Party Time x2

We had 2 little parties for Heidi to celebrate her birthday! One was the day before her birthday and one was on the Saturday after her birthday. The day before her big day we had family over and ate pizza and then watched Heidi stare at her cake. She ate a little bit of it. I was truly shocked she did not go after it more. Oh well! I made Heidi a cute little panda cake - I had one like it on my first birthday. Tomorrow when I pick her up from my mom's after work I will find a picture and post it! For everyone else's dessert delight - they had cupcakes. All were made from scratch - even the icing!! I was so proud of myself. We bought Heidi the cutest little table for her birthday - I can only imagine all the tea parties she will have on this table! The chairs were from the church I grew up in; I just need to paint them. My parents gave her a Bitty Baby - which she absolutely adores. The little girl loves her dolls!
On her actual birthday I took off of work and we hung out all day. It was such a great day! We started the morning off with breakfast in bed. Next we headed to the pool. There might have been a cupcake (or 2) thrown in the mix as well :)Saturday we had Heidi's birthday bash - pool, fun, sun, a cookout, and friends! It was a great time! Low key and a perfect little party for our one year old. I think we will be having many more pool party birthdays for Heidi. Seriously, its so easy and you don't have to come up with activities and things to do!

Heidi - 1 Year

Heidi - You are 1 year old! This year has flown by faster than I could ever imagine a year could fly. It has been so amazing to watch you grow and develop. I never knew how incredible the growth of a baby could be - I love watching you each day.

You are wearing 6-12; 12-18; and 18 month clothes. I bought mostly 18 month "bubble" onsies so that they would last you for the summer. You seem to have a long body like your mama.

You are still breastfeeding and I am still pumping at work. I had thought about stopping to pump, but I decided against it. I am not foreseeing a self-weaning anytime soon.

You love food. ALL food. Some of your favorites are peas, apples, bananas, chicken...you will eat anything we put on your plate and you sometimes eat faster than we can get it on your tray! We have to portion how much we place in front of you at once because you will keep picking it up and putting it in your mouth!

You weight 22lbs 12ozs and are just a little over 30" long! My how you have grown in a year!

You are still shy about walking, but randomly you decide to walk. You love to walk holding one of our hands. It makes you laugh and run! You push the chairs around re-organizing the kitchen.

You have lots of words you like to say - I am sure only a few of us know what you are saying.

You love to point at things and we are having to teach you the words instead of grunting when you want something. Each morning you wake up and instantly find something that you can point to and request.

You have a face that you love to make when you are not getting your way. You scrunch up your nose and show all of your teeth and make the little snorting-sniffing sound really fast.

You are down to about 1 nap a day and it last from 45 minutes to 3 hours. Bedtime is usually around 7:30-8 and you wake up at about 7:45AM.

Right Where I Am: 2 Years - 5 Months

I have decided to link up to the Right Where I Am post from Angie's still life with circles blog. Its hard to say where I am right now. In each day, with each adventure that takes place I could go from happy to sad in the blink of an eye. Its still hard not to play the "what if" game. Heidi and I were at the pool this weekend and I thought to myself - would I be out here if I had two to take care of and watch after? would I be as close to Heidi as we are? would I be as careful or as appreciative of Heidi as I am? Its hard not to play the "what if" game when things do not go as they planned or there were other options in your life. Everyone does it. Some of my other "what ifs" are:

"what if"... had gone to UGA

...majored in dance

...didn't go to college and danced

...got married sooner

If we sit and dwell upon the "what ifs" we'll never move to the "what is" - we cannot live our life in a fairy day dreamland. Yes, its okay to let myself think thoughts like these every so often, but its not healthy to let it consume my thoughts. Letting it consume just puts you sitting in the middle of a hurricane of grief never getting out of the eye of the storm. After 2 years and 5 months I have learned the definition of "how many do you have" vs "how many have you had". After 2 years and 5 months I still have not learned how to not be so awkward when starting off to tell my story when asked why I would have multiple ultrasounds with Heidi and why I had to take so many shots/meds. I am still awkward in general. I am still learning what to do in certain situations; still handling depression and how to move away from depression triggering moments.

