margo: thirteen months

I don't know how long I'm supposed to keep up with these monthly Margo posts, but here we are and now we have a 13 month old! It's crazy to think that at this time last year we had a one month old baby and everything was new and overwhelming. Not that much has changed except the tiny babe is now a big, crawling, chatting, curious, almost toddler. We love her to pieces and cannot imagine life without her.

Margo has been teething up a storm lately and has both maxillary and mandibular central incisors and partially erupted mandibular lateral incisors. She's a slobbery mess, but still pretty content to play and explore. She is getting more and more proficient at climbing and pushing her walker. She has also discovered that the cabinets open and she can crawl inside to play and "hide".

Her routine is mostly the same with the exception of nursing, I dropped her last morning feeding on March 5th and neither of us has looked back. Sometimes I miss the extra cuddles and goofy milk drunk smiles, but now I have a little more freedom to sleep in (hallelujah!) and let Alex get up with her. She is also not taking as long of a morning nap, her day usually consists of waking up between 7:30-8, breakfast & play, nap from 9:45ish or 10-11am, lunch at noon, nap from 1-3 or 3:30pm, dinner at 5pm and straight to bed at 7pm.

Margo is so fun right now and we are loving (almost) every minute of her in this stage. As excited as we are for her to learn to walk, it seems a little scary so we're not rushing it 😬

Snuggling with Grandma after her nap and she found my old bitty baby to snuggle

She loves her baby doll so much!

Playing some Catch Phrase before dinner

She loves her baby doll

agreeing and disagreeing with mama

Learning to stand is hard work 

margo's birthday party

On Saturday, March 4th we got to celebrate Margo's birthday with all of the people we love! Since our house would burst if we tried to cram all of our favorite people in it, we decided to have her party at the Cleveland Heath party room- basically, just a large room that we filled up with food and people.

Every good party has a theme and Margo's was no exception, her theme: donuts! The menu was pretty simple, we ordered donuts from Little Taste of Heaven, had fruit out the wazoo, muffins, yogurt, coffee and juice. Since the birthday girl didn't have strong opinions about her party, we mostly just chatted and enjoyed being with friends and family. After a while, she we opened presents and then she ate her cupcake.

We are so thankful for everyone that has walked with us for the past year. I cannot imagine this year without the support, encouragement and love our family and friends have freely and so graciously given us. It really does take a village and we have the best village imaginable.

margo's birthday

A birthday tradition growing up was to wake up to birthday gifts under your bed and await your spankings before you could open them up. My mom doesn't know how or when the tradition started, but she did it when she was little, so we wanted to carry it on with Margo too. 

When she woke up (because I'm not brave enough to go into her room while she's asleep) we snuck her gifts under her bed and then sang her happy birthday and watched her open her gifts! She had a little help but was much more efficient than she was at Christmas. 

The rest of the day was mostly normal with the exception that she got to taste frozen custard at lunch and then grandma Sue came over for dinner and some more present opening. It's crazy that our little babe is now one year old and is growing and learning so much! We cannot wait to see what this year has in store!

margo: 52 weeks

It's hard to find a song with your name in it if you're not a Barbara Ann, Mandy, Jane or Sue. So we had to be creative for Margo. We change the lyrics of "My Girl" by the Temptations by switching "my girl" to Margo and viola! it's her song!! 

margo: twelve months

Happy Birthday to our sweet, chatty, playful, steadfast, silly baby girl!! I cannot believe it's been an entire year since she was born. It blows my mind! Our sweet girl weighed in at 20 pounds, but we go to the doctor tomorrow so I'll update with the official stats then.

In the last month Margo has started chatting so much more. She says "dada" (dad), "ba-ba-ba"(all the time and when we listen to the Beach Boys Barbara Ann), "moo" (Moose), "oof-oof" (woof), "hi", "uh-oh", "what", "wow" and I'm sure more, but guess what she REFUSES to say?!? MAMA how hard is that? I'm definitely not upset...😫

She is a cruising and crawling machine! She doesn't seem interested in walking independently yet, but she is enjoying chasing Moose, opening cabinets and drawers and following us everywhere we go. This month we dropped her bedtime feeding and started her on whole (cow) milk. Her daily routine is virtually the same: wake up at 7am, nurse, breakfast, play and then nap time from 9-11am. Wake up at around 11am, lunch at 12, nap from 1-3pm and then play until dinner at 5pm and straight to bed at 7pm.

This year has been such a whirlwind and I don't think I can even begin to articulate how much having her has changed me. I love our sweet girl so much and I am so thankful for her every single day. She has shown me an incredible picture of God's grace and unconditional love and I feel so overwhelmingly thankful for that. I cannot wait to watch her grow up and get to see her personality come out more and more!

 

lately she has been waking up form her naps chatting and ready to play

'

and really happy!

sadly our girl got sick this month and had Influenza A and a double ear infection

watching the world go by

a girl walking her dog on an unseasonably warm February day

margo: eleven months

How is it possible that my chubby, babbling, crawling baby is eleven months old?! Margo is growing so quickly before our eyes. According to our scale she weighs almost 21 pounds! 

Every day Margo does something new and it blows our minds, she is so stinkin' smart! Our standards were exceptionally low, since Moose was our standard and we've quickly learned that she is far superior to him in every way (but we still love you Moose). She is crawling, climbing, saying "da-da" and "uh-oh" and she is so curious. She follows us everywhere we go, beats on the bathroom door and pulls the shower curtain back to see who's showering and she loves Moose and taking his toys from him.  She has also started cruising on furniture, giving kisses and is working on her two upper central incisors (she's had both lower centrals October). 

Her schedule has changed a smidge in the last month. We have dropped the 11am and 3pm feedings and she is eating 3 meals/day and 1 snack after her nap at 3ish. She is still taking a morning nap from around 9-9:30 to 10:45-11am (it vary's day to day) and she is still consistent with her afternoon nap from 1-3pm. I will be ready to drop the morning nap so we can get out and do things during the morning, but in the mean time I'm enjoying the quiet productivity. She is a great eater and will eat anything as long as it isn't green. I am starting to sneak spinach and other green veggies into smoothies and anything else I can get her to eat. But, if you try to feed her a pea, she'll act as though you're poisoning her. 

I'm in denial that next month she'll be a year old, but this month we're going to enjoy her as she is. 

christmas 2016

We had such a great Christmas this year that I barely took any pictures! It was so fun to watch Margo play with her new toys and all of the wrapping paper and ribbons, but it was even more fun to spend a lot of time with family.

We spent Christmas Eve at Alex's parents with all of his siblings. Then we spent Christmas morning at our house- just the four of us (Moose counts) and Christmas afternoon we left for my parent's house. Alex went back to work Tuesday and I stayed in Salem for the week and so did Becky and her kids (Jared worked too). While we were there we played with all the Puricelli cousins, relaxed and hung out with no real plans or agenda.

My aunt Jeanne and uncle Bruce from Virginia came Tuesday and then on Friday Jim and his family's flight came in and Alex and Jared came back from working. Friday night all of the adults went to dinner at RARE in Mt. Vernon and it was delicious; Alex is still talking about how good his steak was!

We had a great holiday and I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to spend so much time with our families and relaxing. Now that the New Year is upon us, we'll have to see what 2017 has in store!

Margo wasn't thrilled...

...at all 😁

Grayson & Jansen playing in the best toy they could ask for- a big box

playing with her alligator

I got Alex a pizza peel and he got me a record player!

Margo was a great little helper

We couldn't forget Moose- he got a new antler, rope and of course a festive treat 

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and that you will have a great New Year!