chloe in the waiting room.


One more goopy eye picture!

Thankfully we were the first case for our surgeon and were escorted into the exam room rather shortly.


Chloe in her WAY too big gown.

After 4, count 'em 4, exams (2 nurses, the anesthesia nurse practitioner, and the anesthesiologist) we got our bracelets and began the wait for our surgeon, Dr. Hug.


"Look mommy, Lovey gets a bracelet too!"

After Dr. Hug FINALLY arrived and she gave Chloe yet another exam, the wait began for her to be taken back to surgery.


Dr. Hug put a mark above the eye that was to be probed. We called it her "branding".

After a few minutes we headed down the hall and we had to hand her over to the nurse (one of the hardest things I've ever had to do) and we headed down to the waiting room. We parted at 7:54am, her surgery ended at 8:09am, we talked to Dr. Hug a few minutes after that, and we were with her in recovery by 8:30ish. When we got there she was doing great! She had already downed a bottle of half-strength apple juice and I fed her another while talking to the nurse, but she was still a VERY hungry baby. She was able to get some cinnamon teddy grams while I finished listening to discharge information and then we got to go home.


Eating a snack in the car.


Her blood-tinged, teary eye at home.

She took a good nap after eating some breakfast and woke up more rambunctious than she's been in the whole 1st year of her life!

I want to thank all who were praying for us and Chloe yesterday, and ask you to keep us in your prayers. Yesterday evening, her eye started getting goopy again and was goopy this morning when she woke up. Children's Mercy said to just watch it today and if it keeps up, call the ophthalmology clinic again. If she were to be in the 10% that this procedure doesn't work on, then she would have to have to probe, but with a stent (or stint or however it's pronounced and spelled). I'll keep you all updated on that. I have some cute pictures of some stuff we did over the weekend I'll post later as well.