Go Daphne!

While in St. George this last weekend, Daphne had a blast practicing standing up on her own. She has let go of support at times, without realizing it, but will always plop down the second she realizes. Just recently she started getting brave enough to stand up in the middle of the floor all on her own! She was super excited and very proud of herself. Every time she did it, she would clap her hands, look for us and wait until we joined in on the clapping, giggle and bounce until she lost her balance and fell down. A few minutes later she would pop right up again. It was the best part of our trip seeing how proud she was of herself! She is strong enough to walk without support yet, but isn't quite brave enough. Whenever she is ready is fine with me. Now that we are back home and there are stairs to play on (her favorite toy), so she hasn't been standing too much.

Daph is 1!

It's August 19th, 2014 and I just realized I never posted the pictures of Daphne's 1st Birthday on the blog! So here you are:)

My best childhood friend, Jessica Cooper, came and took pictures of Daphne and her decor a few hours before her party. We had a Daffodil themed party since at the time her favorite color was yellow and her nickname is Daffodil. I had lots of fun prepping for her party and making her cake.

 

I had a flower garden of Daffodils that displayed all the monthly photos I had taken of her over the course of the past year.

As well as her invite on a piece of scrapbook paper so the guests could each write her a little note.

 Daffodil rice crispy treats

 

 Daphne riding her favorite duck toy

Cake time! I actually let her dig into two cakes that day. I made 3 cakes total. One for her to dig in for pictures with Jess, one for her to dig in for the party guests, and one for the guests to enjoy.

She was a little hesitant to dig in, which surprised us, since she is the messiest eater in the world. Grandpa Crandall and Daddy didn't seem to have much trouble showing her how to do it. Haha.

Party time! There were many more guests in attendance, like Uncle Rueben and Aunt Kamille, Grandma and Grandpa Jasmer, Uncle Mike and Aunt Natalie, and my Aunt Renae and cousins. I think someone else took pictures for me on their camera, but I can't remember now who would have, so at least I have the below pictures to capture some of the party!

She was pretty obsessed with this toy from my Aunt Renae and kept on going back to it in between daddy "forcing" her to open each gift. I am happy to say though, that this spoiled girl has loved and played with all the toys she was given since.

Her favorite part was all the attention she got. She quickly learned that others were cheering for her as she tried to figure out how to open each gift. So she tested out clapping for herself, which in return, would cause everyone to clap more. She loved clapping and clapping and clapping so that she could get everyone to clap and giggle along with her.

Happy first birthday my baby girl! I can't believe how much you have grown. You are now 2.5 years old and it is so fun to look back on you at your first birthday.

11 & 12 Months

As my computer time is limited (I am usually working when Daphne is sleeping and when she is awake she is super helpful at "helping" me work on the computer), I chose to spend my time I would usually save for blogging to make a slideshow video for Daphne's Birthday in February. Then March came and went. Hence, the combined 11 and 12 month blog post. At this point, my brain doesn't function well enough to remember which month was which! It was my goal to blog about Daphne each month for a year. Now that we have met that milestone I am hoping to just get better at blogging regularly about things in our daily lives with a few Daphne only updates here and there!

We went book shopping to spend her Christmas giftcard from her Uncle Spencer & Aunt Kristen. She had a ball.

In LOVE with Boston's firetruck

Celebrated her first New Year's Eve. We had a casual "baby style" party with Boston and his parents. Daphne tried to teach Boston how to use the stairs and in return, she required he be her chauffeur. She loved being the passenger (hence, the blurry head due to lots of head bobbing) and he loved practicing his walking skills!

 She also attended her first Crandall/Jasmer family Christmas Party (January-Style) and enjoyed playing with everyone, especially her Uncle Mike and Cousin Carson (I had to laugh that she decided to play peek-a-boo while Carson gave her bunny ears).

