The Little Bird Birthday Party

On Saturday, we hosted the first shindig in our new home -- Avie's first birthday party. It was so fun having everyone here to celebrate with us. But I have to admit that it was a stretch to get things into decent enough order around here to really pull it off. A huge thanks goes out to my mom and my mother-in-law. I could not have done it without them.

Seeing as one of the meanings of Aveline's name is "little bird," I took the theme and ran with it. I found cute decorations with little blue birds, and made some centerpieces with nests, bluebirds, and photos of Avie over the last 12 months. I also had a little bluebird candle holder that I found in Boone in the final months of my pregnancy, when Jarrett and I were really narrowing in on our name choice. It looked perfect on the "smash cake" I made for Avie. A four-inch, two-layer cake, made out of coconut flour, with a layer of raspberry preserves and topped with coconut buttercream frosting, and then topped (and bottomed) with dark chocolate shavings to create a nest for the little bird candle holder. Sadly, I managed to totally forget to photograph this cake, so what is in the videos will have to suffice. Bummer.

We served sausages, hot dogs, my mom's potato salad, fruit salad, a green salad, homemade macaroni and cheese, and chips. It was all yummy.

The kids seemed to enjoy the cupcakes, and Avie got to know her cake pretty well (which tasted quite good, by the way), but seemed to enjoying the frosting over the cake itself.

For party favors, I had small, wooden birdhouses for the kids to paint. We kind of crammed this event in at the tailend of the party, but the children seemed to have fun, and it was nice seeing all of the families sitting together, small hands being guided by larger ones.

It really was a fun time. See for yourself. (Note: The videos are unedited and, thus, long... probably most suitable for interested grandparents. I just don't have it in me to try to edit them at the moment.)

Our Little Bird is One

A year ago Sunday, God once again allowed my body to bring into this world yet another beautiful daughter. And, once again, our lives were changed forever.

Aveline Muir is now one year old. And I truly believe this was probably the quickest year of my life thus far. I know people tell us to treasure, savor, slow down these early years, and yet time still seems to fly no matter how hard we try.

From helpless newborn, to cruiser who is attempting to say words, it has been a fun and exciting path to share with this one. Avie is such the happy baby. I know I have said this before, but it continues to hold true nearly every time we make a public appearance -- I get comment after comment about how happy this child seems to be. It is like she exudes sunshine.

Any tears seem to come from injury (she somehow managed to collapse while standing at the leather bench upstairs this afternoon, and ended up with a slightly bloody mouth) or when something treasured is taken away from her (also this evening, she was extremely upset when she stubbornly had to give up her toothbrush). She also becomes very irritated during diaper changes now. She is too on-the-go to waste time laying around.

Aveline loves her sister. Obviously she is very aware of Elsa, but it became even more apparent to me how much so yesterday afternoon, as we were walking home from Gabriela's. Elsa was having a tough time with something, and by the time we reached the end of Gabriela's driveway, she decided she was not going to walk any further. I was tired and irritated, and just told her, "Fine -- catch up with us then." So I walked, Avie strapped to my front in the Ergo, toward the corner of our street. Avie kept arching her body and craning her neck to one side of my body or the other, saying over and over what I had previously thought to be her version of Elsa's name: "Eh-sa, Eh-sa, Eh-sa..." She was most definitely concerned that we were leaving her dear companion behind. (For the record, Elsa was stubborn enough to make me have to go back and get her, leading her all the way home by hand.)

She and Elsa have started playing a little more together here and there. Lately, they have enjoyed crawling after one another and echoing shrieks and laughter. Avie got one of those magnetic doodle lap pads for her birthday, and the two of them were sitting on the living room floor this morning, Avie working the pen, and Elsa using the shapes.

Unlike her sister, Avie is only slightly interested in books and is not too consistent with her sign language. But she does have her favorite books (still Goodnight Moon and now Birthday Monsters [though she seems to think they are dogs, using her sign language to indicate so). And she also does use sign language, but just when she really feels like it.

She loves to be mobile, though, this girl. She also got a wooden walker wagon for her birthday, and I turned my back for a second while vacuuming, only to turn back around and see her standing in the front of it, holding onto the handle from the opposite side she should be. She crawls fast when she sees something of interest, making the most fabulous happy sounds all the way there. She pulls up on everything and tries to climb. Elsa never figured out how to climb out of her crib, but I have my bets on Avie.

