15 month appt.

Hadley had her 15 month check up today and she is doing really well! Here are her stats:

Height: 31.25" - 74th percentile
Weight: 21 lbs, 7.5oz. - 28th percentile
Head Circumference: 18.5" - 80th percentile

Apparently, she has had a big growth spurt in the 3 months since her last check up. She was previously in the 43rd percentile for height, but now she's in the 74th! The doctor wasn't worried that her weight is not right in line with her height since she's constantly walking around and she eats well (and we don't give her junk food). She definitely doesn't LOOK too skinny. They checked her iron level today, too and that was right where it should be.

Hadley says about 5 words now...although she mostly just babbles constantly. The words she can say: Mama, Dada, hi, hey, amen, Abby (short for Abuela, this is what she calls Rey's mom). She still plays her keyboard all the time and she will often set it to one of those repeating beats and she'll bob her head and dance around - it is SO cute! She will also sing with me sometimes now. She has started to throw little tantrums sometimes when she doesn't get her way. She'll sort of collapse on the floor and cry really hard for a couple minutes until she calms down. I try to just ignore it for the most part...I definitely don't want to give in! She's already starting to not do it very often anymore so I think it's working. :-)

First trip to the zoo

This past Sunday we took Hadley to the zoo for the first time. I think she had fun, but it seemed that she was more interested in the other kids than she was with the animals. She did really like the parakeet enclosure, though...we were able to hold her right up to the birds and they would fly only a few feet over her head. Of course, what she really wanted was to touch them and hold them, but I don't think the birds would have enjoyed that too much! Our friends, Gail & Chad and their son, Jack came with us so Hadley and Jack were able to play together a little bit.

Happy Halloween

Monday was Halloween and Hadley was Snow White. We took her to Publix to trick-or-treat and show off her costume and she was a little show-stopper! We wanted to take her to a few houses in the neighborhood, but the only way to do that would be to have one of us carry her from house to house and she's not light anymore, so that's a bit difficult! Next year, she'll be walking well enough to walk through the neighborhood on her own.

Smoky Mountains - again!

In the middle of October, we went up to our favorite cabin in Pigeon Forge. As usual, it was gorgeous up there, and the weather was great! On the trip, we stopped at The Dillard House on the way there for a fabulous breakfast and one day we drove over to Cades Cove for the wilderness drive. We were really hoping to see a bear or two, but no such luck.

We did have a little buddy at our cabin, though...a raccoon! He was eating the corn kernels out of the front porch decorations and he didn't seem the least bit scared of us. Dad finally had to use a metal shovel from the garbage bin to bang on the porch and scare him off so we could get in the house that night.

On the wilderness drive in Cades Cove, we stopped at a primitive Baptist Church and it had a really old graveyard behind it. The dates went back to the 1700s! I always find old graveyards really interesting...just imagining the lives of these people and sometimes the headstones will have little tidbits. One of the headstones said that the man had been in the NC militia during the Revolutionary War....another said that the man had been murdered by a rebel. And then there were really sad graves of young children...that hits me a lot harder now that I have my own child. I can't imagine how hard it would have been to live in a time where a common illness could kill you or your child so easily.

We also got to see and tour old log cabins from families that lived in those mountains in the 17 and 1800's. You can see part of one of these cabins in the photo of Hadley in the tree.

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Today we took Hadley up to Burt's Pumpkin Farm in Dawsonville and met up with our friends, Chris, Amanda and their son, Jackson. We picked out some great pumpkins and got lots of great photos in the pumpkin patch!

After we had picked our pumpkins and enjoyed some apple cider (which Hadley loved!), we went for a short hike down by the Amicilola (not sure I spelled that right) River. It was a beautiful day enjoyed with good friends! :-)

Not a baby anymore

It has suddenly hit me this week that my "baby" is not a baby anymore...she's a toddler. :-( Sniff, sniff. She's growing up and although I'm excited for her to learn new things...like how to run, ride a bike and TALK...I'm a little sad by how grown up she already looks!

Here's a cute photo I took the other night...Hadley watching her favorite show (the only one she pays any attention to) - Wheel of Fortune!

Apple picking

Yesterday we went to Ellijay, GA to do some apple picking. It was a beautiful day for it, although it was a bit colder than we expected. The wind was really blowing! We got some apples and took Hadley to the petting zoo (just to look...not to touch yet).

First steps

Hadley is WALKING!! In the last week or so, Hadley has started walking on her own and each day she is going further and walking faster as she gains confidence. It's so exciting!

Also, it looks like Hadley has a couple more teeth coming in. Her two front teeth on the top are coming in...they aren't fully grown in yet, though and I can't actually see them unless I lift her top lip. I had thought she was teething lately since I had noticed that she was putting EVERYTHING in her mouth and I guess I was right. She bit down on my finger, which previously wouldn't hurt much since she only had gums up top, but this time, it was QUITE painful since she now had chompers on the top as well as the bottom.

