One {An unfinished post from 2013}

{I was looking through my "drafts" in my blogger account and came across this one.  I started it TWO YEARS AGO as I tried to pen my thoughts about Abby turning one.  I was having such a hard time reconciling my emotions and thoughts on her turning one.  I thought she would likely be my last "one year old" birthday celebration and I just couldn't find the right words to describe that feeling.  So I started to write about her turning one, but never finished.  Two years later, even if it's unfinished, I thought I should post what I did write.  It's just another bitter sweet reminder of how quickly life passes!  And that cute baby... how could I NOT post pictures of that precious baby!  I remember taking these pictures in her room "like it was yesterday".  Sigh.}

How did this happen?

Well, it actually happened over three months ago, but the fact that I'm just now posting about it seems par for the course in the "how did this happen" mystery of time going by too quickly.

On February 16th, our baby girl dawned a special crown dubbing her Queen of the Holtzman Household as we celebrated the momentous occasion of her turning ONE.

ONE.

How that happened, I'm not quite sure.

I can still remember so vividly preparing for her birth.  Painting the room, dressing the crib in the newly made bedding, filling the dresser drawers with itty bitty diapers and sleepers, putting the rocking chair in place for the many late night nursing sessions, anticipating her birth with a bit of anxiety and a lot of excitement.  

I remember it all.

It doesn't seem possible that it happened a year ago.

I remember the day she was born like it yesterday.  I remember how she looked and felt, the excitement exhibited by her big siblings when they saw her for the first time, the tiny clothes lining her drawers and closet, the way I could hold her cradled in one arm, how she nursed so easily and how desperately I wanted to hold on to those days and savor every second of her newness knowing that in the blink of an eye, I would be here.  

Wondering how a year has come and gone.  Feeling sad and guilty that I didn't savor it more.  And noticing that my tiny baby now resembles more of a toddler who walks, tries to talk, and tries to keep up with her older siblings as much as she possibly can. 

How did this happen?

Time just happened.  Kids went to school, had activities, celebrated birthdays.  We went on vacations and Vance worked more and I volunteered for too many things.  Life happened.


And now our baby is ONE.

And she is a delightful ONE.

After overcoming her colic at around 6 months, she became a sweet smiling sister.  Her big chocolate drop eyes melt me and her big grin is infectious.  

At ONE, she seems to favor her big brother most among her other siblings.  Molly is her biggest threat and I pray for the days I will see the two of them dancing around my living room in dress up costumes.  She talks and has several words mastered, loves to change her shoes, refuses to drink milk and is kept hydrated by pouched applesauce and pouches of expensive organic food, reads books to put herself to sleep for her nap, has a white softie that she chews on the edges of, has a lot of teeth, CURLY brown hair and a big belly, blows kisses to everyone when she goes to bed at night, is kind of rough, attempts somersaults on her own, and is my first climber!

DONUT You Know? Abby is 3!

I DONUT know how it happened, but my "little brown one" turned THREE on Monday.  

THREE!

How can it be?!

I've decided that the more children you have, the faster time goes without you even realizing it.  In my mind, Abby Grace was "just born"!

But she wasn't.  She was born THREE years ago!  

And so she had her three year old rite of passage...

her first birthday party with FRIENDS!

And for her first friend birthday party, we chose a DONUT theme!  Abby loves donuts and spends every Saturday morning going to get donuts with her daddy.  One of her favorite Christmas gifts was a stacking donut game.  When she opened it, she squealed with delight and said "Daddy made me donuts"!  So we had donut cake, donut pops, donut cookies and more donuts... a menu full of DONUTS!

I hope I don't give her a food complex when she grows up since this is the 2nd year in a row she has had a food themed party (last year was French Fries)!  But honestly, how fun is this DONUT theme?!

 

This was a super quick and easy party set up.  There are several free donut printables online that made up the majority of the decorations.  I wanted to make the donut balloons that I saw on Pinterest, but I ran out of time so we settled for regular balloons instead.  But scrapbook paper and donut printables made for a cute and colorful table display.

Since I was dealing with 3 year olds, we kept the guest list small  and manageable.  And we had to keep the activities at a preschool level.  I wanted to do the "donut on a string" game, but I quickly scrapped that idea once I saw how messy a few of the other games were! 

We started off the party by making play-do donuts and coloring some donut color pages.  The girls used donut pans to make play-do donuts and used beads for the "sprinkle" decorations.  

 Next up was the donut walk!

And then I got brave - REALLY brave - and broke out the PAINT!  The girls made paper plate donuts and decorated them with tiny pom poms.  

And in case the girls weren't messy enough from the paint, I took it a step further and added in a mix of glue and sprinkles!  They decorated their own chef hats and wrote their names on them in sprinkles!

Next up was the Bean Bag Toss through a GIANT donut!  And then the girls just jumped on and rolled across and played all kinds of things with this GIANT donut!

And then it was time for SUGAR!  Donut sugar!

