Happy Birthday Little Goose!

Happy Birthday Melia!

Wednesday, the 17th was Melia's first brithday!  I cannot believe she is 1 year old! 

We had a big party for her the Friday before her birthday.  It was mostly just family but we invited a few of Melia's "friends" (whose parents just so happen to be our friends).

After some cake fiascos, we ended up with 3 birthday cakes!  The center cake was (of course) the smash cake.  The #1 has little pink butterflies all over it.  I loved it.

 But this cake was definitely my favorite--with chocolate butterflies on it.  I love it.  Thanks to the friendly bakery team at Harmons.  Even though there were some mishaps, they did a great job and were so nice to work with.  Affordable and delicious.  All three cakes were complete with buttercream frosting.  Mmmm!

 This was Melia's special birthday outfit.  I made the bows and the rest was from The Children's Place.  I LOVE this shirt.  My fav.  :)  I love how she's trying to show it off in this picture.

LOOK at that FACE!  So angelic.

I love that smile.

She's so mobile.  She just wants to be all over.  I love this picture because she'll go and go and go and then always looks back at some point to make sure I'm watching--or not watching, depending on what she's doing.  :)

One of Melia's first little friends to arrive at the party was Crue.  Crue is a month younger than Lia but is already walking pretty well.  Melia didn't like being out done, so they had a little stand off.  The 2 of them just stood there looking at eachother, and then back at us.  Neither of them smiled or even made a noise.  They were so serious.  I don't even think I've ever seen that look on Melia's face.  They honestly stood this way for like 5 minutes.  It was pretty comical. 

Melia LOVES climbing up stairs (and we're slowly but surely working on going down).  She especially loves the stairs at Grandma Morgan's house.  She got to the top and crawled to the overlook and when she stood up and saw all her guests, family, and friends looking up at her she got sooo excited and started laughing.  So of course I had to take a picture.

Next thing I know, her cousin Kali left the room, walked up the stairs and was standing right where Melia had been and was smiling right at me with this cheesy grin.  She wanted her picture taken too.  :)  It was so funny!

I love watching the two of them play together.

Melia got lots of fun toys for her birthday.  Great minds think alike--both of my sisters who attended the party got Melia the exact same Playskool pop up toy.  She absolutely loves it though.  It's super cute too.

For each grandchild's birthday (and sometimes for mine too) my dad always pulls out the "birthday bear" who sings happy birthday.  The kids all LOVE him.  This was Melia's first experience with the birthday bear!  :)

I love the way she's looking at my dad in this picture.

My parents gave her this adorable ride-on giraffe from Costco.  I am in LOVE with it.  Melia loves it too.  Can you tell she also LOVES the attention she is getting?!  :)

Spencer was the only person who gave her clothes for her birthday.  It was a super cute and cozy outfit.  I know she doesn't look too thrilled to be having her picture taken, but I love this picture because you can just see how much Spencer adores Melia.  He is the best big brother a girl could wish for.

And then for the cake!  Melia was a little hesitant at first and just kept putting her thumb in the middle of the cake.

Finally she tasted a bit of it.  I am pretty sure more cake ended up on her hands and face than in her mouth.

But the majority of the cake ended up on her sippy cup.  She REALLY wanted that water.  I think she actually enjoyed the water more than the cake.

I think it was just too much sugar for her.  She enjoyed the cake, but didn't smile once while eating it.  After a while you could tell she just felt sick and kept whining to get down.

After our guests left, Spencer challenged Mike to a game or two of checkers.  I love the smile on Spencer's face looking at his dad.  He really does idolize his dad.  It is so sweet.

And Melia idolizes Spencer.

But she idolizes her dad too.

Then on Melia's actual birthday, we had her little friend Celeste from the ward over for cake and to play a little.  Celeste is 6 and is so sweet with Melia and just adores her.

That evening we went out to eat at Sweet Tomatoes before daddy went out of town for 3 days on a business trip.  Melia loved going out to dinner--once we got her out of the highchair and let her have the run of the table.  She loved standing on the bench at the booth and having dad share his chocolate mouse with her.

She really loved feeding herself macaroni and cheese with a spoon.  She felt like such a big girl.

She was a mess!

She LOVED the tiny ice cream cones--just her size.

But I think her favorite was Mike's strawberry lemonade.  This girl loves to drink anything and everything.  She's not a big vegetable fan, but she will even drink a whole can of V8 juice if I put it in her sippy cup.

I cannot believe my girl is really growing up!  She isn't a baby anymore!  She's a toddler.  She's still my baby though.

Today we took her to the doctor and they said she is right on key for a 15 month old as far as motor skills go (and she's only 12 months)!  She is walking (bit by bit) and she also points at what she wants with one single finger.  Apparently that is very advanced.  :)  hehe!  

As for verbal skills she is doing fine.  We told the doctor she hadn't said any real words yet.  I mean she'll say "dada" and "buba" and "fffttt" (that's her favorite, but we have yet to figure out what it means) and some weird "ssss" sound.  But nothing REAL.  I've been pretty sure that she does know that "buba" means Spencer, but I can never be sure.  But she doesn't say anything specific for her bottle or a specific toy or anything.  The doctor said that babies usually only work on one or the other (verbal skills or motor skills) at a time, so if she is doing well in one area she'll probably catch up soon in the other area next.  She said that the average for 12 months is 1 word and 3 words for 15 months but if she has at least 1 word by 15 months she's fine.  Well she must've heard the doctor because as soon as we left the office, and for the rest of the day, she's been calling me "mom."  Not "ma" or "mama" or "mumma," just "mom."  It's so cute and pretty funny and it's obvious that she knows what she's saying.  Whenever Mike is holding her and she really wants me she'll look at me and point and say, "mom."  Every now and then she says "mamamama" but usually it's just "mom."  :)  I hope it lasts, because I'm loving it.

At any rate, here are her percentiles:

She has stayed the same percentile in height...

29 inches -- 50th percentile

But she's gone up on weight--so she's putting on the pounds! :)

20.1 pounds -- 35th percentile

So I'd say that's just right.  She's my perfect little goose.  

Happy Birthday Angel!