Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Well if you have 13 minutes to spare and enjoy 8,389,394 pictures and videos of Sadie, this video is for you!

I have been making slideshows for years. I was making them back in high school for my friends. I've made them for my family. For birthdays and holidays. Going away parties. Weddings. I've made them at the end of every school year as a teacher. I have made a billion over the years. I LOVE SLIDESHOWS. They combine 2 of my favorite things- pictures and music. What's not to love!? (And now I can add videos and that's even better).

I made Nathan a slideshow for our 3 month anniversary. He loved it, and it's become a tradition of ours. I make one for every anniversary. I love choosing a song that represents our year and going through all the memories we made. I am such a sap.

Well I made one for Sadie's first year! I would love to say that I will make one for every year of her life, but that's a big commitment so we will see. I cried every time I worked on this, haha. But I loved picking out my favorite pictures and videos. I also LOVE the music. If you know me, you know music means a lot to me. So I chose songs that meant a lot to me.

Oblivion- Bastille

This album came out while I was newly pregnant with Sadie. I was struggling with a lot of emotions and fear. I still couldn't believe I was pregnant. I was scared to be pregnant. I missed Madelyn. I felt like I was just going to go through this all over again, and end up losing this baby too, so I wasn't allowing myself to really feel excited.

We went up to Idaho to have a graduation party for Nathan. On our way home we listened to the album all the way through for the first time and I heard this song. I don't know if it's even written about a baby, but I imagine it to be. I heard it and thought about holding my little baby (we didn't know she was a girl at the time) and wondering what he/she would grow up to be. I LOVE this song.

Feel Again- One Republic

One Republic is one of my "life bands," as I like to call them. Maybe I will explain that more later, but basically their music has been a huge part of my life. I feel like Ryan Tedder is my BFF, and he speaks to me. This is just one of the songs that does. I know most people interpret it as a love song, but I think of it as a healing song. When Sadie came, I could feel again. I was so broken and depressed, and she fixed that.

Blackbird- The Beatles

Oh hey, life band.

But The Beatles are kinda a life band for everyone. But anyway, this has long been my favorite Beatles song. Nathan and I sing to Sadie every night before bed, and we sing this one a lot. I think it has such a good message of hope and rebuilding and overcoming trials.

Never Grow Up- Taylor Swift

Pretty explanatory. If you are a parent, this song will probably always make you cry.

Well now that I have bored you with explanations of the songs I chose, let me bore you with 13 minutes of my baby!

Month 12

She's one!!!! I have kept a human alive and happy for one whole year!!!! Ahhhh, and she's just so freaking perfect.

This month she started to seem so big!!! Not as babyish anymore. She is getting so funny. She does things on purpose to be silly. She will put things on her head, make funny faces or sounds, put her head between her legs, dramatically fall over, pretend to sleep, play peek-a-boo.. that kind of stuff. Her favorite game is "don't bite it." It's where she has something in her hand and I say, "don't bite it!" And then she bites it and laughs hysterically. I just love it. She is exploring her world so much. I love watching her try to figure things out. Like taking lids on and off or putting things in and out of boxes. She has gotten very good at building two block towers. And she claps after she does it every time. She loves to put things on the cat when she's laying there. She will put shoes or toys on her. No idea why. She is so curious about everything. She still spends half the day pointing at things.

She has become obsessed with a certain blanket. It was a gift from a friend in our ward so I ran around trying to find another one, just in case. I found one that was the same brand, but a different pattern. She seems to be happy with both. I don't blame her for being obsessed with these blankets. They are the softest things in the world. She also loves to sleep with a certain teddy bear. It happens to be the stuffed bear that Nathan made at build-a-bear for me on our 6 month dating anniversary. 7 years ago, haha. So it's kinda cute that she seems to love it so much.

the top of her dress looks green in a couple shots because the aperture got messed up. Oops!

She is the biggest pig in the world. She eats pretty much allll day. When she first gets up, she will go over to her high chair and cry to be put in. She eats everything we have ever given her. But she looooovees blueberries, strawberries, peas, cooked carrots, scrambled eggs, chicken, and peanut butter sandwiches. We started slowly adding whole milk to her bottles and she has really liked it. She finally understands how to use a sippy cup and she loves to carry it around with her. She loves to shove fistfuls of food in her mouth. She has been a master of the pincer grip since she was 8 months old. But now she suddenly decided handfuls of food are better.

