1 Year Checkup

Arden had her 1 year checkup on Monday. She's doing great! Her hight and weight are perfectly average (humorously following the 50th percentile line perfectly). She does have one thing that's a bit unique though….her head. She has a big head right now - 96th percentile (47.5 cm)! Yeah - she get's that from her father. She had vaccination shots as well, but doesn't seem to be suffering ill effects from them. She is developing a growing sense of "the terrible twos syndrome" though. Here come the screams, bites, tantrums, and crying fits! Mommy and Daddy are going to hang on for the ride. As Grammie suggested, distract and redirect!

Arden's 1st Birthday

Arden is 1! We can't believe that we've had her in our lives for a whole year already! We've been doing lots of fun things to celebrate the occasion...

Chocolate Cake and singing (Arden ate a whole piece by herself), lots of presents, and Kyle's Dad and his wife came out for a visit. Needless to say, things have been rather exciting. We even went to Central Park today for a fun family and friends picnic get together.

Arden's favorite present? Probably Aunt Corrie's refrigerator magnets that make farm animal noises. She likes her toy piano that we got her too!

Walking Update

We're closing in on Arden's birthday! Kyle's father and his wife are coming in town for the event. It's going to be an exciting time with what looks like stellar weather!

Arden is teething like CRAZY. She's being a trooper, but needing extra care. There may be as many as 6 teeth coming at the same time.

She has also learned how to stand herself up without a prop! She's getting very steady. Running is right around the corner…..

Arden Walking

Here she is! It's only a matter of time before the wobble turns into a run!

Fire Island Trip

We just got back from a fun trip on Fire Island with Aunt Lauren, and Michael and Melinda Canipe! We went out on Saturday morning and spent time resting, eating, and walking along the beach. Arden was a bit wary of the ocean. Seeing as it was her 1st time, she did very well. She enjoyed playing in the sand (away from the water) and practiced taking baby steps in the house. Arden also loved spending time with everyone. Being the center of attention is always a wonderful experience! Just about two weeks until Arden's 1st birthday! Time has flown….

1st Steps!

This evening, Arden took her first official steps (unassisted)! We believe it was about 5 of them from Daddy to Mommy. We'll try to get video soon!

10 Months

Arden turned 10 months on last Saturday! She has officially been outside of Mommy longer than inside :)

Arden has really taken off over the last couple of months. She is now an expert crawler having mastered the "cross crawl" technique. She has also learned how to sit down making her movements around the apartment much faster. She may be standing at a particular point, lower herself down, and crawl to the next point of interest with relative ease. As a result, we have child proofed our apartment with electrical socket plugs, a child gate to block off the kitchen, a toilet seat lock, and cardboard barriers to keep Arden away from wiring. Hopefully that will be enough! One of her favorite activities is being walked around the apartment. She would walk all day if our backs could take it! She can walk fairly well with one of us only holding one of her hands, and can stand by herself unassisted for 10 seconds at a time.

Today we went in for Arden's 9 month well visit (it was hard to schedule a time, thus we where in at 10 months). We where excited that this visit wouldn't have any vaccines. We where not informed, however, that though there where no vaccines, there was a blood draw and TB test. It was not fun holding Arden down while the doctor fished around in her arm for a vein. Arden cried alot. No fun. Hopefully the results will all come back normal.

Here are Arden's specs (all in the average range)...

19.5 lbs

28.25 inches long

7 teeth

Now knows titles associated with things (Mommy, Daddy, Penny, Cheerios, Up, No)

She loves to read all of her books and turns pages by herself!