Monthly Photos: Month 12

Our little one is a year old! What a precious, happy, beautiful, one year old we have! She is pure joy to us. I thank God all the time for blessing us with Cambry. this past year has been wonderful. She has grown and changed so much since the day she was born.

Here she is in the hospital. She had brown hair and her face looks so different to me. I remember as soon as I delivered her I looked at her and it was the strangest most surreal moment. I did not recognize her, she didn't look familiar. I kept thinking, who is this baby? I thought it would be this instant magical connection, but it was more like she was a stranger. The bonding came right away though, and even though I don't see how it's possible, I fall more in love with her every day. I can't imagine life without her. She is he best gift. I love her to pieces.

Here is what she is up to lately...

Size: Will update this tomorrow at her one year check up, but weight is probably around 22 lbs. She wears around 12-18 month clothes, size 3 shoes, and size 3 diaper.

Likes: Walking while we hold her hands, walking while pushing things around, opening cabinets and pulling things out, little kids and dogs, going to the park, her baby doll, waving to strangers, pointing at everything

Dislikes: Not being allowed to open or get into something

Working on: Walking! She has taken a few steps and can stand for a few seconds on her own at times.

Eating: Breakfast is usually puréed fruit, half banana, and baby oatmeal mixed together. Lunch is usually a sandwich and grapes, and dinner is sometimes scrambled eggs and cheese, yogurt, fruits/veggies, some of what we are eating, etc. For the past month she has nursed 3 times a day but I just dropped to 2 yesterday.

Sleeping: She goes to bed between 7:00 and 7:30. Lately she has been waking up between 5:00 and 6:00 am to nurse and then will go back down until 7 something, and a couple times even past 8. She takes a morning and afternoon nap. Times vary dramatically but I guess on average a nap lasts an hour.

Other things to note:

She has 6 teeth still, and the doctor said 2 molars have just popped through although I haven't been able to see them yet. That brings the total to 8.

Sometimes she will give kisses and it is the sweetest thing. She really just touches her face to your cheek but it is so adorable.

Can't really think of anything else specific. Of course every little thing she does I think is adorable and she has the sweetest, most joyful personality. Love you Cambry Paige!

Happy First Birthday!

Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl! One year ago today God gave us the best gift. I am so thankful for this little one's life. She has changed our lives so much for the better. She is absolute joy and we are so thankful for her. Happy Birthday Cambry!

I will post her monthly update tomorrow but just wanted to quickly put up the pictures from her one year photo shoot that Greg took. We couldn't love this little girl any more.

First Steps

Tonight Cambry took her first steps! I have no photographic proof, but there were a number of eye witnesses. She did it tonight at the youth leader Christmas party. She went from sitting to standing up on her own (without using anything to hold on to), stood for several seconds, and then took about 1 1/2 steps. Of course we erupted in praise :) Way to go Cambry - on 12/12/12!

Since I don't have a picture of it, I will go ahead and put one of her birthday pictures. Our adorable almost-1-year-old. Melt my heart.

Busy December

Well December has been busy busy! I feel like we have been going non stop for weeks! It is not about to slow down either. But we have been having lots of fun.

We have had a number of Christmas parties - friends, co-workers, Greg's company party, our Sunday school class party, and tonight our youth leader party.

We took D and little D to Zoo lights this past weekend and it was really neat. Little D especially adores Cambry and is so good with her. He carried her in the Bjorn part of the time and you should have seen her - she was loving it!!

Lately I have been busy getting ready for Cambry's first birthday party and trying to do Christmas shopping. Cambry is a great little shopping buddy. When we go to the Galleria we stop so she can play in the Little Galleria play area.

This week Cambry had the strangest crying fit. She woke up 30 minutes into her afternoon nap crying hard. I went in after a few minutes to comfort her. She would not calm down. She was crying like crazy, thrashing around with her eyes closed. I rocked her and tried to comfort her but nothing helped. I thought she was having a night terror because she was completely inconsolable and seemed out of it. This went on for almost 2 1/2 hours! She has NEVER done anything like that and has never been inconsolable. It was crazy and scary. She finally calmed down, and was fine the rest of the night. We debated taking her to the after-hours clinic but ended up just talking to a nurse. The next morning she woke up with a fever so I took her in to see the doctor and turns out she had an ear infection. Poor little thing. She is on antibiotics and Motrin and doing great now. Back to helping me with chores - laundry and cleaning out the fridge.

Little Helper

Laundry is always more fun with my little helper.

All done!

Wedding Weekend

I realized I forgot to publish this post! The weekend after Thanksgiving we drove to Dallas for my friend Katy's wedding. I was honored to be a bridesmaid! We left on Friday to go to the rehearsal and dinner. The wedding was Saturday at the Bingham house in McKinney. The ceremony was outside on the front lawn and the house was just adorable.

I was worried how Cambry would do with everything, but she did great! I realized that on Saturday while I was getting my hair done and hanging out with the girls, that was the longest stretch I had been away from Cambry - 6 hours! Can you believe it? I know that probably sounds a little crazy. The girl doesn't take bottles and up until recently has always had to nurse every few hours so I could never really be away long at all. Well now we are down to nursing 3 times a day (morning, noon, and night) so Greg was able to take her all afternoon. It felt really strange, but I had some fun girl time.

Here is the lovely bride. Her hair was beautiful! I loved how they did my hair too, but unfortunately didn't get any pictures of it (well the back/side anyway, that was the cool part).

Jessica was helping Katy practice for her first dance, ha!

This is not a good picture of Cambry, but I had to show this beautiful dress my mom got her. It is her Christmas dress, but it was perfect to wear to the wedding as well.

So dark, but was trying to capture how cute she looked.

Phiebs and I.

The 4 of us were in a bible study group freshman year at A&M. It was fun having a little reunion.

Cambry got passed around a lot during the reception and was such a trouper staying awake and happy until the very end.

Congrats Katy and Matt! Enjoy being newlyweds!

First Day of Advent

Today is the first day of Advent. Advent begins 4 Sundays before Christmas. It means coming. It is a time of preparing anticipating hoping celebrating Jesus's coming. 

I never really do anything for Advent, and I always struggle to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas. It is easy to get caught up in doing all the Christmas shopping, Christmas parties, decorating, and traditions. Those are all fun but I don't want just do all those things and forget the whole reason why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

I found this Advent devotional on John Piper's website DesiringGod.org. You can download it as a free ebook. I downloaded it to the Kindle app on my phone. It has short daily readings each day beginning today.

Also on Piper's website is a free app called Solid Joys with short daily devotional readings (not just during Advent, but throughout the year). I have been reading these and really love them. This app includes the Advent devotionals so you don't need both the app and the ebook - I realized that afterward. Anyway, hopefully I can stay consistent with this and get as excited about celebrating Christ's coming as I do about all the other fun Christmas traditions.

And while on the topic of Christmasy things, here is my latest little project. I made this felt Christmas tree I saw on Pinterest. I knew Cambry wouldn't put the ornaments on but I thought she would have fun taking them off. Well it turns out she just wants to rip the whole tree off the wall. Chalk it up to another Pinterest fail for me. Maybe in a couple of years she will enjoy it more :)