Our Walkin Talkin One Year Old!!

So one quick note... I don't have the videos uploaded yet that go with this post, so I left them out for now... as I get them uploaded, I will add to this post... just ignore the places that say there is a video for now: )

Judging by my lengthy absence from the blogging world, one would think that I have just returned with a killer tan from a Caribbean get-away.  Unfortunately that isn't the case at all... I am still ghostly white, and my only excuse for a lack of blogging is that our sweet little Malea keeps us BUS-Y!  But I couldn't ask for a better excuse!  Joel and I are enjoying every second with our ever so happy, energetic, HILARIOUS baby girl!!!  But my oh my how the days fly by!  Or maybe I should say how the YEARS fly by?!  Malea just turned 1 on the 11th, and I'm seriously in awe how quickly that first year flew by.  I am going to do some serious catch-up because I feel awful I've been so bad about posting lately.  One post in March thru May?!?  Seriously Heidi?!?  I will do my best to recap Malea’s latest and greatest.  I don't remember what I last blogged about considering it's pushing 3 months since then, but I'll recap some of the more recent hilights. 

I thought I was pretty cool in my new shades from Uncle Shane and Aunt Sara!

and what better place to start blogging than Malea's 1st birthday party!?  We had our parents, grandparents, siblings, and their families over to celebrate the big #1.  Fr. Brian was kind enough to stop by and celebrate, too!  I decided I didn't want to do a "theme" per-say, so I settled on a pink, purple, and blue party.  I was set on Malea wearing a tutu at her birthday party, so my mom ever-so-generously volunteered to make her one.  It turned out ADORABLE!  See for yourself!

And if that wasn't cute enough in itself, she made a matching tutu for Malea's new dolly too!  I even had Grammy make tutu's for the "tutu yummy cranberry blondie" jars that Malea's party guests got in lieu of party bags.    Thanks Mom! You're the best!

 I will let the pictures do the talking, but let me just say this... Malea hammed it up all day long, and loved all of the attention:o)  HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY MALEA GRACE!!!

Look at me!  I'm the birthday girl!

They are all hollering "blow" at me... can't they see I'm trying?!

Time out guys... you want me to use my hands and eat this thing?!  Are you serious?!

Oh you're right!  This is kind of fun!  And yummie!  I love sugar!  I love sugar!

 

Whoopsie lookie there!  I got so excited I stuck my FOOT in the cake! 

Everybody else thinks it's hilarious too!

Ever seen a cowgirl in a tutu?!  Ever seen a 1 year old ham it up this much on her new rocking horse from Grandma and Grandpa Hollenbeck?!

And now for the rest of the birthday pics...

I didn't take Malea anywhere to have 1 year pictures taken, so I decided I should try to take a few on my own so atleast she has some idea of what she looked like as a one year old: )  I'd like to get some family pictures taken soon since we don't have any yet, so I was thinking maybe we'll get some better 1 year pictures of her then.  As much as I love taking pictures, I don't honestly know a thing about it.  So I was frustrated to say the least trying to get just a few good ones.  Because of the direction our house faces and the placement of windows, we don't have very good natural lighting for taking pictures, so I insisted on taking her outside.  But again because of my lack of photography knowledge, I didn't really get any stellar ones.  It was a very windy day, so even the better ones she ended up having hair blowing in her face.  If I faced her towards the sun, then she would squint because it was too bright, but if I faced her away from the sun, then I had shadow issues...  Any dumbed down photography tips would be greatly appreciated- hehe.  Despite the frustrations, here are a few that turned out ok.  Regardless of the poor photography, my daughter still looks adorable; )

Now that Malea turned a year old, she decided it was time to start walking.  She had been taking a few steps off and on, but she just fully started walking last Friday.  In the words of Malea's Uncle Ryan, our life just got a LOT busier: )  She's cute to watch when she walks because after she walks a ways and then falls, she gets so proud of herself that she sits there with a grin and claps for herself. What a ham: ) Here's a video of her walking. Such a big girl you are, Malea!!

On April 2nd she really took off walking behind things, now a month and a half later, she is full blown walking on her own.  There was a stretch there that every day when I would pick her up from mom and dad's, she had a new trick to show me. It's amazing how much they learn so quickly.  A few other milestones I obviously missed blogging about in that span was when she started "bear" crawling, standing independently, and when she started climbing stairs.  She has been climbing stairs like a champ for several months... sorry I'm just telling you about it now:(  Even tho she's been bear crawling for ages too, I still need to attach a quick video of it because it cracks us up...

