One Year Old!

My, how time flies when you have children!  Not only is Grace a year old, but I'm already almost two weeks late in posting about it :)  May has been a crazy month. 

Grace's birthday was surprisingly emotional for me.  I kept thinking back on the 12th about what we had been doing the year before - when we went to the hospital, when my water broke, etc.  What was interesting was how both Jeff and I woke up right around 6:04 am on her birthday, which is when she was born.  It's just so hard to believe that it has already been a year ago.  The other day I found the notebook I had used to write down when I nursed her and when we changed her diapers, and I was exhausted just reading it!!  Newborn babies are so precious, but they are a LOT of work!!  I'm so glad I don't have to change Grace's diaper 10 times a day anymore!

We had a track invitational on Grace's birthday so we weren't able to actually celebrate her birthday that day (not that she had any idea anyways!) so we had her party on the 15th, which is my dad's birthday.  The whole week prior to her party had been beautiful with sunny skies and temps in the 70's and even 80's, but the day before her party things totally changed.  We had been planning on having the party outside with games for the kids that were coming, but since it was only 50 degrees and pouring rain the whole day we had to have it in our garage with heaters going!  I was really disappointed in the weather, but we made it work and everyone was really understanding about it.  We had about 50 people come, even in the nasty weather, and Grace was blessed with so many cool toys and CLOTHES!!  That girl now has more clothes than I do!  Even her cake turned out really well, which I had been totally stressing out about for the last month or so.  It was the first time I ever attempted to make a cake of this size and difficulty.  After I got done making it I felt like I never wanted to see cake again :)

My sister and her family were able to come up to MI for Grace's party, and it was so cute to see Grace and Eliana play together.  This was the first time that Eliana wasn't on a completely different developmental level than Grace so they really interacted well.  Every time they would see eachother they would squeal and get so excited.  At one point they were both playing in the living room and Ellie gave Grace a hug and Grace kissed her - completely on their own.  I wish they could spend more time together because it's so cute to watch and they really enjoy eachother.

The latest development around here is that Grace is now sporting a one year old attitude.  It's like she heard she wasn't a baby anymore so now she refuses to do anything unless she wants to.  That includes eating or drinking - it has been SO frustrating.  I just cut back to only nursing her before bed, so we've been trying to get her to drink anything out of a cup, sippy cup, straw cup, etc and it is not going well.  I think she only drank about 2 ozs of fluids yesterday.  I am trying not to stress out about it too much and just make sure that she always has something to drink while she's eating, but it is hard not to obsess.  She is SO stubborn. 
She also discovered balloons, and LOVES them.  She even tries to say balloon - it comes out more like "boon", but she points to it and says it so you know what she means.  Unfortunately we had a little meltdown in Meijer when we walked past the floral dept with all the balloons and she couldn't have one.  That was fun :)
She points at everything now - especially lights.  It's hard to keep up with her pointing - she's already pointing to something else before you can name the first thing!  She is also extremely active.  I am exhausted just watching her, and she's not even walking yet.  I read somewhere that overly-active babies score higher on IQ tests and have better problem-solving skills - I hope so!  Sometimes I wonder if they say those things just so us parents don't go crazy chasing after our kids!  It's like she has a radar and knows exactly where you don't want her to go and what you don't want her to get into.  It's a race these days to get into the fridge or the freezer before she tries to crawl in. 

Her other favorite activity is taking things out of things and putting them back in.  She LOVES laundry baskets and will whip the clothes out of them as fast as she can and then fling them all over the room (I think in my last post I mentioned how having a puppy prepares you for kids? :) ).  She loves to get into my magazines and turn (and rip) the pages.  We've had a hard time reading books to her because all she wants to do is turn the pages and gets mad if you hold them down while you try to read the story.  She is starting to get good at stacking things and can put the rings on the pole of her stacking toy. 
I'm sure I'm forgetting some of her latest things, but it's so hard to keep up with her these days.  Even though she can be a real stinker at times, I still can't believe how blessed we really are.  All it takes is an open-mouth kiss from her to make me forget the hard parts :)

Reflections

So, yes, I am now in my next decade of life.  On one hand I don't really feel any different, but on the other it makes me feel so old to know that I'm no longer in my twenties.  I did have a good birthday, though.  Jeff cooked breakfast (blueberry pancakes, smoky links and cinnamon rolls) and then the three of us went shopping.  Grace didn't do too well with the shopping but I'm not sure why.  I few weeks ago we took her to a track meet and she spent over three hours in her stroller without a problem but she didn't even last an hour while we were shopping.  After we came home and all took a nap we went out to dinner at Mac's and then enjoyed a Blizzard ice cream cake for dessert.

What a difference a year makes - my birthday 2010

My birthday 2011

Was I really this skinny?!

I've been in a reflective mood the last week or so, so I thought I would post a blog that looked back at the last ten years of my life.  They have definitely been interesting - some of the best moments and some of the worst moments of my life have happened over the past decade.

In 2001, Jeff proposed to me eight days before my 20th birthday, so I started my twenties as a newly-engaged woman.  It's funny - at the time I didn't think anything of being too young to be engaged but I think I would flip out if Grace got engaged when she was 19!!  I guess if it was to a man like Jeff it wouldn't be too bad :)  That summer I had my internship at CSC Plastics in Grass Lake, MI (which has since gone bankrupt).  I think I learned the most I've ever learned at the job - mainly what NOT to do when running a business!  I was originally hired to create an inventory system for them, but things got so bad that I ended up driving thousand pound molds to mold shops in the company Blazer because no trucking companies would come to pick them up since they weren't being paid.  The manufacturing manager would freak me out before I left and tell me stories of people who drove those molds and then would get in accidents and the molds would slide forward and crush them.  I didn't really enjoy driving those molds from Grass Lake to Detroit!!  A bunch of the machine operators walked out because we didn't have enough money to pay them one week so I also ended up running molds and hand-trimming the excess plastic off them as they came out of the machines.  I still laugh when I think of everything that happened at that place.  It was probably one of the best places I could have had an internship though!

