Thirteen Months!

HOLY cow. I have no idea where the last month went. I still havent put her 12 month pictures into colages.... I gotta get on that. Buuuuut not right now... HA! Maybe this week...

Amerie Dakota,

You are 13 months old, and NEVER stop moving. If you are awake you are mobile. You are always on the go! Pulling all the dog toys out of the basket, pulling DVD's off the entertainment center, playing catch with Charlie, Trying to play with the wood stove(obviously were not burning wood in it). You have so much more patience now than you ever have before, but you are also much more vocal about what you dont like. Like when you are playing with Charlie, and he wont give you his toy, you YELL at him. Or when you want more Cherios but mama wont give them to you. Or when Dada takes his phone back, because you arent being soft with it. Or like now, when you want to play photo booth with mama's computer, but she is busy.

You are also very easily distracted. You have the about a 15 second attention span. You dont really play with toys... you play with everything else tho. Like now, you are currently dropping the remote into the seat of your walker, watching it fall through a leg hole, and then picking it up and doing it again. However... in the time it took me to type that, you went back to playing catch with Charlie. You are a ball of fire kiddo!

Lots of changes this month! You can walk now =) You took your first steps on May 14th. You will walk back and forth between mama and dada, but arent quite confident enough to just walk without someone to catch you tho. I am so SO happy that you walked when BOTH mama and dada were there to see it. So awesome neither of us had to miss such a big milestone.

You can go up, and down stairs. You know how to go feet first to get off of things, and to go down stairs... but it gives mama heart failure every time. You can feed yourself with a spoon, tho more gets in your lap than in your mouth.

You are hilarious when you pick things up, you grunt like everything weighs 100 lbs. You intentionally drop things, bend over to pick them up, and GROAN like they are soooo heavy. Then you look at us and smile, as if to say "see how strong I am".  Its pretty cute!

You like to help put things away now, tho once you do, you like to take them right back out. When you are getting ready to get out of bath, you always hold up your toys to us, and say Eh, which means you want to put them up. You also like to wipe things. If I am cleaning, you want to help. You clean your face off, you wipe your tray, you wipe the walls... anything you have seen me wipe, you want to wipe.

You are getting more vocal, and want to say more words, but we arent quite there yet. You can say Dada(your favorite word), Mama, dog, hi, ni-ni, mooooooo(few and far between), you can tell us what a monkey says, you are trying to say book, but so far only have the b sound.

You are still a little bit shy, and dont really want other people holding you. You are a social butterfly as long as no one is looking at you. You wave at EVERYONE.... until they look at you. Then you just stare. You are doing so many more adorable things, but I dont want this letter to be too long, so Ill leave it at that =)

You are paci-less as of June 1. Well, technically you still have A paci... just not one you will put in your mouth. You have only ever liked the Avent pacifiers, since they dont touch the roof of your mouth, so we gave you a Nuk paci, that does touch the roof of your mouth... and you have slept without a paci since. The first few days were the hardest... but the longest you have cried about it was about 2 min. SO glad it is this easy to make this transition!!!

You love all food. And I am pretty sure you can out eat me. There is not much you wont eat! You dont like whole peas, they have to be mashed. You will spit out things you dont cant chew, but still put WAY too much in your mouth!

Since last month you have grown completley out of 12 month clothes, and are fully in 18 month stuff. You are in size 4 diapers and shoes. You have the CUTEST summer clothes... now if the weather would just cooperate so you could WEAR them! You are growing so fast tho, I think we will need 24 month summer outfits before long = / Slow down little girl!!! You weigh 22.5lbs(70%) you are 30.5 inches long(90%) and your head is somewhere around 19"(which put it in right around 99%). Your hair is finally getting LONG!

You are growing and changing so much, even the nurses and your doctor were surprised by your growth. Your doctor said you are ahead of the curve in your motor skills, and he is impressed with your number of words(tho most other people dont understand what you are saying, mama and dada do =) )

Well sweet-pea,

I love you more than life!

Dont grow up too fast,
Forever,
Mama

Just Keep Running.

I have always loved running. I love that it is the one thing I can do and not have to worry about work, laundry, cleaning, bills, messy dogs, drama going on in my friends lives, family issues, etc. I just run. Well, my sister decided we were going to do a half marathon last weekend... and I am in LOVE. I had only trained to run about 5 miles comfortably... and even then I felt like I was pushing myself to run that far. I was totally underprepared, and very nervous. 

I set a realistic goal of 2.5 hours. That is just over an 11 min mile. I figured that if I could push myself for a while, and then walk for a bit, and then push myself, I could make it. I ended up jogging about 11 miles of it, and walking 2 at the most. A lot of this course was hills, which I HATE. 

Anyway, I made it to the finish line in 2:30:07.8. 

The only time I have been more proud of myself was when I gave birth to our little girl. 

Jeremy and I are signed up to do the warrior dash in Portland in September, and I want to do one more half after that, before winter sets in. 

Mile 7something, I was happy to see my little family!

                                      

Crossing the finish line! 

 DONE!!

I had the cutest cheering squad around =)

My new goal is to run a full marathon next fall. Oh man... I am already nervous for that!