The Blanchard Family: Grace is ONE!!

I cannot believe a whole year has passed since Miss Grace entered this world! Grace has such a laid back personality. She waits and waits until she gets her turn after her big brother and sister's needs have been met. This is especially evident at the dinner table. Grace loves Kyler and Norah very much and she is really starting to want to be doing what they are. In the evening, when its time to head up to bed, and Kyler and Norah take off running up the stairs, Grace will see them do this, stop what she's doing, and crawl as fast as she can over to the stairs to head up there too. It's like she thinks, "well, they're heading up there, I need to go too!". :) Grace loves animals. Even when she sees a squirrel out in the yard, she points at it and gets so excited, like she needs to go out and check it out. When we go and visit Henry and Geneva, and their puppy is out, she loves to crawl over to him, and touch him and pet him. Grace is still very unsure around people she doesn't know. If someone she does not know or isn't around much comes up to talk to her, she usually just stares at them. It's hard for a stranger to get her to smile. She still loves her mommy and daddy very much, and will only go to someone she has seen frequently for a little while.

At Grace's 12 month appointment, she weighed 18 lbs 4 oz and was 29.5 inches long. Grace got two more teeth this past month, the top front side ones, bringing her total to 6 teeth. Also this past month, Grace started crawling on all fours! She is now pretty fast at it, and rarely uses her army crawl any more. About a week after she turned 11 months, I told Erik I didn't think she would ever crawl on all fours and would just go straight to walking since she was already pulling herself up on everything, but then a few days later, she started to transition over to crawling on all fours, guess I was wrong! :) Grace continues to pull herself up on everything, she is also starting to walk along things. One of her favorite places to be is under the dining room table. She can go under the table, and walk along all the chairs around the outside too. She also has started to push the chairs across the floor, it's always funny to watch them do this. :) I put Grace behind the walker/stroller thing we have and she took off across the living room and thought it was pretty cool to do this. :) Grace started pointing at things this past month. Erik taught her to hold up one finger to say that she is going to be one year old, and she has also used her one finger to point at things. She also loves to do "soooo big". :) We have also hit the stage where she is in to everything. One of her favorite things to do is to go and open the drawer on the bottom of the stove/oven and stand there and pull all the towels off the rack and then pull the pots out of the drawer. I keep paper towels in-between the pots to keep them from scratching each other and I often come into the kitchen and find Grace eating the paper towels. :) Grace loves to babble and it's always fun to listen to her at this stage as she sounds like she is speaking a completely different language. She looks at you and just says "abab cochicou ababa, etc……" :) and you respond with "really?" :)

Grace is still napping twice a day, in the morning at 10:30 for about an hour, and then again about 2:30 for an hour and a half. She made it the whole year nursing (yay!!), so now we will begin the weaning process….I'm afraid she is going to be the toughest one to wean since she doesn't take a pacifier…. :) Grace is still eating mostly pureed food, but she loves her puffs and cheeto looking things. She asks for those cheeto puffs multiple times a day. :) I have tried to give her some other pieces of regular food chopped small, but usually she isn't interested or takes a couple bites and then is done. She will sign "more", but usually that's in reference to her wanting cheeto puffs. :) Something almost everyone comments on with regards to Grace is her hair. She never went bald after she was born like Kyler and Norah did, so she has a lot of hair! And, it's dark, curly, and crazy! :) I'm so interested to see what happens to it as it grows, if it stays curly or straightens out. It's getting to the point now where we have to put it in a ponytail or it's in her face.

Miss Grace,
You are such a happy laid back little girl! You are starting to play more and more with your big brother and big sister and they love you so much! (But also don't like destroying their stuff!) :) You are such a joy to have in our family! Happy 1st Birthday! We love you!

Here are some pictures from the last month: