Birthday Girl

Bailey had such a great birthday weekend! Saturday we had her birthday party at our house. The weather was a bit nippy but thankfully warm enough for the 12 kids to play outside for a good part of the time. We came inside for lunch and monkey cupcakes for our little monkey. My plan for a couple of weeks had been duck cupcakes because she was so into ducks but lately she has learned how to make monkey sounds so at the last minute I changed my mind. Luckily, decorating these was much easier than Isabella's dinosaur cake! But of course, what do monkeys like to eat but bananas so the cupcakes were banana cake - I had a last minute scramble for overripe bananas but luckily I found some at Deep Roots and the banana cake was saved. 

She had a wonderful time - so many kids, so many balls, so much fun! Aunt Annie came to town so that made it even more special. We spent lots of time with the family this weekend. Nana made her another birthday cake - a delicious chocolate pound cake...which Bailey didn't eat. Evidently she's not a huge fan of chocolate at this point in her life...she'll learn!

She went to the doctor the other day (for croup, not her 1 yr appt) and she was 24 pounds, 5 oz. I can't find on the blog where I listed Isabella's weight at 1 year but seeing as how she was 22 lbs, 15 oz at 6 months...I'd say Bailey is still pretty far behind in the size category! She has finally grown out of her 12 month clothes - well, she actually can still wear them, but they're a little "young" as Nick would say. So she is very comfortably in 18 months. Isabella was wearing 24 months clothes the summer before she turned 1, if that is any indication of their size difference! 

As you can see from some of these pictures, Bailey loves to walk around - yet another disadvantage to being tall parents - a back breaking task to be sure. She is picking up new words, probably her most articulate one is "ball" and my current favorite is "Isabella" which usually sounds like "izhlalala". Yes, that's right, Bailey's first collection of words includes "dog" "duck" "uh oh" "book" and "Isabella". :) She is also really into animal noises. She makes the noise for sheep, which sounds like baaaa without the "b". She makes the sound for cow, which sounds like boooo, and as mentioned above, she makes the monkey sound "ooh oohh ahh ahh". She's a pretty fun kiddo! 

She did have the croup and an ear infection, and that messed her up for about a week, but once she was all better, her happy bubbly personality returned. She's not all bubbles all the time though. I think we may have some challenges up ahead - she's already starting to throw fits sometimes when she doesn't want something, mostly just when she's tired though. 

I really can't believe that it has been 1 year already. Thinking back to a year ago - contractions starting while at a cookout at the Cassells (though I didn't tell anyone until later), staying up all night, going to the hospital at 2, contractions slowing down, Pictosin, epidural, waiting and resting, and thanks to the epidural, having a wonderfully relaxed hour of pushing, when I was able to watch her come out in the mirror and my sister was able to be there for the whole thing...April 3 2010 was a completely wonderful day but it seems SO LONG ago, more than a year but at the same time it doesn't seem like Bailey is a year already.