Graduation day!

2002 was a big year - at the end of April I graduated with a BBA in Operations Management from Grand Valley State University, a week later I turned 21, two weeks after that I started my first "real" job in the Business Planning dept at Michigan Automotive Compressor and then a month after that Jeff and I were married.  I still don't know how I did all of that at the same time.  The first few months after we were married I really struggled with all the new things that happened in my life.  It didn't help that I totally hated my job and the boss I had at the time was very difficult.  I think I came home crying almost every day for two months - Jeff probably wondered what he had gotten himself into!

2003 started off better on the job-front.  I was able to switch departments and started working in Planning Control, which was more of what I went to school for.  I met a really good friend in that department and we are still close today - she taught me a lot about standing up for yourself and not letting people walk all over you.  We also welcomed our first "child" in 2003 - our yellow lab, Toby (see previous post for his story).  I have to say, now that I've had both a dog and a child, dogs are actually pretty good practice for being a parent, especially if you get them as puppies!  Jeff and I also celebrated our one year anniversary by taking a trip to Hawaii.  It was the first time Jeff had been and we spent time on both Oahu and Maui.  It was a great trip. 

2004 must have been a pretty quiet year - the only thing note-worthy I can remember is that I started a new job in November at Visteon Corp. in Saline as a scheduler in the materials, planning and logistics department.   This is also where Jeff works (he helped get me the job).  It was a significant pay raise for me and it was great that Jeff and I could carpool.



At Sturgeon River Gorge in 2005



In February of 2005 Jeff and I took another trip to Hawaii - I had never been there in the winter, and we had enough miles for a free ticket, so we decided to go for it.  We were able to go whale watching and saw a lot of whales - it was an amazing thing to see!  We also ran the Clark Lake Triathlon that summer for the first time.

Barley Cove - Ireland

In 2006 we celebrated our four year anniversary by traveling to Ireland.  I had always wanted to go there so we went through a tour guide company that planned out various sights for you and booked your hotels, but you drove yourself and as long as you were where you needed to stay each night you had control over what you saw and did.  It was a great experience, but it was a LOT of driving.  Jeff learned how to drive a stick shift on the wrong side of the road (and wrong side of the car!) and we were professionals at round-a-bouts by the time we left!

Meeting Mark Martin at MIS - 2006



Last day in our old house



2007...there's so much to say about this year.  We started the year by selling our house in Grass Lake at the end of January and moving in with my mom while we figured out whether we would build or buy our next house.  I was so sad to move - even though the house was SO small, it was where Jeff and I had begun our relationship.  I met him at his house before we went on our first date, he told me he loved me for the first time in the living room of that house, and it was where we started our married life together.  It was also hard because we weren't moving into our next house; we were kind of in limbo so there wasn't anything exciting to overcome the sadness. 

Tahiti

That summer we celebrated our five year anniversary by going on a cruise in Tahiti.  That was definitely an amazing trip!  The only bad part was that the seas were so rough that we were pretty sick the first three days.  The boat was rocking so hard that the water in the swimming pool would fly out on either side as the boat swayed.  I think we were the only people who actually lost weight on a cruise :)  It was on this trip that I decided I was ready to start a family. 

We had the triathlon coming up a few weeks after the cruise so I wanted to wait until we were done with that (as mentioned in my first post, I had told Jeff that if I finished the triathlon under 2 hours we could start a family, and I finished in 1 hour, 57 mins!).  Sometimes I feel like that trip was the last truly happy time for me, at least until I was finally able to become a mom. 

In August, we purchased our current home (but not in its current state!) and started working on remodeling the entire house.

Starting demolition - Aug 2007

My first post has more details, but we found out we were pregnant in September, but ten days later I had emergency surgery because the pregnancy was ectopic.  When I look at pictures from 2007, I think you can see a difference in my smile from before September and after, especially as the years went on and we lost more babies.

My sister's wedding

2008 was not much better of a year.  At the end of January I miscarried our second baby at 8 1/2 weeks and decided I needed a break from trying to get pregnant.  We were incredibly busy working on our house (we were still living with my mom) and we had a lot of legal issues with our contractor.  We also started training for the 25K race in the Keweenaw.  I still don't know how we did everything we did that spring!

We finally moved into our house on July 6th and left the next day to run the race in the UP.  In August my sister got married and that's also when we decided to start trying to have a baby again.  I found out I was pregnant on Election Day in November, but miscarried 4 days later. 

2009 started almost the exact same way as 2008 did.  In January I ended up having surgery again for another ectopic pregnancy and they also removed my left fallopian tube due to damage from removing the baby.  I don't really remember much else about that spring, except that in April we found out my sister was pregnant.  I did find out in May that I had gotten the job as the cross country coach at Manchester schools, and spent a lot of time that summer getting ready for it. 

In September we found out we were pregnant again and I just remember I felt like I was holding my breath for 12 weeks hoping and praying that nothing would go wrong.  We made it through 12 weeks and were finally able to tell everyone that we were going to have a baby. 

In December (on Jeff's birthday!) my sister welcomed her beautiful little girl, Eliana Suzanne.

2010 started the best (and hardest!) year of my life so far, with the highlight being the birth of our beautiful daughter, Grace Luella, on May 13th.  Everything else after that is pretty much a blur of nursing, pooping, screaming (by Grace), and sleep exhaustion :)

So far 2011 has been another great year of watching my beautiful daughter grow and change before my eyes.  If I have to be 30, at least I can do it while experiencing the most amazing thing I can think of - being a mom!