Malea has quite the vocabulary for a one year old!  Even the doctor was impressed at her one year check-up when Malea sat there doing all of her animal sounds, and repeating everything I said.  She will seriously try to repeat just about anything you tell her to say.  Some of the things she can say are "bye bye", "mommy", "daddy", "papa", "ball", "book", "blankey" (although that one sounds like bweee: ), "dolly", "baby", "pizza", "cottage cheese" (yes she seriously says that: ), "elmo", "ernie", "bottle", "birdie", "yum yum", "mmmmm" when she is eating something she likes, "no no", "honey", and my personal favorite "night night".  She tries to say her name too, but it sounds more like "Manee". LOL.  She still "woofs" like a puppy (even tho it still sounds like ffffff fffff: ).  The other animal noises she does best when you ask her what sound they make are “moo” like a cow, "baa" like a sheep (my favorite... she really gets into her baa's: ), "neigh" like a horse, and she tries to "quack" like a duck, although that one doesn't really sound like quack yet... we'll keep working on that: )  Here is a video of a few of her animal sounds and a few of her words... I hope you can hear it ok!

Malea sported her bottom two front teeth for the longest time before her top two front teeth finally decided to poke through as well.  Her lack of teeth hasn't kept her from eating anything though... the girl loves to eat.  We had a heck of a time at first getting Malea to eat “real people food”.  We tried for months, but that girl had a heck of a gag reflex on her.  Anything chunky at all made her gag.  But one day a few months ago, she really flipped a switch and ever since she loves to eat anything that Joel and I eat!  Some of her favorites lately are yogurt (probably her favorite food ever), cottage cheese, pizza (she LOVES pizza but would rather bite off of mommy's piece than have me cut up a piece for her), crackers, ice cream, toast, french toast sticks, mini pancakes, hamburger, sausage, turkey, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, pasta, mashed potatoes, gold fish crackers, cheerios, and lucky charms: )  Those are just a few of her favorites, but honestly there isn't much that Joel and I eat that she does not anymore.  She's got the appetite of her mommy and daddy I'm afraid!  HAH!  She always used to do really good with veggies, but lately she'd rather eat everything else on her plate BUT the veggies... any suggestions for me?! : )


Malea is still the happiest baby I have ever seen, and people tell us that all the time.  She is always so darn happy and giggly, and I just adore that about her!  She is always smiling, laughing, or talking if she isn't sleeping: )  Malea loves to give kisses!  But you have to be careful because sometimes she likes to slip ya the tongue. ha!  She loves to wave bye bye... she often times does it with both hands and sometimes it looks like she is trying to milk a cow when she waves- lol.  She blows kisses too!  Except she hasn't quite figured out the blowing part... when you tell her to blow a kiss, she kisses the back of her hand, and just holds her hand there... you can hear her trying to blow, but she keeps the back of her hand to her lips... hilarious.   Here is a short video of her waving and blowing kisses... 


Every morning when I drop her off to mom, the 2 of them stand in the front door and wave and blow me kisses... makes my day EVERY day.  It's so cute too when I keep driving up the driveway and am almost out of sight, she presses her cheek against the window of the front door trying to get one last glimpse of me as I drive away.  As I've said a hundred times, it's the little things like that that I am so thankful for having my mom get to watch her.  Obviously it's the big things too (having the loving care of her grammy and doing such fun things all the time with her), but it's the little things like that I love the most!


She also loves to play peek-a-boo.  Whether it's peeking around the corner at somebody, or holding the blanket over her head then pulling it down and saying boo... usually peek-a-boo is a good 20 minute occupier: ) 


And now for a few pictures from Easter... since I missed blogging about that too.  Oh, and did I mention that Malea was terrified of the Easter Bunny?  She was fine from a distance... in fact due to his floppy ears and fur, she woofed at him because she thought he was a puppy... but once she was on his lap she was not a happy camper.