After almost 2 and a half years I am still growing and learning about how to be a mother of a child that never lived and to a child that is living now. After these years I can still recall every last detail that happened right down to what I was wearing. I am not sure if I have progressed or remained stagnant in my grief. Its still there and it will always remain. Maybe the awkwardness will go away, but I doubt it. Maybe if the awkwardness went away it would not make other people feel so awkward when hearing my story. Its hard because you never know how someone is going to feel about you after you drop such a bomb on them. I usually end up telling a person I have just met within the first few minutes of meeting them. Not on purpose, it just happens - like its normal. So, after 2 years and 5 months (really 2 years, 4 months, and 28 days) I am still here. Still grieving. Still learning. And still hopeful for what is to come. There is not a map with directions on how one should be coping at this point in grief, but its like taking a trip without reservations - never knowing where you will end up.

Recital 2011

Another year in the world of dance has ended. I loved teaching this year - as I did last year. The break until September is most definitely welcomed though. I don't know if it was harder to teach while pregnant or with a baby. Hopefully next year will be easy with Heidi being a little older. I kept the same class and added a few younger girls in the Hip-Hop dance. So, we had a jazz dance and a hip-hop dance. The girls were wonderful, as usual, and I could not be more proud of them. I am already getting ideas for next year :)

Also - a picture of my niece and my messed up hair...

SSI Wedding

On Saturday I dropped little Heidster off at church with my parents to stay the night while I headed to SSI for a beach wedding. The wedding was beautiful! Seriously. I love outdoor beach weddings. The couple were friends of John and I from Valdosta and were both in our fraternity/sorority - so it was basically a wonderful mini-VSU reunion :) SO much fun! I will admit that I am becoming slack on taking pictures that do not involve Heidi {although my picture taking in general has become lax} so I didn't take my normal amount of pictures. I did, however, take some video footage to make a little DVD for the couple. Maybe I will finally learn how to work out video editing software - maybe.

Sean - the groom

The beautiful bride Lindsay

The Strobles

Alex and Keith

Brooke and Maggie

LJ

Andrea, Jenni, and Lindsey

Sunday I went to pick up Heidi and then met John for lunch. From there he left to go to Atlanta for the week - not to return until the following Sunday. Work and pleasure :) Heidi and I went home and took naps and then headed to the pool! We will definitely be spending a lot of time out in the pool or on walks this summer. Miss Priss loves to be outside and loves the water!

Watermark

So - I have fallen into the watermarking again. I used to put a little mark on my pictures all the time, but it became such a hassle and I rarely had a chance to blog, let alone put a mark on each photo. So, I stopped and then I figured out how to disable to right clicking feature on my blog. Then I figured out in google reader you can still steal the photos of whatever you want, so back to putting my little mark on the photo! I put the mark through the picture instead of in the corner this time because I discovered a picture of mine that was cropped on facebook being used by someone else from an event. It wasn't a big deal they took the picture {it was of them}, but it made me think. SOOO - sorry for the annoying marks on the pictures!

Memorial Weekend

This was a very nice long weekend! I love having extra snuggle time with my little bunny :) I has discovered some amazing things over the last few days. The most important one being that I can accomplish so much if I do not nap with Heidi. I did miss my naps, BUT I was able to clean, do laundry, and bake some bread all on Saturday while she took her almost 3 hour nap. We had a busy day that morning - breakfast, morning walk with Hunter, playtime, pool time, nap time, bread making, more playtime, bath time, evening walk with the neighbor, and then bedtime. Heidi was a pooped little girl! Sunday we had basically the same routine except we made cookies instead of bread and we went to John's work party instead of the evening walk. The party was held at a little "family fun" center - a place with go-karts, putt-putt, paintball, arcade games, etc. Heidi loved to watch the go-karts zooming around the track! We stayed and watch daddy win at putt-putt and then headed home to bed.
Monday {our extra day - THANK YOU to all of our soldiers - past, present, and no longer with us for serving our country} we went over to Bonnie and Alan's house with a few other members of our small group for a little cookout. Heidi enjoyed walking around everywhere, playing with the cats and dog and trying to step into the fish pond :) Earlier in the day we went on a morning walk and then tried to take a nap, but went to the pool instead, and then came home to take a nap! So, not sure how many of you have experienced this, but I did after having both of my children. I lost a ton of my hair {typical} and then the new growth appeared. It came in the exact same area both times. I have all of these short hairs and they are uncontrollable. I finally conquered them for straight hair days, but I have been going curly lately - might even stay curly for awhile - and they are annoying!! Sometimes they look like a have a big spiky cowlick.