Happy First Birthday Genevieve

Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday dear Genevieve!

Happy Birthday to You!

So hard to believe that we sang that song over a month and a half ago. I have been meaning to blog about this special day for a while but I was having trouble gathering up photos. I'm still not sure if the photos will end up working. Since I was busy hosting a birthday party for almost 50 people and making sure an adorable one year stayed out of trouble, I wasn't able to take as many photos as I had wished. I ended up having to steal them from various family members from Facebook. Thank you! Plus, we use an external hard drive to store everything important (aka photos); however, I'm still not quiet sure on how to save anything to it.

Josh and I started the initial planning for Genevieve's first birthday while we were in Florida back in late February/early March. I wanted to spend the 4th of July at my family's lake house on beautiful Lake Wawasee in Indiana. A three week trip (for G and I) evolved from there. We thought it would mean a lot to our families if we were in Indiana and they could be a part of this celebration. Genevieve even got to meet her great-grandparents for the first time. They winter in Arizona so they are gone when we are home for the holidays. 

My aunt and uncle willingly let us host Genevieve's first birthday party at their lake house. People came from all over the country. Well actually most were from Indiana but we did have some travelers in from Utah and Georgia. By the time we invited Josh's immediate family (he is one of 6 kids) and my extended northern Indiana family, we were just shy of 50 guests. 

It has a great day had by all. The weather was  absolutely beautiful. It had been a major concern of my aunt's on what to do with 50 people inside the house on a rainy day. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. I think over half of the attendees ended up swimming in the lake. Only a couple ended up with sun burns.

Ready for the party to start

Not a huge fan of everyone singing "Happy Birthday"

One of Genevieve's birthday cakes - I love her expression in the background. 

Present Time!

First piece of chocolate cake. Cake time ended up being right around nap time so by the time she got to eat her cake she was almost falling asleep in it

I absolutely adore this face she makes. It's one of my favorites.

My baby is growing up. Where has the time gone? How much longer can we actually call her a baby?We are so blessed and thankful that she is healthy and happy. She is a content baby that enjoys being around others. 

I am so excited to see what the next year has in store for little miss Genevieve!

Climbing

Yesterday, little miss G turned 13 months. She will be walking any day now. Although I've been saying that for over a month. She stands alone and will take one step if that helps her cruise from one piece of furniture to the next. When she gets to a point where she can't hang out to anything, she sits down and crawls to where she wants to go.

Today started the climbing phase of our lives. For the past couple days she has liked to empty out one of the drawers of our coffee table. I still haven't really baby proofed any of the drawers because she really didn't have the strength to open them. Not any more. Guess I'll add that to my list of things to do. Well after she emptied most of the items out of the drawer, she tried to climb in it. I kept any eye on her but below are the pictures of her process.

The Beginning

So proud of herself

Time to play

By the way she is only in a diaper because right before all this occurred she had drank a bottle that I hadn't fully screwed the lid on. Most of the bottle leaked all over her so I took off her dress since nap time was just around the corner and would put on different clothes then.

I showed these pictured to Josh when he came home from work. He wanted to know why I put her in the drawer. I want to make it clear that I had no part in this other than to make sure she didn't fall or hurt herself. 

Guess we are skipping the walking stage and going straight to climbing. I pray that climbing out of the crib is not next.

Smiles Chapman

Josh and I are truly blessed with a smiley, happy baby. I always think this is a bit of a surprise since I felt like all she did for the first two months of her life was scream.

Praise God for such a happy, content baby!

Recently our conversations with strangers seems to take on the same pattern. It has gotten to the point that Josh and I can pretty much guess what they are going to say.

Oh what a cute baby

Oh I love that smile

Wow! Look at all those teeth!

Yes we know that she has a lot of teeth. She seems well ahead of the curve. I was looking at a chart I found that gave a timeline on when teeth are suppose to come in. G is usually a week a head of when the chart says the teeth should appear. For example, for the first set of bottom teeth is said they should cut through from 6-10 months. G cut the first one a week before she turned 6 months old. 

Her first year molars are a completely different story. I thought we should expect to see them around her first birthday (I still need to blog about that). So when she started exhibiting her classic teething signs - waking up lots at night and a minor hunger strike - I was preparing myself for there arrival. We discovered this week that the top two molars and one of the bottom molars have cut through and the 4th and final one is well on its way. I checked my handy dandy chart. Bottom molars appear 14-18 months and top molars 13-19. At least a whole month ahead of schedule! Go baby G!