Touch your nose

Jordan is getting really good at knowing her body parts. She first learned nose but now when you ask her where our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hair are she can very accurately point to them. Lately she has been learning about eye brows (she very curiously has been pointing to them), knees and hands.

These pictures have absolutely nothing to do with this post other than the fact that they are all about Jordan and that I think they are adorable. This picture below is what I see on a daily basis: it is Jordan coming at me with a book to read! She was really excited to get a new book from the doctor yesterday!

I have quite the helper now that Jordan is getting older. She is very quick to help with anything but in this story we will talk about all the help she provides when it comes to laundry and picking up her toys. When I was folding laundry the other day she was gladly pulling clothes out of the laundry basket, holding them up in the air for me to take and grunting to be sure to get my attention. After I would grab the article of clothing from her she eagerly repeated these steps, in fact, she was so efficient that she was grabbing clothes faster than I could fold and getting a wee bit irritated that I could not keep up but we finally worked out a system and became a great team! She has also gotten great at picking up her toys. Jordan's favorite way to play with toys used to be taking them all out of the basket then once they were out of the basket they would become such a bore to my little girl so she would crawl off to find some other container of toys to deconstruct. I was constantly picking up behind her only for her to discover what I'd done and remove all toys from their rightful container once again. Jordan's hobby of dismantling still exists, however, she has discovered how big of an achievement (we have quite the little cheer session afterwards) it is to put her toys back where she got them from...sometimes with Mommy's encouragement and other times completely self motivated!

Second Party

Because Joaquin & Jordan were born on the same day we decided to do a little celebrating together with our two families. Joseph and Abi had us out to their house for dinner and I brought some food to share as well. Abi cooked some wonderful, wonderful food that put my quesadillas to shame!

(This picture makes me giggle; it looks like Brandon is really short, either that or Jordan is really tall!)

We tried to get some pictures of the mommas with the babies and the daddies and babies. We Mommas were having a little trouble getting everything together:

But we weren't the only ones! The daddies had a little struggle too:

But in the end we got a couple of good pictures:

We even got a family picture! My mom thinks this one is awful because of Jordan bawling her eyes out but Brandon & I get quite the kick out of it!

And somewhere in there Brandon took a picture of my feet which I almost thought were Jordan's feet when I first saw them.

We had a really great time! Thank you so much for having us over for a wonderful celebration! I wish I had gotten a picture of the cake. It was a giant cupcake that was bigger than my head!

more presents

Jordan got a cute little baby doll that fits perfectly with a couple of books and snacks in the little purse she also got as gift. I put the purse on her shoulder and a headband with a bow in her hair and she walked off strutting her stuff like she was so proud to be such a girlie girl. By the way Jordan is primarily walking nowadays! She rarely ever crawls anymore. It still throws me off sometimes as she comes walking into the room rather than crawling but I love it! I know she's been wanting to do it for so long now so it makes me happy that she is finally able to fulfill her dream.

Speaking of girlie girl, Jordan got a tea set from her Auntie Heidi and her cousins. It has brought us so much enjoyment! Jordan has her special cupboard in the kitchen that we allow her play in/with. We put the tea set in that cupboard. She plays with that thing when I am cooking, or even when I'm not cooking. She and I have had several tea parties since she's gotten it. I have dreamed of this moment for so long. In fact, my mom and I have had several conversations about said dreams, dreaming them up together. Thank you Auntie Heidi, Brandon, Ethan & Ivan! You will have to come over for a tea party sometime!

Now don't get me wrong, Jordan does have her tomboy side! She got a rocket for her birthday too that she has been having a blast with! The seat opens up for storage; Jordan loves opening it and putting her dolly inside then closing it and taking her dolly out, this goes on for quite some time. Then there are three buttons on the dash that she loves to push and hear the noises they each make. And when Mommy is available she loves getting pushed all over the house riding her rocket ship. She turns her head around to look at me and laughs! What a thrill! She's going to love the day she learns how to ride it herself. Thank you Granny Jo, Grandpa Robert & the crew (Brandon's parents, two brothers & sister).

Back to the girlie girl though, she got some cute hair bows among other things from my cousin Amanda. At this point, as you know, Jordan doesn't like to leave things in her hair. I was trying to get the bows on faster than she could take them off and managed to get all three on her head at once! For some reason, she decided to leave just one in her hair...the one that happened to be sticking straight off the side of her head:

Jordan got a piggy bank that is shaped as Cinderella's carriage in some pretty pastel colors. After she opened it she really wanted me to take it out of it's packaging. Once I got it out she grabbed it from me and gave it a BIG hug! It was precious! She also got some really beautiful, springy dresses from my parents and a wonderful family friend.

Thank you so much everyone who came to the party and made Jordan's day that much more special!

Presents

This is a Rollie Pollie. I'd been enjoying the MADE blog recently, a sewing blog I stumbled across, and when I saw the Rollie Pollie on her site I just knew I HAD to make one for Jordan! And boy am I glad I did! Jordan and I have had lots of fun with it already! At first she had mixed feelings. First she loved it because it was something new, then she didn't know what to do with it but now she walks up to it quite quickly and throws herself onto it. She rolls around on it, bounces on it, lays her head on it and says "Ahhhh!" (as in: Ahh, that's so sweet). She's still in discovery mode and I know this will bring hours of entertainment for years to come!

It was so much fun watching Jordan open her presents. Immediately she ripped into the first present and started handing me all the paper she pulled off (She has an old magazine that is exclusively hers that we let her do whatever she wants with. She tears pages out and tears each page apart. She used to try and put pieces in her mouth but after I started taking each piece away from her when she'd do that she's started handing the pieces to me instead).