She can say "ball" and says it all day long, because balls are her favorite toy. She love to throw them or roll them to you. She also loves cars, and has a big tonka truck that she pushed around the house. My parents got her a little car/walker thing, and she pushed that around all day too. Her toy of choice is still the cat. And Lady is quite patient, but she has bit Sadie a couple times. Nothing hard, more of a warning bite. But Sadie is just so persistent and so aggressive!! She gets right in Lady's face and screams. She pokes her eyes and tugs on her ears and whiskers. She gives her giant, open-mouth kisses, and pulls chunks of her fur. Poor Lady. We are trying to teach both of them how to live with each other more peacefully.

She is very steady and confident standing on her own. She can walk like a pro when she's holding something. She has taken quite a few steps on her own, but she always gets nervous after 2 in a row, and just squats back down to crawl. Hopefully she will get more brave and just go for it! She is definitely steady enough to do it, she just gets nervous. She still isn't that into tv. It can only hold her attention for a few minutes, but she loves Barney, Curious George, and Daniel Tiger.

Her favorite word is "dada," and she gets so freaking excited when he comes home! My favorite time of day is when I go to get her up. Nathan is usually in the bathroom getting ready. When we get into the living room, Sadie will always point at the bathroom door and say, "Dada!" and then she knocks on it and it's the cutest thing ever! She says "mama" a lot too. She says it a lot when she's fussy, haha. But I love it just the same. She tries to say a few other words, but they aren't as understandable as mama, dada, baba, and ball. She says fish (fsss), night-night (ni-ni), and bubble (buhbuh). I am surprised she doesn't say kitty yet, but for some reason, she calls Lady "ah-da." I say kitty to her, but she will just say "ah-da" again. Weirdo. She's got 5 teeth and one more on the way. She's lost all her baby chub and is the tiniest little thing.

She still loves music and dancing and singing. The theme song from 30 rock is currently her favorite song. (We watch too much Netflix). She loves to be up-side-down. It's funny. She loves being outside, and when I say "you want to go bye-bye?" she will race to the door as fast as she can. She is getting good at independent play. She will be content alone, with her toys for quite a while. She really loves reading books. She "reads" them by herself too, and it's the cutest. She is veerrryyy loud. She rarely cries, unless she's hurt, but she YELLS. She loves to yell. And make weird fake coughs and fake laughs. Ohhh she loves to fake laugh! It's makes church very interesting.

The animal obsession is just as strong as ever. She is learning animal sounds. She has been meowing for a while, but now she makes a "ruff" sounds for dogs, a piggy sound, and an elephant sound. The elephant sound is awesome, haha. She is not afraid of animals at all! In fact, at our ward party the other night, she crawled full speed at a big pitbull, screaming and barking at him. He ran right over and licked her and she just loved it. Her animal love is seriously born into her. She's just crazy.

She still sleeps like a champ. She was occasionally still waking up once a night last month, but that's completely done now, and she sleeps from 8pm-8am. She sleeps in the funniest positions. She loves to be curled up, laying in one of the corners of her crib. And she likes her blanket to be balled up under her, instead of on top of her. She is down to only one nap. It happened sooner than I thought it would. Somedays she will take an early catnap in the car if we are out, but most days she is awake until 2, then sleeps until 5.

She used to be the most serious person around strangers. But the last couple months, that has completely melted away. She has become the most social baby! She yells at everyone in stores or at the park until they look at her. She gives people the biggest smiles and the biggest laughs! It's so sweet! I am not sure why she suddenly decided to lose the stone-cold stare, but I love it. She loves people so much. She is usually good at going to other people too. A lot of people steal her at church (it's easy to be the favorite baby when you're kinda the only baby in the ward), and she loves it. My young women are so good with her.

And here it is. The last update of her first year. I am not sure how I will do updates for her now. Certainly not every month. But we'll see. It has been so fun to document her first year. We love this girl so much!!!! Can't wait to see what year 2 brings!

Sadiegrams

Month 12 Sadiegrams! As usual.. there are a lot.

Watching Music and the Spoken Word. Homegirl loves music.

 There's a bunch from this day at the park. She was just especially cute that day.

First time eating peanut butter

Transfixed by High School Musical

First Chicken nugget 

She spit up. Then stared at it like this.

Mashed potatoes

Watching her cousin, Kalvin, in a video

 Outtakes from her 12 month shoot