Birthday Fun!

I have been meaning to post pics of Norah's 1st bday party but we are in the process of cleaning our computer and getting all our photos organized because it has been so hard to load photos onto the blog from the editing program we use. Plus its been hard to transfer photos we want to edit to our editing program and back to iPhoto. With our new DSLR the pics are such a huge files too, so its taking up so much space on our computer and then there is all these duplicates stored that need to be cleaned out. I spent 3 plus hours yesterday going through our iPhoto library deleting duplicates and pics that were flops, I deleted so far over 5,000 pics! So I thought I would give u some, but they aren't edited and I would love them to be edited first, but I don't know when our computer will be all organized so here it is!

My mom and mother-in-law helped to prep for the party, my mother-in-law is an amazing seamstress so she sewed my pendent banner I made and Norah's birthday shirt that had the polka-dot one and her "1" bib :) I couldn't have done it without them!! So here are some pics of Norah the week before her party helping Grandma sew :)

Party pics (pre-edited)

Norah was so adorable and had such a great day. She did so good even despite skipping her afternoon nap. I let her take a really long morning nap knowing she was going to skip the afternoon one. I usually only let her sleep an hour in the morning because if she sleeps longer she doesn't go down easy for the afternoon one. We had lots of family and friends come and enjoyed the fire pit outside with s'mores and all!! We enjoyed the yummy BBQ style food and cupcake mason jars. I had a sweets table that everyone could eat from!! Norah was hilarious opening all her wonderful gifts, she loved the tissue paper and putting the bags over her head. Family stayed until Norah went to sleep and she definitely went down as soon as she hit the bed!!! She was exhausted!!

Her actual birthday was Tuesday and we were going to take her to the zoo that day, but it was supposed to rain so we took her Monday and she loved it!!! It was so much fun watching her run around! Here are some of the pre-edited pics of the zoo and some pics of her that we took in her highchair and some others that we took on her actual birthday. 

                                                              Norah enjoying her birthday cupcake after dinner :)

Zoo Day! 

On her actual birthday it was rainy so we stayed inside and had fun!

 She had dumped her cheerios out and was having fun playing and eating them as she pleased :)

1 Year Doctor Visit & 1 Nap
Norah also went to her 1 year doctor visit on Thursday and she weighs 18 lbs and grew 3 1/2 inches!! She is in the 10 percentile for her weight and 75% for her height!! I guess she is taking after me, long, lean and big feet!! She is almost in a size 5! Norah has also recently dropped her morning nap. I knew it was coming soon because a month ago she started having trouble settling into her afternoon nap after her morning naps. Limiting them to one hour helped, but I knew it was coming soon and I was actually looking forward to it. I wanted to wait until she turned one and I have spent the last week or so transitioning her and she has done amazing!!! There has been no major problems and she sleeps pretty long in the afternoon now, I think she is still getting used to not getting up after an hour and half, but she slept almost 3 hrs the other day and about 2 hrs yesterday. I am thrilled because now our mornings are free to run errands, go to the gym, go to church and she isn't exhausted or I'm not trying to rush home and plan the errands in between the morning and afternoon nap. She gets up around 6:30, 7ish and then I feed her breakfast and then we head off to the gym, if I need to run out after I can and then we are home in time for lunch at 11:30ish and then she is in bed between 12:30 and 1 and sleeps until like 3, 3:30 depending on what time she went down. I am still teaching her to sleep longer than her previous afternoon nap, but I think she will eventually, it just takes some persistence and work :) Overall I am so pleased she has transitioned so well with it.

Breast Milk to Whole Milk
I am also transitioning her to organic whole milk or goat's milk (I haven't totally decided still) and have been weaning her from breast milk. I plan on having her done with breast milk this week. I feel very excited that I was able to breast feed her for her first year, it was much easier than people told me and I know it was the best thing for her. She has only had 2 major colds and one ear infection this winter and I truly believe it was because she was breastfed, the antibodies in breast milk are extremely remarkable. And I'm not the type to keep her from germs, she has been going to the church nursery since she was allowed and I take her to the gym daycare and I don't use a cart cover when shopping, I figure it builds up her immune system ;) I have always been cautious though if I know there is a bug going around and I don't usually put her in childcare, like last week I knew the flu was going around like crazy and I didn't want her to be sick so I only went to the gym the first half of the week and once I caught wind of every one of my friends and there babies was getting the flu then I didn't go the rest of the week. Overall I encourage all moms who are pregnant to breastfeed because it was truly much easier than I was told, it can be hard in the beginning for some, but push through the sore nipples and it will be the best decision you made! And it gets so easy as they get older and convenient! I loved that no matter how long I was out I had her food, I didn't have to carry bottles or formula, it was great! And if I was leaving her with someone I had pumped bottles for her. Plus knowing you are providing the best for your baby is the greatest feeling in the world and its FREE!

Hope you are having a wonderful week!! Happy Easter!!