.: Happy 1st Birthday Isabella Grace!

Isabella Grace, our sweet and most precious gift from God, is 1! I don't know how we ended up here but somehow my teeny tiny infant became a 1 year old before my eyes! On February 3rd, 2010 Isabella Grace was born at 2:16pm weighing in at 5lbs 5.5oz. Even premie clothes were a little big on her! She was our tiny precious miracle and we were so happy to finally meet our daughter. When I pictured who my daughter would be, what she would look like, what her personality and disposition would be, she was that image. Obviously there were some things that were different, I never thought I'd have such a small baby but she was still so strong and healthy. Those first few weeks were exhausting and long and in the fog of sleep deprivation and a sometimes fussy baby I kept thinking....gosh I can't wait for the next --fill in the blank-- phase. But each phase went way to fast and now I want to go back to those perfect first few weeks, snuggling with my tiny girl who would only sleep with me/on me. All the quiet private moments we shared together that, when I was in the moment, I would try to remind myself to take a mental snapshot to hold onto for later. And I'm so thankful for those sweet memories that I preserved so that I can transport myself back to those moments and smile. And while I loved every minute of those early stages each new stage was just more and more fun and I can honestly say she is my little partner in crime. She is the best shopping buddy in the world, and since I might enjoy shopping just a little she is my perfect little best friend. We won't have her doctor's appointment until next week but we know that she has tripled her birth weight and, while still relatively small compared to other babies, she is HUGE to us! She is so sweet and funny, has an incredible sense of humor already and the best smile in the world! We will have more posts soon with lots of fun pictures from Bella's 1st birthday party but for now, I will share some trivia about Bella at age 1 and some fun pictures from recent activities.

Bella is crawling still, no walking. She still prefers the army crawl even though she has proved she can do the "all fours" crawl, I think it's just she has perfected the army crawl now and that is her speed crawl.

She is always wanting to stand now and is cruising a little which is new for her since she is still a big scaredy cat. It's another one of those things, she is capable, but she gets scared and looks up at you with her big eyes and holds her hand out for help. It's so cute!
She is a good little eater and is pretty adventurous with flavors and spices. She generally likes stuff with more flavor and spice.

She doesn't have a lot of words yet. She still loves to babble "dada" in different tones and with different levels of excitement and sometimes it sounds like she is saying other things, like "doggie" but I just can't confirm one way or another. She will also occassionally say mama, but its not very often. She definitely knows who mama and dada are though and will babble them with intention. She also says "uh oh" and thinks its funny to drop things and then look at me and say it, oh silly girl. She knows the word doggie also and if I ask her "where is doggie?" she will either find the dog in the room or will point to it in her book.

She has just begun productively teething and it has been painful for her, but she has been a trooper. She definitely gnaws on anything and everything and on the day before her first birthday (Feb. 2) her first tooth popped through! It is her top center left tooth, you can feel it and its very visible. You can also see the top center right tooth just sitting there waiting to pop through. Then as the day went on, I felt a teeny tiny little bit of tooth had popped through on the bottom. It feels like the left but I haven't been able to see, so only time will tell. I can't wait to see what she will look like with teeth but I will definitely miss her toothless grin.

She has begun switching over to whole milk and really likes it!

She is funny and she knows it. She does a hilarious keep away game now when we ask for things. It's not mean, she just does it because she knows we will laugh and she gets a kick out of it. She also drinks her bath water, who knows why this started but it definitely makes all of us laugh!

Her favorite foods are: yogurt, cheese, strawberries, goldfish, graham crackers, guacamole and cheerios. She also likes all sorts of different purees but she prefers to feed herself and have big girl food.

She still has her killer eyelashes and daddy is in for trouble when this girl hits her teen years! So beautiful!

Isabella Grace is the joy of our lives, our perfect daughter, God's most gracious and wonderful gift we could have ever hoped to receive! Here are some pictures form when she was brand new and some from the last couple weeks.

February 3rd, 2010 ~ 5lbs 5.5oz of perfection!

A joy filled family of 3!

So peaceful and beautiful

Cozy on mom's chest, oh if I could only go back to this moment....

Snuggling my perfect daughter, love at first sight!

Our big girl eating goldfish in her jammies, some big time teething going on, hence the majorly rosy cheeks!

Her favorite thing to do lately, stand up in her crib and toss out her pacifier. I think this phase may be over....hopefully. I don't mind the standing as long as she sits herself back down and doesn't throw her pacis out and then get mad! :-)