Hanging out with Grandpa

She also had a fun sleepover for a few days while daddy was away. Dan had a military training for a week so Daphne and I decided to stay and play at grandma and grandpa Black's house for part of the time. They helped with Daphne while I worked and were great company! She loved spending time with them and developed a very strong LOVE for the doggies. At some point in the last few months she has started to bark like them. Whenever she sees a black and white dog in a book, on TV, or in person (since my parents dogs are black and white) she gets super excited and barks like crazy. Just this morning on the way to Grandma's house she barked off and on the entire way in anticipation of going to see the doggies.

Has requested all grandpa's to be her chauffeur on her ducky at home ever since she learned how fun it can be from New Year's Eve.

Daphne also helped me babysit Boston while his parents went skiing. She wasn't too sure what to think about him invading her space. She all of a sudden was interested in every toy Boston wanted to play with and even wanted to eat baby food since I was feeding it to him (she boycotted baby food prior to this and hadn't eaten it in weeks). Jealous much? Overall, she had fun as long as he wasn't using her as his walking support (middle picture)!

Discovered the dishwasher.

Eats, eats, and eats! At this point she loved pizza, blueberries, spaghetti, and pickles the most.

Troublemaker in the making....

 LOVES standing up!

 Left: Sporting her matching minion shirt with daddy that she was super excited about from Universal Studios (since it is yellow). Right: Hanging out in Aunt Nat's laundry basket while mommy and daddy were at the Temple. Aunt Nat also taught her how to blow kisses during her visit. She would smack her lips whenever you would blow kisses in return. Now, she puts her hand up to her mouth too and makes what I would refer to as an Indian Chant. Silly girl.

...and now the 12 month part! This is her cute birthday outfit my neighbor friend Missy made for her. She loves it. I let her help pick out her clothes most days and she picks this shirt quite often:) This picture wasn't my favorite, but I wasn't too worried since my friend, Jess, took professional 12 month photos of her. Daphne was way too busy to sit still for a picture anyways! I am still waiting on getting them from her, but I should be able to post them soon!

Daphne is a huge climber. She would rather climb walls than learn how to walk, that's for sure! So trying to get a picture of her turned into me following her as she tried to climb up the piano (and Dan even let her sit on top of it while holding on to her), climbing up the stairs to follow the vacuum, etc, etc. Such a busy girl!

Speaking of walking, it's funny how development is a LOT based on their interests. Daphne has always been super stubborn about her mobility so most stages have come early or right on time based on the "textbook time periods". She usually gets really grumpy from the time she wants to do something until her body is strong enough to do it (like crawling). Not this time! She thinks climbing is so fun and crawling gets her from point A to point B at lightening speed so is no need to walk. When we try to help her (she knows how to walk by holding onto things and will do so on occasion) but whenever we hold onto her hands when she is standing she sees it as an opportunity to climb up our bodies instead. Silly girl:) She will do it for other people though, it's a mommy and daddy thing. Anyways, she will get there eventually, no rush. She gets into everything enough as it is! Just yesterday (she is 13.5 months now) she pushed a toy over to the piano, climbed on top of the toy so she could climb onto the chair, and then onto the piano so she could sit on the keys and play. All within the 30 seconds she got away from me!

On the day of her birthday party, she found two tape dispensers in the office desk drawers. I was trying to finish decorating so I figured wasting the tape from them was totally worth it! She had a ton of fun with the sticky tape (I promise, even though she looks grumpy here).

Sneak peek of her birthday- Most of the pictures my friend took, but I did get a few on my camera. The cake? well, most of the digging was from Dan helping her. Daphne is quite the messy eater so we thought for sure she would dig like crazy. Just the night before she dumped a whole bowl of lima beans on her head and rubbed the juices up and down her body at a restaurant, nonetheless. Her cake? She thought was too gooey! Silly girl. She did dig, when daddy joined her, but she preferred to be super dainty and use a spoon.