Milestone updates

Walking:
We have been waiting with bated breath for Hadley to start walking...but no such luck yet. We have managed to get her to take a few steps by herself but that's the most she'll do so far. It will probably be any day now (although I've been thinking that for the last month)!

Words:
She says "dada" to Rey consistently so we're pretty confident that she knows that's who he is. She will say "mama", too...but she usually only says it when she's upset and wants me to help her. She calls Simba "ba" but so far those are about the only words we can really make out. She babbles constantly so I'm thinking that once she does learn more words, she will be quite the talker.




Measurements:
Weight: 20lbs., 8oz. (38th percentile)
Height: 29.25 inches (43rd percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 inches (74th percentile)

Eating:
Now that Hadley is a year old she doesn't need formula anymore...Woohoo!! She drinks whole milk and thankfully, she didn't have any problems with the transition. She is also doing great with feeding herself...her favorites are bananas and strawberries. :-) She STILL only has 2 teeth and I am starting to wonder if the others will ever come in. I'm hoping she at least gets her top two in soon so she can use them to bite with. She still mostly drinks from her bottle, but she's getting better with a sippy cup and she's quite good at drinking from a straw.

Music:
As with most babies her age she loves music and she even dances sometimes! She kinda looks like she's doing the twist when she's dancing...so cute! Rey's mom taught her a couple of songs with little hand movements and she'll do those movements with her hand when she wants to hear them. Then we'll sing them to her and she'll clap!

1st Birthday party

I am FINALLY posting the pictures from Hadley's birthday party...sorry it has taken so long!

Hadley updates

My Hadleybear is 11 months old! Actually, she's 11-1/2 months old...I'm just a bit late with the photos. Apparently, I was wrong in my earlier post about her nap schedule. She wasn't really ready to move to only having 1 nap a day - she still needs 2. I guess she had just been having a rough few days and I thought her difficulty napping meant that she was ready for only 1. I must admit that I'm pretty happy about that! She's been so cranky the last couple weeks so it's really wonderful to have my sweet girl back.

She hasn't started walking on her own yet, but she's very fast when she walks holding onto the coffee table or the couches, etc. She's also getting much better at walking when we hold onto her hands and lead her around the room. When we first tried that with her, she didn't realize that she needed to take steps forward, but she definitely gets that now!

So far, Hadley is a bit on the short side...she still wears 9 months sized clothes (particularly onesies and dresses - anything that depends on the length of her torso for fit) and even those still have more room for her to grow. She can wear t-shirts and shorts in the 12 month size, though. She talks quite a lot but I still can't make out any words except for 'mama' and 'dada' and she uses those words indiscriminantly. I'm really looking forward to when she knows that I am "Mama" and Rey is "Dada".

We are working on her ability to feed herself but there's still quite a way to go. She's great with feeding herself small, dry things (cherrios, gerber puffs cereal, animal crackers, etc.) but she still has some trouble with slippery foods - at least half of it ends up on the floor. She's still only got two teeth so maybe it will help when she grows a few more. She also has a long way to go with the sippy cup. She hasn't figured out yet that you have to suck on it to get the water out...she puts the cup to her mouth and when nothing comes out, she gives up. We'll try a few different kinds with her and see if she does any better with those.

I am so funny....according to Hadley

And it was all going so well...

The last week and a half or so, Hadley has begun to go from two naps a day, down to one. Uuuugh. All last week she would take her morning nap just fine but when it came time for her afternoon nap, she either wouldn't take one at all or it would take her 45 minutes to get to sleep. She also started to take at least 30 minutes to go down at night which is not like her at all. After several days of this, I had to accept the fact that she was going to have to drop her morning nap. As much as I love Hadley to pieces, I do relish the time when she's down for her naps because that gives me time to do things I need to get done...so you can imagine that dropping a nap is not exactly something I'm thrilled about. I knew it was coming eventually....I just didn't think it would be so soon!

Hadley thinks she's so funny

Yep, she still likes spitting....(Sigh!)

Lately, she'll try to spit at me occasionally when I'm feeding her because she thinks she's goofing around. She'll spit and then give me this silly grin. As cute as she is, though, I still have try to be stern and not laugh because I don't want to encourage this! I definitely do not enjoy having baby food spit all over me!

A day at the Ritz!

This past Saturday, my parents had invited us to come out and spend the day with them at the Ritz Carlton on Lake Oconee. We had never been to that one before but it was beautiful! Thankfully, it turned out to be a gorgeous day and we spent a good chunk of it by the infinity pool and lake. Hadley went for her first swim while we were there, and while she wasn't too sure about it at first, I think she started enjoy it after a few minutes. She didn't last very long, though....I think it was a combo of her being tired and also her arms started to get kinda pink. I was pretty surprised at that since she'd only been in the sun for maybe 30 minutes and we had put SPF 50 on her but I guess that sensitive baby skin just can't handle it. After her swim, I put her down on one of the lounge chairs and she looked about as chilled out as she could be. It was too cute!