Busy as little bees

We've been crazy busy but it's a good, fun busy. Charlie turns ONE this coming Saturday and due to some scheduling conflicts we had her 1st birthday party last weekend. She had a huge group of friends and family come to celebrate her 1st year! Our old neighbors, the Bormann's, even made the drive from Iowa to party with us! We are so blessed to have such great people in our lives!

Being a 1st time mom and never having to plan a birthday party before I was a little stressed out about it. I have no idea what kids of other ages like to do so I was trying to think of anything and everything I'd need to have and what they would enjoy doing as activities. Being that it is SUPER hot here lately I went and picked up a ladybug sprinkler at the last minute so that the kids could run through it to cool off. Thank goodness I did. It was the hit of the party. The kids went nuts running through it and next thing I knew there were kids running around soaking wet from head to toe! Other than the sprinkler I bought crazy straws, squirt guns, bubbles and had coloring pages, bean bag game, hula hoops, frisbees and the ladder game out for the kids to enjoy. The squirt guns were a pretty big hit as well.

We had a lot of fun and Charlie loved watching and interacting w/ everyone. She tore into her smash cupcake like a pro which required her getting her 2nd bath of the day. :) I'd have to say it was a success, but I'm glad it's over with. Planning it was a lot of work!

This weekend she gets to celebrate all over again with Grandma B, Z-pa and the rest of the Illinois family. We're looking forward to boating and enjoying the hot weather some more!

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In other news, we found two itty bitty baby bunnies in our yard the day after the party. We think the mama bunny may have gotten nervous with all the activity going on the day/night before and tried unsuccessfully to move them. After watching over them all day Sunday I ended up picking them up Sunday night and putting them in a shoebox in my garage for the night so that a cat or some other animal wouldn't get them. Monday over my lunch break I brought them into a wildlife rescue organization. I hope they make it. They were so cute! I'm a sucker for things with fur.

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Some updates on Charlie's milestones:

* I finally got a picture of her top tooth! It's really come out the past few days but getting a picture of it is hard!

* She loves pasta with marinara sauce! Unfortunately this causes me to use the stain stick on a regular basis on her clothing!

* She got her 1st big girl bath in the tub w/o the ducky. She loved it! So no more gigantic blow up ducky to goose me in the mornings while I try to squeeze into our bathroom to get ready! Yay!

* She's recently started pointing at things. When I ask her where Kobe is she frantically starts looking around for him and when she finds him she gets the biggest smile on her face and points in his direction. So she knows her brother's name! :)

* Her 12 month doctor appointment is next Thursday and I can't wait to find out how much she's grown in the last 3 months. My guess is she will be around 19-20 pounds and around 29-30 inches tall. We'll see how accurate my guesses are! She's still a skinny mini.

* Recently she's been sleeping around 11 hours a night! This is amazing for her! Up until now she'd been doing 8-9 hours sometimes but never 11 hours! This means we put her down around 8:00 and she wakes up around 7:00 which is PERFECT! I hope this continues! Knock on wood.

That's about all I can think of to report on now. Things are busy and good around here. We are enjoying the summer and I'm sad it's already August! The summer is going by way too fast as always.