Miriam is One!

Babies sure do grow and change so much in their first year of life. Miriam turned one last month and it sure has been such a super fun year with this sweet girl in our family. Right now her eyes are a dark hazel almost brown color, she doesn't have a lot of hair but it is mostly a light brown, almost blond color. At her check up she was in the 75% for weight, I think she was around 21 pounds, and she was in the 50% for height. On the day she turned one she had one tooth in her mouth. That little tooth was all they way up, it came when she was eleven and a half month and I kept thinking the other bottom tooth would soon follow but it still had not shown any sign of its arrival by her first birthday. She seems to have wide little feet like the rest of my girls and we all think she is the cutest little baby around. Here it a little look back at how much she has grown in the last year. 

Miriam is one of the sweetest babies you will ever meet. She is usually pretty happy and she is fairly easy going. She is usually quick to smile whenever someone looks at her so people are always telling me what a happy baby she is. When her sisters bombard her with hugs and attention she usually just eats it right up. She has a cute little laugh. She loves to observe and watch what is going on around her. She loves stroller rides and wagon rides and she loves to walk around and explore the world around her. She loves to be with her sisters and go where ever they go. She loves to be outside and whines every time she gets left behind. She likes animals. She has no fear of other people and will go up to random people and just watch what they are doing. If you are lucky she might even let you hold her and she will sometimes give you a hug. She has gone up to random men at church or other places and held up their hands to them until they picked her up. She doesn't like to snuggle for long though so after a quick hug and a short time being held, she will beg to get down again. 

Miriam is a pretty fast little walker these days and she likes to explore and get into everything she can find. She loves to play in and empty all of our drawers in the kitchen and in the bathrooms. She loves to climb in my laundry basket and any toy bucket or thing she can climb into. She loves the dishwasher and tries to climb in it every time I open it. It makes unloading it kind of tricky. Usually she tries to unload it as fast as I can put things it. 

We were at grandma Verna's house the other day and Miriam found a big bucket in the kitchen and climbed right in. She also kept eating all of the fruit and produce from grandma's garden that she could find. She ate peaches, plums, tomatoes, and corn. We kept putting it up high and then she would find something that we had missed. She also found a piece of chocolate and ate that with the wrapper still on. She was super mad when we took it away from her. Then she got into grandma's plant and ate a bunch of dirt. Miriam loves going to visit her grandma's house and every time we go there she is constantly looking for food to eat and snacking on whatever produce she can find. 

Miriam loves to eat. She loves fruit, cheese, yogurt, noodles, soft carrots, peanut butter, bread, chicken, and anything sweet. Joel gave her a popsicle and then Miriam loved it. Whenever anyone else in the family had a popsicle she would cry until we would give some to her. She still eats all of her meals in her high chair without complaining but she absolutely refuses to wear a bib. That means she has to be changed after almost every meal.

 

I finally moved Miriam out of our room and into her crib that is in Annalyn's room. I sleep trained her so she will fall asleep on her own in her own bed. I stayed by her bed at first until she fell asleep and that girl cried for a while and eventually fell asleep sitting up with her head leaning against the crib three nights in a row. It was hard to lay her down flat without waking her up but that looked like a terrible way to sleep. Most of the time she falls asleep in just a few minutes these days but sometimes she will still cry for several minutes until she falls asleep. She still takes two naps a day, one long one in the morning around 9-9:30 and then she takes another later in the afternoon. When I first made her sleep in her own bed she was sleeping all through the night but then she started to wake up again. There are many nights where she wakes up two times. I have been making her cry the first time but after 3 I bring her to our room and will feed her before putting her back in her bed. 

 Miriam went to play at the park several times this month and loved playing in the sand and getting nice and sandy. She watched the fireworks and the parade for Kuna days and had fun with that. She went swimming and still loves the water. She went to the zoo and to Chuck E Cheese this month. She slept through most of chuck e cheese but she loved the rides she got to ride when she woke up. She also loved seeing all the animals at the zoo. She stared at them for a long time.

 Miriam has repeated a few words and can say, "mama," or "mom," "dada" and "hi," on her own. She can sign "all done" and can wave, clap and give high fives but sometimes she will just stare at you and do nothing. She is starting to jabber a little bit but for the most part she is pretty quiet and doesn't say a lot.

We sure do love this girl with her sweet smile and easygoing attitude. It has been lots of fun watching her grow up and we can't wait to see what her future brings. Our family feels pretty blessed to have this little lady in our family. It has been lots of fun to watch the way her sisters play and interact with her. They all love playing with her and holding her and Miriam loves being with them. I am one lucky mom. 

A Day of FUN!

      As the summer was coming for a close for our family and the kids we getting ready to head back to school, Joel and I were reflecting on all of the fun things we didn't get to do. Time just seems to go by so fast and before we knew it, school was starting up again. Joel decided he was going to take a day off of work right before school started so that we could do some of the fun things we didn't get to do. The girls were disappointed that we never got to use the Roaring Springs tickets that they got from school so we decided we would take the whole family there to play at the water park. Unfortunately we found out that they were not open until 3pm and since it was still going to be super expensive to go we decided to change plans and find something else to do. Most of our girls and Joel have never gone to the zoo in Boise so we decided that would be a great destination for the morning. They did a lot of renovations to the place and there were some fun new animals we got to see this time. The girls had a blast! We were at the zoo for about two hours. We got there right as the zoo was opening and were able to leave right as it was starting to get hot and crowded. The kids were also getting tired of walking by the time we left so it was perfect timing. We all had a blast! They girls said they likes the giraffes, the penguins, and the prairie dogs the best but really they liked everything they saw. Miriam loved exploring and watching the animals too.

 After the zoo we took our tired and hungry kids to eat at Sizzler. They all got free meals from the library and loved getting to eat there. Brynlee has decided Sizzler is her new favorite restaurant.

After eating, we made our girls dream come true even more by taking them to Chuck E Cheese. Annalyn went there with her grandpa and had been telling the girls about it ever since. This is also a place that I haven't been to since Annalyn was a baby so more than half of our kids have never been and they were super excited about it. Miriam was asleep in her car seat for most of the time that we were there. Annalyn saved all of her tickets from her last trip and had over 800 of them by the end of the day. She bought herself a giant whistle. The girls had a blast and played lots of games and rode lots of rides and got lots of tickets. Summer liked the rides the best. Miriam woke up just in time to go on a few rides as well and she loved them too.

After all the excitement we went home and watched a movie together and got Brynlee ready for her first day of fourth grade the next day. It was the perfect ending to our summer. I am glad we took the time to spend the day with our family. I will miss having all the kids home with me all week.