Overall, her birthday was lots of fun! She loved the attention and I had so much fun throwing it for her. Her nickname is Daffodil and she LOVES the color yellow (it makes her giggle like crazy whenever she sees it) so we went with a Daffodil theme. She loved all the attention. She was super cute during gift time especially. She didn't quite understand the opening part, but she was super excited whenever she saw a new toy. She was especially fond of this dancing monkey my Aunt got for her. She would clap in joy over a new toy but then go right back to the monkey. She even got the crowd clapping with her. She would look at everyone, clap her hands, wait for them to join in, and the clap some more and giggle like crazy. She LOVES being the center of attention to say the least. Pretty sure she won't be stage fright like me!

On her actual birthday, we went out for lunch and swimming! Daphne's birthday fell on a Wednesday, which was nice because Dan doesn't work. He has school in the morning and evening and was able to take a break from studying to play that afternoon. She loves the water. She had fun crawling in the shallow end of the water and then kicking her legs as we helped her float in the deep end. We even let her dunk her head under water a few times and she never once has been scared about it. Looking forward to lots of swimming this summer.

Left: One of Daphne's MANY doctor visits shortly before her birthday. Unfortunately, she spent the second half of December and most of January into February being sick. It was one thing after another. Her immune system just couldn't quite catch up. Poor girl was miserable and so were we, especially since I caught everything she did. Her being healthy again was the best birthday present we could have asked for! Right: We stopped in  in at  Babies R Us on her birthday and found her the perfect party hat. She thought it was funny too. We didn't get it since her party was before her actual birthday but we had fun trying it on and taking a pic!

 



For awhile there, Daphne's way of showing she was excited to see someone was to pat them (a little too hard) on the face. She was always hitting me like crazy and giggling whenever I would get her up from a nap, get home from work, etc. We have been working on teaching her to be "soft". Not sure she gets it, but she is outgrowing this phase now so it all worked out. In this picture, she was super excited to see her Uncle Rueben that her hands were always flying in every picture she took. She sure loves the two of them!

Helping her grandma (crazy hair and all) play a card game. She has spent a lot of time with my mom lately while I have been working and has come to love her greatly. She often prefers her lap instead of mine when we go over. I think secretly a lot of that love comes from the fact that Grandma owns doggies as well, but either way, she sure loves her. She loves her other grandparents too but definitely has a special connection with my mom.

 

With age comes long enough hair for two piggies! They are wild and crazy just like her!



See, I told ya, messy eater at heart! She was having super fun licking jam off her bread. I thought by putting something on it, she might eat the bread, but at least she ate something, right?!?

Daphne's fun party favor from her cousin, Boston's first birthday party. She loved the attention she got for wearing them. She now plays with them at home. She will attempt to put them on, giggle at herself, and repeat.

Little stinker loves to stand anywhere and everywhere. She has been banned to the back of the cart since I could rather her stand up there than in the front seat on the cart.

Using her sippy cup lid insert as a binky. Lol. She used to only use binkies at naptime and now she has become super addicted to them in the last month or so. She was very exited to find what she thought was a jumbo binky in the kitchen drawer:)

...and last but not least, a true Cajun at heart! She loves to play with all the mardi gras beads we have from living in Louisiana. The picture at the left is one of my favorites:) She loves to wear her necklaces wherever we go.

 

 

Other tidbits:

 

She got her two top teeth in and and as of today (13.5 months) she has three more. She has four on top and three on bottom. She got all three new ones within about a week of each other.

 

Clothing size: At this age, she was wearing 3-6 month and 6-9 month tops and 6-9 month bottoms. I have put away all the 3-6 month clothes now and she is wearing 6-9 and I have started to pull out some 9-12 month stuff, like her pjs. 

 

Diaper size: 3

 

Size: at 12 months, she was 19.5 lbs (____%) and 29.5 inches (________%)

 

I am sure there is more, but this post is long enough! Just enjoying our hyper and silly little girl. She is definitely a girl at heart and has mood swings like crazy. Temper tantrums are a big part of our daily routine now. But with those mood swings come really happy and silly moments. She brings so much joy to our home.