And Abby blew out her THREE candles!

And she chowed down on her donuts!

And then sweet Abby opened up her presents and very shyly and very quietly and very sweetly thanked her friends.

After present opening was complete, the 3 year olds disrobed and began doing what 3 year old girls do... DRESS UP! So Abby (aka Tinkerbell) handed out her party favors which were filled with cute donut treats.  Favors boxes are always one of my favorite parts about birthday parties. Not because I think the other children need a gift so that don't feel "left out", but because they are just too fun to put together and the birthday girl always enjoys handing them out!

The take out boxes included a donut cookie, scratch & sniff donut stickers, a donut bracelet, set of 3 "donut crayons" and a donut hair clip!  And of course, they had to take some donuts home too.  The little sacks had powdered donuts inside.

When it was all over, Abby looked at me with her big brown chocolate eyes and said...

"Now we do my birthday party all over again?"

I think that meant she had fun!

HAPPY #3 ABBY GRACE!

She is still working on getting those three little fingers to work together to show her new age! THREE is a tough one!

We love you...

you sweet and ornery and feisty and silly 

and strong and sneaky and funny and lovable 

THREE year old!

Evolution of The Best Smile Ever

When I was 34 weeks pregnant, I had a second sonogram.  I actually requested it from my OB and he obliged as he could "medically" recommend one based on my "advanced maternal age."  I saw the doctor after the sonogram and he assured me that everything was completely fine and that baby was growing right on schedule.  End of sonogram discussion.

At my appointment the following week, I opted to see a nurse practitioner instead of waiting for my OB to return from the delivery he was doing. The practitioner had never seen me before and in her brief review of my file, she nonchalantly made the following comment to me...

"So we did a sonogram last week to try to locate baby's mouth since we couldn't find it the first time."

Excuse me?  

What did you just say?  

Um, no!

I'm just old... that's why we did the sonogram!

"Well... it says here that the perinatologist who reads our sonograms wasn't able to identify the mouth on the original sonogram and so we rechecked it last week.  We haven't received her report back on that sonogram yet."

She clearly did not understand that you don't say this to someone like me with terrible anxiety!

The following week, at my next appointment, my OB and I had a few things to clear up!  He confirmed that the sonograms, both of them, had not been able to identify the baby's mouth.  He had opted not to tell me about this because he knows I'm an obsessive worrier and that I would take this "non-information" and worry the remainder of my pregnancy.  He called it "non-information" because it didn't necessarily tell them anything other than the fact that they couldn't see something. He said...

"It doesn't mean it's not there or that there is something wrong.  It just means we can't see it."

To me that screamed RED FLAG! 

To him, it meant nothing to worry about.  

The reality of the concern was that the baby may or may not have had a cleft lip and/or palette. I began researching and obsessing just as he thought I would.  He remained calm and begged me to stop doing such "research."  I tried my best to trust him and stop worrying, but the fact that they couldn't find my baby's mouth on not one, but TWO, sonograms seemed like something that I should be worried about!

And then she was born.

And I saw the tiniest of mouths tucked in between the chubbiest of cheeks!

No wonder they couldn't see her mouth...

it's so small...

like a baby doll's mouth!

{Less than 1 hour old}

I'm pretty sure this is me telling my OB that he was right, as usual, and that I should not have worried.

So Lucy Elizabeth most definitely has a mouth.

A very sweet and very tiny mouth.

{Going Home Day}

And it took a while for that tiny little mouth to start turning upwards into a smile.  Around 7 weeks, she started giving us itty bitty upturns at the corners of her bitty mouth... the beginnings of the smile that would become the best and brightest baby smile ever. 

So here it is...

the evolution of the best smile EVER!

{8.11.14 - 7 1/2 weeks}

{8.13.14 - 7 1/2 weeks}

{8.14.14 - 7 1/2 weeks}

{8.20.14 - 2 MONTHS}

{8.31.14 - 2 1/2 months}

{9.1.14 - 2 1/2 months}

{9.6.14 - 2 1/2 months}

{9.12.14 - 2 3/4 months}

{9.20.14 - 3 MONTHS}

{10.1.14 - 3 months}

By 4 months, her smile started to become a 

"mouth wide open" kind of smile.

{10.17.14 - 3 3/4 months}

{10.20.14 - 4 MONTHS}

Near 5 months, her smile evolved more and she began to squinch up her cheeks prior to opening her mouth for her full "mouth wide open" smile

{11.17.14 - 4 3/4 months}

{12.20.14 - 6 MONTHS}

Today, at nearly 7 1/2 months, Lucy's tiny mouth transforms into a GIANT grin whenever someone makes eye contact with her or speaks her name.  Her tiny mouth is wide open and happy nearly all of the time.  Her little mouth - the one that no one could find on my sonograms - has been the source of so much joy in our household these past 7 1/2 months.  

This tiny, baby-doll mouth...

transforms into this...

It is infectious.  

It is perfection.

It is the best smile EVER!