A New Yoga Pose?

Silly girl!

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1st Birthday Party

On Saturday we had a party with Paul's parents, sister and brother-in-law, and a few close friends to celebrate Gemma's first birthday. She had a great day being the centre of attention, and she handled it all really well since she isn't in big groups of people very often (not that 11 people is a big group!).

We had a ladybug theme and a barbecue. Marie got the cake made by someone she knows through work, and it matched the decorations perfectly! And it was tasty too!
















The party started with opening gifts. Gemma didn't quite get to pull the paper off of the gifts, but she liked looking at all of the new things.
















Gemma played with her new toys and everyone visited while Paul grilled up yummy burgers, sausages, and chicken. We then all ate way too much!










Next came the cake! Gemma has never really had cake before, so she made some awfully funny faces when she was tasting it and didn't eat too much. We got to Skype with Grandma Brenda, Auntie Margo, and Cousin Freya during the cake smash.













After being hosed down in the shower, a bit more visiting, and a bottle, it was bedtime for Gemma.



The rest of us enjoyed a few more beverages and chatting after Gemma went to bed. We had a wonderful day celebrating our little girl!

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1 Year!

My oh my, where has the past year gone? We celebrated Gemma's first birthday on Saturday (more on the party in the next post), and we had a wonderful day. Gemma has become such a funny, happy, active little girl; it's hard to imagine her as the tiny newborn she was. Her birthday really brought back all of those feelings the first time I heard her cries and saw her face in the operating room 12 months ago. Parenthood has been the most incredible, rewarding journey, even though some times have been quite challenging as well. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Gemma is a blessing that I give thanks for everyday. At 12 months, she:

-Continues to be very active- crawling, climbing, standing at furniture and grabbing everything in sight, and cruising along furniture. The other day she was able to crawl up into our rocking chair by herself. She also climbed into one of the ikea boxes that we store her toys in! She isn't walking yet, but in the past couple of weeks she's gotten very good at standing up to and walking with her v-tech walker by herself.

-Likes to make funny faces and has started to make an "o" with her mouth and say "oh" at the same time. Scrunching up her eyes and nose continues to be a favourite face as well!

-Says 'dada' and 'mama', but she hasn't actually called us by those names- it's mostly just babbling and imitating. When I take her upstairs to bed, I say 'night, night' , and she often says what I think sounds like 'nigh, nigh'. When I want her to stand up or climb up the stairs, I say 'up, up', and she imitates and says something similar to this as well.

-Has 6 teeth now- the top, front 4 and the bottom, front 2.

-Really likes to clap and play pat-a-cake. She now even takes my hands and claps them for me when she thinks I should clap!

-Continues to imitate a lot of what we do. Yesterday Paul was putting the cap of her sippy cup over her face early in the day, and she started doing it with me at dinner.

-Is going to daycare (called creche here) on the days I work (Wednesday-Friday), and has settled in really well there. The only small issue is that she doesn't nap much there. At home she takes two naps, usually at least an hour each. At creche she has only fallen asleep once for the morning nap, and her afternoon nap has only been 35-60 minutes. She just doesn't want to miss a thing!

-Has tolerated starting dairy really well and loves yogurt and cheese. At home we have a hard time getting her to eat any meat, but at creche she eats everything they give to her!

-Likes to put items into other items when playing. Her nesting/stacking cups are a favourite. She got a Fisher Price cookie jar for her birthday, and the past two days she has been constantly playing with it- taking the cookies out, then putting them back in again.

-Loves to play with socks and tries to put them on herself. She has also become quite good at knowing where most items of clothing belong- she'll often offer a leg when I'm putting her pants on her.

-Is enthralled by Barney the dinosaur. We don't let her watch tv or videos hardly at all, but one day Paul put on a Barney episode on the iPad to distract her while I was cutting her nails. She sat and watched it quietly while I cut her nails and for a long time after!

-Continues to be a healthy girl- by my calculations she weighs 26 pounds, 8 ounces. We haven't measured her height recently, but her 18 month pants are getting a little short!

-Is a happy, content little girl who usually entertains herself with her toys quite easily. She does let us know that she's not happy if we take something away or don't let her do something that she wants to do, but I think this is typical toddler behaviour! The upset never lasts very long.

Some photos from the past month:







She doesn't like getting her hair rinsed, so we got this for her- it works quite well!



On our way to Louisburgh



Sleeping during the heat wave!


















Paul and Gemma went to Louisburgh while I stayed in Dublin for a bachelorette party the first weekend in August. Gemma hasn't slept in the car with me in about 7 months. I got this picture on their way down! She slept on the way back too!

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