Doug and the Girls: One Whole Year

Weight: 24 pounds, 9 ounces (92 percentile)
Height: 29 inches (55 percentile)

Wearing: still size 4 diapers. No more Carter's 12 months fit with maybe 1 exception. Still in Old Navy 12-18 mo. The worst problem is she needs bigger sizes for her belly, but not her little legs. Sigh.

Likes: FOOD. crawling everywhere. her walker. getting into everything. blowing kisses. blowing raspberries. her sissy. music and dancing. loves crayons and trying to eat them.

Dislikes: when Mommy walks away. Not a fan of apricot or bell pepper. doesn't really like to sit for diaper changes but will work through it.

a motto to live by

I can't believe this is Allie's final monthly update. It (of course) feels like I blinked and the year went by, but that is to be expected I think. A lot of stuff has happened over the course of this year and we have had many obstacles to overcome and I like to believe that every single day we are ALL getting stronger, better, happier, smarter, bigger (ugh, me too). Allie has taught me more in the past year than I had ever dreamed. She has become this ray of sunshine in all of our lives that really never ceases to amaze me. She is sweet, smart, loving, happy, curious, determined, tolerant, incredible. She loves to snuggle, loves to be held and kissed and hugged. Loves to give kisses, hugs and high fives. Laughs easily and often, and when she's crying you know something is up. She tries hard, every single day, and never gives up even when it seems like she should. She makes me so proud to be her mother and I hope that her never-ending determination well, never ends.

This past month she has started saying Mama, thus beating out Anna in the race for favorite daughter. (HA, Anna didn't say it till 13+ months..) While Allie still seems to say Mama only when she is in bed in the middle of the night (being that I'm the only one in her room at 2am, it may be safe to say she is doing that one on purpose) and also when she is in her highchair (I also feed her most of her meals, but Mama also sounds like MmmmMMmmm, so you be the judge), I will still take the victory.

She loves searching for crayons in the playroom and finding the one thing in the room you actually don't want her to touch. Still loves bath time and being around Anna, watching her being funny and wanting to do whatever she is doing.

Allie loves food and for her first birthday got to have the ceremonial diner pancake breakfast that is part of birthday tradition around here. We went out for "girls breakfast" since all the guys were working and had a great time together. I'm fairly certain she would have eaten the entire pancake if I hadn't taken it away!

Allie- you are AMAZING and we love you more than words. You little chubber, you rosy rosy little cheeky chubber (that's how Anna greets her most days). You are strong, you are smart, you are beautiful. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!