Avie also loves to eat. There are a handful of things she might turn her nose up at, but she will eat nearly everything I place in front of her. The other day she ate an entire hot dog (minus the bun), and out at brunch the morning of her birthday, I did not think I was going to ever stop placing food in front of her -- berries, eggs, chicken sausage, grilled potatoes. I tried cow's milk on her yesterday, and at first I thought she really liked it. She would take a sip, pause, really contemplate the taste in her mouth, and then take another quick sip and repeat the entire process. But today she seemed a little more uncertain and was not drinking too much of it. I know it was a taste Elsa had to get used to, and I am sure it will be the same for Avie.

At her one-year well visit yesterday, Aveline weighed 20 pounds (somewhere between the 25th and 50th percentile), was 30 inches long (90th percentile), and had a head circumference of 18 inches (between 75th and 90th percentile). She received one vaccination at this visit (another round of polio), which was given to her while I held her, outward faced from me, and she did not even flinch. Dr. Owen thought she looked healthy and did not seem to have any concerns... except for the fact that Avie still gets up once or twice a night. She has informed me that it is time to call it quits. She no longer needs to nurse in the middle of the night and is just using it as a way to soothe, so she says we should put her in the portable crib in another room for the week it should take, and just let her cry it out, sending Jarrett in every so often to pat her back and assure her she is okay. I predict this to be terribly hard for me, as since she has been such an easy baby during the day, I have put up with the wakings at night. But I am also certainly ready to sleep through the night myself, so I hope this works as quickly as Dr. Owen projects. I also hope it does not give Elsa any grand ideas that she is suddenly going to have their bedroom all to herself.

There is so much more I could probably say about our sweet Aveline, but mostly we are just so happy and blessed to have her in our family. Each of our girls contributes an amazing slice of life to this family. I cannot imagine having it any other way.

Happy birthday, dear one. May your sunshine glow brightly over the years to come.

Pulling Up

Two weeks ago Thursday, Avie pulled up to standing, feet flat, on the big drum at music class. And in these past two weeks, she has started pulling up on everything -- the coffee table, couches, the dishwasher, Elsa's dresser, laundry baskets, her crib, etc. Her most favorite thing to do now is to stand up at the bathtub while Elsa is taking a bath, and reach over and splash in the water. Elsa is not so amused by the new trick.

The other evening she climbed up the entire flight of stairs... with Jarrett spotting her from behind.

And this morning she started actually cruising around the coffee table.

Between really being on the move and being a baby who loves to put anything and everything in her mouth, this little girl is certainly keeping me on my toes!

They are Doing It!

Tonight marks night three of the girls sleeping in the same room together. Every evening, Elsa has become very excited about it, but then when it comes right down to it, she decides she wants to sleep in a different room. That is, until I tell her that I will lay in bed with her for a couple of minutes.

Elsa has been playing like crazy here at the new house, so between lots of play, going to Gabriela's, and the move in general, she has been tuckered out every night. So when my "couple of minutes" is quite literally up, Elsa is already sound asleep. I do not want to get in the habit of having to lay there until she falls asleep, but I also want to make this transition as smooth as possible. So far (knock on wood), even though Avie is not sleeping that well, Elsa has not awoken when I have gone in the room to nurse and put Avie back down, so I have been fairly impressed.

The first morning after sleeping in the same room, I rewarded Elsa with a Revolution Doughnuts dark chocolate cake doughnut, but I also do not plan on making a habit of that. Thankfully she had "school" this morning, so there was no time for such shenanigans. Regardless, both mornings she has been excited that she actually did it. And she seems thrilled with the separate playroom (regardless of the disastrous state it is in at the moment), so hopefully this will stick. Only time will tell.

Trip to the Zoo

We were staying with our friends, David and Shelly, last week. On Thursday, on a mission to get out of the house in hopes that Baby Jack might decide to sleep out in the open air, Shelly, Christian, Jack, Elsa, Avie, and I all went to the zoo. It was nice to get out, and the big news was that Elsa decided to ride the train! She has taken a hiatus from it for months and months now, due to some fear she developed of the longer (and darker) of the two tunnels. Thankfully the somewhat new rainbow lights were on in said tunnel, and she really enjoyed the ride, even asking to go again... until she and Christian saw that the bouncy house was open. It was also Avie's first time on the train, and it didn't even seem to phase her. She thought it was terrific, and seemed more into the carousel this time as well.