First Birthday!!!

Chloe,

Happy Birthday to our sweet little girl.  One year is a big accomplishment!  You have grown into a little toddler but will always be our baby.  We will never forget when we found out we were pregnant with you in Hawaii, we cried with joy and planned planned planned for your arrival.  You came to this world eight days late and after 16 1/2 hours of well worth it labor.  Seeing your face for the first time was the most pure and exciting moment we have had to date!  And oh that hair!  Who could stop talking about it? Definitely not all of the nurses that night!  You were the most gorgeous baby and already full of personality.  You licked the air constantly your first week of life and were so cozy in our arms.  You rarely cried and if you did it wasn't ever a newborn scream, it was just a little whimper until whatever you needed was done.  The first time I ever heard you cry really loud is when you had your newborn shots and had a little reaction to the medicine they made you drink.  You were always an easy baby, and everyone would tell us how easy we had it, we knew it and loved every minute.

You started to gain weight quickly!  And before we knew it we were pulling chubby rolls away to clean between them in the bathtub!  You loved to nurse.  By the time you were three months old you were wearing six month clothing.  Your personality developed so quickly and you were smiley and content.  Fixing your hair all pretty was a fun daily activity, it was almost always in a Mohawk with a little curl, but by the time you were a month old it was already getting too long to do in a Mohawk so I loved to try new things like curling it or combing it to the side and putting in fun new bows and you just sat back and let me have my fun!  Your bed hair was the most comical part of our days.

You were always strong but yet so wobbly! One morning we were playing with you in our bed and you sneezed and made yourself fall backwards!  We didn't stop laughing for a full five minutes!
We were always stopped everywhere we went so that people could get a better look at you!  Complete strangers would come up and talk to you and tell you how pretty you were, and we never went through a store without me hearing someone whisper "such a cute baby" to someone they were with.  Your daddy would practically run in the door from work everyday to see you and was welcomed with a big smile, or a perfectly sleeping Chloe.  He wanted to hold you immediately to make up for lost time in the day.

You drooled from day one.  We have about 20 bibs specifically for your drool.  We got used to it quickly and it never mattered that our sleeve or pant leg was covered in it.  Our faces often got a drool bomb when we would hold you above our heads to get you to giggle.  Its hard to remember a time when you would sleep in the car but there was a point when I needed to run errands and you would fall asleep in the car on the way there without fail, but that stopped by the time you were six months old and needed to be entertained more on car rides.  One day we put on a Baby Einstein clip for you and you were hooked from that time on.  We can almost never get through ten minutes of a drive without you wanting to watch your show on the iPad.  We feel a little guilty that you turn into a TV zombie when it is on but feel much better when we try it with other shows and you could care less.  You love technology, our phones are the most interesting thing in the world to you, and if you had it your way you would carry one around all day.

You learned to roll over before your half birthday, learned to crawl at nine months and have been an explorer since the day you learned how to crawl.  Always wanting to see everything in a room.  After learning to crawl you were quickly walking with the assistance of furniture or walls, and took your first steps at 11 months old!  After a few steps you always chicken out and go with the ease of crawling instead.  But you have surprised me a couple times by letting go of the furniture to get to something you have your eye on!  I'm sure you will be running all over the place in a matter of weeks, which scares us to no end!

We waited to give you rice cereal until you were six months old and you wanted nothing to do with it until I put breast milk in and you would eat eat eat.  You loved almost all of the baby food we would give you except pureed peas, it was the only thing you would not eat!  Once we started to give you more solids your first favorite food was a cheese stick, we would pull it out of the fridge and you would kick your legs with joy at the sight of that little white stick! The first time I gave you watermelon you ate an entire slice by yourself!  You also love Graham crackers, black beans, pancakes and apple juice!  Eggs are by far your least favorite food, no matter how I disguise it you absolutely know they are eggs.  If I try to put some in your mouth you will literally scrape your tongue to get it off!  We have tried to give you whole milk but you wont drink more than a couple sips.  Not to worry because you are still nursing with gusto!  I'm not sure when you will want to stop but I will let you decide.

At eight months old we finally decided to let you cry yourself to sleep.  It was such a hard decision to make, and we only did it after reading multiple books and trying everything else we could to get you to sleep longer through the night.  Momma was so sleep deprived after getting up with you sometimes a dozen times a night or more.  We can both attest that it was the best decision we made for you.  It made your naps longer and your night time routine was so much easier.  Only waking up once at 3 am to eat and up at six thirty!   And you were a much happier baby.  It was so hard to hear you cry but the longest you would cry was 20 minutes before we would come in to quickly soothe you and start all over again.  After about a week you had the hang of it, and would cry for only about 5 minutes before you were asleep.  We have always had a bed time routine with you by feeding you some baby food, getting you in a bath, mommy and daddy singing songs to you, your favorite of which is the "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and then a family prayer before I would feed you till you were sleepy and in your crib you go!  You seem to like routine, and will always let us know when it is bed time, 7:30 almost every night, up at 3am to eat and back to sleep until 6:30 on the dot.

Your two top teeth have come in as well as one bottom tooth, not sure when we will see the other one.  We can tell that you will have two really big front teeth like your momma, and you may even have a cute little gap like me too.  Teething has not come easy for you, it has messed up your sleep schedule multiple times and has given you fevers and a roller coaster temper.  But you are dealing with it like a champ as they keep coming, slowly, slowly coming.  If we thought you drooled a lot before we didn't know anything!  You seem to be leaking out of every crevasse as you teethe!  Eye's, nose and mouth!

You love to sit on daddy's shoulders and grab his ears and drool all over his bald head.  But you especially love to wrestle with him when he gets home from work!  He makes you giggle for at least an hour while giving me enough time to get dinner ready!  You love to be surprised, if we come around the corner and make a loud noise you just think that is the funniest thing on earth!  You love to crawl up the stairs and have us chase behind you all sneaky.

Your first official word was "daddy" shortly followed by "momma" of course.  You can also say "nana" for banana and "doddy" for your little stuffed doggy, although you always say it in three's "doddy doddy doddy."  Your new favorite is saying "HI" followed by "hi hi hi hi hi hi hi" you sound like you're in a karate class!  Lately we have had to tell you "No no" when you are getting into something you shouldn't and now you look at us and shake your finger and your head and say "no no no no".  I'm pretty positive your still unsure of what you are saying.  One year old and already telling us no!

You have started to hand us things you want to play with and books that you want us to read you, which is so adorable.  You love your little squirt bottle and you could have me squirt it in your mouth all day long.  You love to walk all around whatever room you are in whether it is holding onto furniture or the walls you are determined to get around it multiple times.

You have many nicknames:
Chloe bug or Chlo Bug
Chloe Bear (grandma and grandpa Davis)
Sweet Sweet
Doll
Baby Chloe (Cousin's Addie and Kate)
Baby Doll
Chlo
Chlo Chlo (Cousin Tessa)
Pretty Girl

You will always be our oldest child, and it comes with great purpose!  You have helped us learn so much about what an eternal family truly signifies, and how much capacity for love we really hold.  We love you Chloe bug, your first year has been the best of all ours!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

  Pictures taken by Nicole Steiner see her blog at http://www.nicolesteinerphotography.com/