I also wanted to share a few pics from the surprise party I had for Joel for his 30^th birthday waaay back in March.  I planned a party down in Burlington at The Pzazz / Fun City.  Basically it’s a complex that includes 2 hotels, a casino, a waterpark, indoor gokarts, a bowling alley, bars, restaurants, etc.  We had such a great time, and I’m so glad everything worked out so well.  Joel was REALLY surprised Thursday night before the party... the Steffen’s drove all the way down to our house from Minnesota, and their kiddos rang the doorbell Thursday night... Joel answered the door and was so startled to see them!  They stayed with us Thursday night, then both of our families headed down to Burlington Friday morning. 

The Steffen Kiddos and Malea at the hotel

We spent the day in the waterpark, riding go-karts, and having all sorts of fun.  I was certain Malea was going to love the swimming pool since she loves her baths so much, but, uh, not so much!  Joel tried taking her in first and she was terrified.  I went in with her a little later on and finally had her calmed down to where she was content... still not splashing around giggling, but atleast she let me put her legs and butt down in the water.

Malea's initial reaction to the water... I would say she's a little unsure of the situation: )

So I handed her back off to Joel so I could go grab the camera to get a picture of her in her first waterpark... on my walk back over I saw Joel wading through the pool with her past a bunch of little kids.  Well, apparently Joel failed to realize that he was walking directly underneath of a GIANT bucket that tips over when it gets full, and he just so happened to be walking underneath right at the time it was about to dump.  I didn’t have enough time to react to tell him to get the heck out of the way, so needless to say, he and Malea got drenched, it freaked M out, and we were back at square 1 of Malea hating the swimming pool.  Luckily day 2 went much better: ) 

Day 2... finally getting used to the pool

Saturday night a big group of friends and family ventured down to Burlington to help celebrate.  Everyone had fun at the arcade, we had a great dinner at a Mongolian grill, part of the group went bowling, then we hung out at the bar the rest of the night.  And a big thanks to the Steffen kiddos for babysitting Malea at night: )  It was so great seeing everybody, and we had such a great time.  Happy 30th honey!!

Here are the rest of Joel's bday pics...


I also have some very exciting news (NO NO I am not expecting another baby: )  I started a new job on April 30th, and I absolutely love it!  I honestly had no idea it was possible to love a job so much!  I am working at Iowa Donor Network in North Liberty as an Accounting Specialist.  IDN is an incredible organization, and I'm so honored to be a part of it.  They handle all of the organ and tissue donations for the state of Iowa.  You should check us out at http://iowadonornetwork.org/ and register to be a donor if you aren't already registered.  My first week was awesome.  On my first day, I got to bill for some organs, so that was a lot more interesting than billing for phone equipment: )  My second day I got to be in the O.R. during a heart valve recovery, and it was so interesting to watch!  I had no idea that as an accountant I would ever be able to experience something like that.  I was so glad Todd stuck his head in my office and asked if I would like to come watch, because that was quite the experience!  Wednesday we had an All-Staff meeting in Altoona, so that was perfect timing for me to get to meet the rest of the staff and learn a lot about IDN.  It was an awesome first week, and every week since has been just as enjoyable.  I love all of my coworkers, my boss is amazingly awesome, and the work I am doing is so much fun!  It has really been a perfect fit for me, as I hope I have been a good fit for them!


And finally, I leave you with a few random pictures of Little M.  I hope you have enjoyed all of the pictures!!! 

I'm not sure whose hat this is... Mommy wore this home from a Saint Patty's Day party... (don't tell mommy, but I look MUCH cuter in it than she did: )

I was a happy girl at Nolan's 1st Communion



Go Panthers!!!

I am ready for summer!

Happy as can be on my rocking horse from Grandma and Grandpa Hollenbeck

Mommy says I always sleep with my little buns in the air

Yet another one of my hilarious expressions that makes mommy giggle

Uncle Ryan drove all the way from Nashville to help me celebrate my birthday!  On Friday night after he got here, we went to the golf course for dinnr and I even got ice cream for my birthday!  I'm sure glad he came to my party.  I miss him and Amanda!

Mommy why are you laughing at my crazy bedhead?!  Just get me the heck out of this bed!

I met some new friends for ice cream at DQ!  It's mommy's friend, Sarah's, daughter and nephew!  Avery and Oliver!  Oliver was born just one day after me at the same hospital!  He's a lot taller than me, huh!  Avery and I even have the same pants on... our mommy's must have the same taste!

One of my favorite hobbies these days is pulling all of mommy's cookbooks down.  One... at... a... time...