Happy 1st Birthday Haven!

Well, it's finally here and gone. Haven is officially one, although come to think of it, I don't think her carseat has been turned around yet. Hmmm...need to remind Mike.

Well back to Haven. She had her Dr. appt. on Wednesday and she's a whopping 31 1/2 inches long which puts her at 98% for height. She weighs 22 pounds 6 1/2 ounces which puts her at 71% for weight. So she's definitely maintaining her height, but slowly coming down in the chunkiness factor. Eric still had her beat in length at a year at 32", but Haven has him beat on weight by 2/3 of a pound. Eric was really long, and really lean. We called him the giant...so I guess now the family has 2 giants. We can only guess how big Haven will be when she's grown up. We don't know if she'll just stop growing when she's 10, or if she'll always be taller. She was a huge newborn as well...so who knows.

Okay now for her new accomplishments. She's definitely cruising along the furniture now, but has not stood without holding onto something yet, at least with still one finger. She's ready for the little walk behind toy, but we're going to wait until we're back from vacation to get it out because we're NOT taking it with us. LOL! She is constantly finding new ways to escape the "safe zone" of the living room (well I guess almost safe)so she's explored most of the upper level of the house pretty well. She is such a funny little mimic. Like one day I called the dog with the traditional "smooching" sound only to hear Haven copy me, but hers is much cuter as her mouth is shaped like fish lips when she does it. She can sign please which she learned after being shown once. Thank goodness! Now we can ask her to say please instead of her just hollering from her highchair all the time when she thinks she's about to run out of food. Hee, hee. She can show you she's one by holding up one finger. She still likes to point to our facial features and have us name them. We're trying to transition to her naming her own, but she thinks it's much more fun to poke us in the eye so... She's eating mostly table food now with a cereal, fruit, yogurt concoction before bed to keep her tummy full overnight. She still loves her bottle and will demand it when she's tired, but she drinks water out of a sippy cup really well.

I'm not sure what her favorite toy is right now. Most of the time she doesn't stay still long enough to play with anything right now. She does like to try and mimic whatever the boys are doing and likes to think she's playing with them like a big kid. The joke around here is whether or not I'll still end up with one more child liking all guy things or if she'll actually be a girly girl. Mike keeps trying to reassure me, but I'm not convinced. Especially, when Haven picks up her Cinderella from her Cinderella Mega Bloks castle set and makes vroom (cars) and whooshing (airplanes) sounds with her. Also, she does a great Dinosaur impression with her hands up like claws and a big Roar! Let's see what else have the boys taught her. Oh, she says Shhh! Since everyone including the boys have tried to shush her...well it sort of works. Usually she just shushes them back, but then she's not yelling anymore so I guess mission accomplished.

She did great at her party. She was a bit slow going for the cake but from the pics below you'll see that she finally demolished it. Her outfit was a hoot. We used it as one of her outfits for her 1st year pictures at the studio. We even had a small plush wand for her. So she had leggings (it was cold early in the morning), a tutu, a 1st birthday Princess shirt, a hoodie (again it was cool), her little fancy cone hat (which my Mom had to make the straps bigger for so it would fit, hee, hee), and these ridiculous feathery slipperlike shoes I'd found at the Consignment store just a few days before the party. Since she's always been the "Peanut Princess" it just had to be a princess party. Although, it was quite hard finding things that weren't Disney princess.

We rented a picnic pavillion at a nearby park/lake. It was cool in the morning but warmed up as the day went on. We had around 60 guests...manageable thank goodness. It was lots of fun, but I think we're all glad that we're done. We never did get a picture of the loaded vehicles with each one having to make stops to pick up things like balloon boquets and cakes along the way. It was quite the sight. Our Suburban was brim full except the drivers seat, my van was full of people and the back was completely full, my parents' car was even full so we went, we conquered, we left, and we crashed...after everything was unloaded and the food put in the fridge.

So enjoy the pictures. There's 4 groups of them. As always, just click on the pic to see it larger.

Blessings,
Shae