After she opened her first present she didn't really want to open any more because the first one was books which are her favorite thing in the world! I was really happy that she got some new books too because I am getting tired of the books we already have. Jordan chases me around the house with books all day long (which is a good thing she likes reading so much!). We read books no less than 5 times a day at least 5 books each time and reading each book at least 5 times a piece (and that's just me! When Daddy gets home, he reads to her too).

All the kids that came to her party were really intrigued by all her presents and wanted to be right up close to see everything she got and even help her open them if she was distracted or too slow :) It was really cute! I love the middle picture above with the back of everyone's heads. I'm really surprise and excited that Jordan did so well having so many people so close to her especially for not having much sleep (we tried laying her down a little early for her nap so we could ensure that she would be awake when guests started to arrive. Well, she did NOT like that one bit and it took us an hour to get her to sleep! Then she decided to take a little nap that was barely an hour when they are typically 2-3 hours long. I guess she showed us!). I love getting to watch all the kids interact. Most of them didn't know each other yet they all quickly bonded and started talking and playing games together. The ages range from 1 to 8 years old and they all played together so good!

sugar rush

My sister's middle son Ethan is in the picture above "helping" Jordan with her cupcake. This is as messy as it got and we are very thankful! I picked out her outfit that morning (it's one of my new favorites!) not really thinking that it was white and she would be eating a chocolate cupcake! But thankfully there wasn't a spot on her clothes!

The bib Jordan is wearing says "I'm one today!" It was the bib I wore on my first birthday so that was really special!

I am so nervous when it comes to entertaining. Everyone was mingling before the party actually started and it was Brandon, not me, who was going around asking if anyone wanted anything to drink. I kept hearing every one around introducing themselves because their host(me) had completely spaced it. I always forget to offer our guests something to drink and I always forget to introduce people. About 5 or more years ago, Brandon & I ran into an old friend of mine who excitedly introduces us to his fiance, so I say hi, shake her hand then proceed with conversation completely forgetting to introduce my husband! I'm hoping I get better about this AND SOON! Anyway, when it came time to do cake and sing Happy Birthday I ask Brandon "what should I say?", "how should I get their attention?", "maybe if I just give Jordan her cake people will catch on", "You start singing Happy Birthday." To be honest I don't even know how it ended up happening. All I know is everyone DID sing Happy Birthday, everyone DID get cake and I was NOT the one to start any of it. I really don't know what to do about it but my friend Jennifer reminded me this is the first of many so I will definitely get my practice. It kind of makes me nervous that I have that many more to miserably fail at but then again practice makes perfect so I can only get better, right? One can hope.

Jordan turned ONE!!!

I cannot believe I am saying this right now but Jordan is ONE YEAR OLD! I am completely blown away by how quickly the past year has gone by and all that Jordan has learned and experienced in just one year of life. She is quite the traveling girl making two trips to Minnesota and a trip to Washington to attend her first wedding. She took her first steps at 7 1/2 months old even though she didn't truly start walking for another 3 1/2 months. And we are quite excited and proud of her for going poo-poo in the potty today on her first birthday! She sat and read her new Curious Georgebook from Timm, Jennifer & Katelyn (see picture below) during her potty time.

Here are some pictures of the cake and cupcakes. My mom came over the night before the party to help me decorate the cake. I am so thankful because quite honestly I am a terrible when it comes to decorating cakes. It usually always ends up a disaster. Thank you so much, Mom!!! I think it turned out WONDERFUL! It wasn't until I started this blog post that I realized we never did put a candle on Jordan's cake. Oopsie!

I will be posting more birthday pictures/stories throughout the entire week so stay tuned!

Sorry guys...no post today. I am busy getting everything in order for Jordan's birthday this weekend. If I get done early I'll do a post at the end of the week. I'm really excited to post pictures of some pants I made for Jordan!

I just love these pictures of Jordan. This has become my new favorite outfit of hers especially with the bracelet. Her hair is getting longer so when I pull it back we can still leave some bangs out front and I can get the sides to flip out over her ears (until naptime!). She's becoming more grown up by the day.

These beautiful pictures were taken yesterday morning. We were eating breakfast and happened to notice how cool the snow looked on the trees outside so I braved the cold without a coat to take some quick photos. Absolutely beautiful!

And this here, oh my, it was taken after she pulled one of her pigtails out last weekend. What a goof! That face was her chewing on a goldfish and I just happened to catch her mid-chew which makes for a hilarious picture!

I almost forgot!

I nearly forgot that it is Monday which means it's my blogging day. Today is a little off because Brandon had the day off from work so my routine has been a little different. Anyway, I have a post coming soon!

Birthday surprise

Last weekend was Brandon's birthday. Jordan really wanted to do something special for Daddy so it was decided that she would make a painting for him. She was very nervous at first since it was all new to her.

Of course she had to taste it (I could see the confusion since she the only thing she ever does in her high chair is eat) but thankfully she only tried that once!

She ended up getting really into it and had a blast. I have a feeling this is going to become a regular activity for us since she had so much fun. And I planned it for bath day so all I did was grab her with the towel she was sitting on and carry her straight to the bath tub so clean up was quite easy (knock on wood).

Here she is holding her beautiful artwork up for the camera.

Then she had to admire the work herself.

Later my parents came over and we made fried ice cream which was absolutely delicious! (recipe to follow on the cooking blog)

Happy birthday Daddy!