Happy Birthday, Jensie Girl!

12 months

She's 13 months old now, okay? Phew, I just had to get that off of my chest.

She is just the sweetest little thing. Ben and I are just almost absolutely positive we will never be able to love another peanut as much as we love her. 

1. She's now exclusively walking. 

2. She is obsessed, I mean OBSESSED with books. We've been going to the library to stock up, because Ben and I began to absolutely hate every single book we owned - after reading them 1,000 times. 

3. Her favorite foods are fruit of any kind and macaroni and cheese. We've been pretty blessed so far that she isn't too picky. She'll eat pretty much anything we put in front of her. She did spit out the bite of my tuna sandwich I gave her the other day though.

4. She unfortunately and fortunately loves tv. 

5. She says: hi, bye, Dada, Mama, please, thank you, Blue (my parents' dog), book, drink, KiKi, PaPa, Chief, Sass, Jensie, and will try to repeat a lot of things we say. 

6. She's a tad bit naughty. And is very sensitive when she gets in trouble. 

7. She's been asking for her "dada" when I get her up from her naps. I still love/hate it. 

8. My big girl drinks ice cold, whole milk from a sippy cup. I figured since I'm pregnant and she's now old enough to ask for it, it was time to let go of our special nursing times.
9. She loves playing outside, and running wild. She's not too keen on being held.
10. After many many months of inconsistent sleeping patterns, she now sleeps 10-12 hours a night and takes two 2-hour naps a day. Which is just so great for this 1st trimester symptomatic mama.

 She's funny. And beautiful. And sweet. And ugh, we're still just as obsessed with her as we were 13 months ago.

Being her mom has stretched me and challenged me and taught me to love in ways I never thought possible. It is so fun.

11.

I'm not even going to apologize for being over 2 weeks late with this, because I know you all expect nothing less. My baby. Oh my baby, my sweet little 11 month old baby. WAHHHHHHH - this is how I feel about her turning a year old. I'm going to get all of my complaining and woe-is-me-ness out on this post. Then I can be super okay when I post later this month about my big, bad 1-year-old. So later when I post about her being one, I won't complain about how she no longer lets me rock her, or how she's trying to walk, or how her 1-year-old attitude stinks sometimes, or how the past year went by waaaay tooooo fast. Okay, done.

11 months.

She says: mama, dada, bye, hi, boo

She eats: everything. seriously. her favorites are anything dipped in hummus (weird, I know), ham, cheese, peas, carrots, watermelon, peaches, etc, etc,

She loves: baths, her crib, her dad, books - obsessed with books, being outside, the pool - sometimes

She hates: napping at sonshine school, when Mom won't share her food, getting her diaper changed, the pool - sometimes

She takes a few steps at a time!
She still loves nursing and her paci - 2 things that make her still feel like my little baby

We're still pretty obsessed with her.

The best weekend

A few great things happened this weekend.

Ben was off, which automatically makes it a great 2 days. Saturday was spent cuddling with the babe, pool party with great friends, and a real date! Well, kinda. We went to an End of Year Party for Ben's work. But it involved dressing up and a babysitter, so it totally counted as a date.

Only 4 more short years for this big guy.

AND THEN, we stayed in a hotel! Yes, in Oklahoma City. But if you knew us before Jens, (and I'm sure there is no one reading this that didn't know us before Jens) you know that we love to sleep. Sleeping in. Something that hasn't been done for 11 whole months. Of course, we woke up before 8 but we forced ourselves to go back to sleep until 9:30. It was awesome. We also forced ourselves to stay away long enough to eat breakfast and do a little shopping, and then we rushed home to the girly. I bet you can guess who Jenson reached for when we got home. Yep, I'm chopped liver.

After we got home, we were hanging out in the backyard, when this happened. After months of trying to get her to stand up on her own, Jenson decides to start standing like it's her job. 

And lastly, Ben decided it would be funny to slick her hair back with baby lotion. Right before church. 

I promise that I took these a long time ago.

10 whole months

If I'm being completely honest, I must say that this has been the hardest month for me thus far as a parent. Jens was a pretty easy infant. Although I really had no right to be, I was confident in myself as a mother - as far as bathing, feeding, holding, nursing, and waking up with a tiny human being. I could pretty much get by on babycenter.com and my overwhelming love for my new baby. Sure it wasn't always easy, but it was so new and exciting and honestly just completely enjoyable. Then Jenson turned 9 months old. She had an opinion about things, and she was moody, and she was crawling everywhere, and she started throwing fits. There were a couple weeks where I pretty much had to hand her over to Ben when he got home, because I just didn't feel strong enough and patient enough to deal with it anymore. Disciplining your kid is just a whole other ballgame. I get so overwhelmed thinking about whether I'm doing the best thing for her, or just completely screwing everything up. It was just so much easier before she got all of this personality...but not nearly as fun.

That being said, Jens and I have finally got our groove going, and things are better than ever. She is just the most amazing little thing. She is funny. And she is super cute, if I do say so myself. She still looks exactly like her father. Speaking of her father, she is still completely obsessed with him.. and it's not nearly as cute as it used to be. But it's still pretty sweet.

Her favorite foods are macaroni and cheese (which her health conscience dad doesn't like me to give her), blueberries, yogurt, peas, and carrots.

She says Mama, Dada, and bye. She is a speedy crawler and walks while holding on to something.

I cannot even begin to put into words just how much we love her, and just how much she has blessed our life.

Pics to come soon - probably when she's 10.5 months.

The girl loves her dad.

I was on the phone with my mom today and told her two quick Jens stories and she said, "That is the stuff you should be writing down! You'll want to remember that!"

So... Two days ago Jens and I were at Ace Hardware picking up some flowers for the backyard. I was holding her on my hip and busy talking to the cashier and not paying attention to her at all. She was patting my back and grunting and trying to get my attention, and I didn't even realize until she weaseled her way up my chest, grabbed my face, and kissed me right on the lips. How is she old enough to do that?

And... Today, for the first time ever, she cried when her dad left for work. It was the sweetest/saddest thing. She wanted nothing to do with me. I had to pry her away from him and we watched him walk out the door and get in his car, while she was reaching out for him the entire time.

Time, just stop.