She's 1 Year Old!

Charlotte turns 1 year old tomorrow.  Little did we know, Dave and I were spending our last day as a family of 2 on this day last year.

On May 22 Dave and I went to Mirror Imaging to have an early ultrasound done.  I was 17 weeks pregnant.  We asked the technician to write "boy" or "girl" on a card and seal it in an envelope.  We drove directly to the bakery where they awaited the arrival of the results.  A few house later they delivered a cake to our house that had either pink or blue filling.  After dinner that night, with family all around, we cut the cake!  I had guessed it was another girl, and Dave was betting on a boy.  I was wrong!  Baby #2 is a BOY and we are thrilled!!  A few weeks later we came to a final decision on his name.  Asher Joseph Cooley will be joining us on October 25th (our 2nd wedding anniversary) at 8am via scheduled c-section.

Charlotte has been hitting lots of new milestones.  She babbles constantly and strings together multiple syllables.  I feel like she is really trying to say something, but it just comes out as a big jumbled mess.  She does clearly say "mama", "dada", and "Hi, Zoe!".  She used to say "Tricia" all the time but she hasn't seen the babysitter in a while (she is off due to foot surgery), so I am not sure if she remembers that one.   Her new favorite thing is to point at something and say "Ohhhh!".  She gets so excited over the funniest items, like sunglasses.  She points and squeals and then must hold them...no matter who is wearing them.   

She crawls EVERYWHERE and pulls up on EVERYTHING, including Daddy's legs....which means he gets his leg hairs pulled on a regular basis.  As long as she has a hold of something she walks around.  We are still trying to get her to take her first unassisted step and I don't think we have much longer to wait.   

Her blanket is a new fixture in her life.  I began giving it to her when she goes to bed at night and she attempts to drag it out each morning.  I am making an attempt to keep it in the crib, but sometimes she just seems to love it so much I let her carry it around a bit.

Her eating habits have also drastically changed.  We started weaning her off the bottle after she turned 11 months old and she began devouring all solid food we put in front of her.  I am fairly sure there isn't a single food or drink she has declined at this point.  She loves feeding herself, so applesauce, cottage cheese, and yogurt are the only items she needs help with. 

Next, the swimming.  Oh how she loves swimming.  We spent a week on the beach in Maine  and have taken her swimming over Aunt Pattie's house several times.  The beach was a fun new experience for her and she only ate a few handfuls of sand before she decided it didn't taste very good.  She can't get enough of the water and she is so tan.  I put sun screen on her all the time but she still looks like a little brown bear.  We have officially decided that she has my complexion....not Daddy's. 

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And finally, after more swimming on the 4th of July Charlotte tried out the slip-n-slide for the very first time.  She seemed to enjoy watching her cousin Madison and Daddy sliding away so we thought we would let her try it.  The little dare devil loved it.

That's it! I will post about her birthday party next week.