Wednesday, December 19, 2018

The Last Month of Andromeda's First Year

Andi's 12th month was, once again, super eventful!  We continued swim lessons, went to a book reading at a local bookstore, drove to Hill Country to celebrate Andromeda's first Thanksgiving with S's family, played outside in the leaves, taught Andi about Hanukkah, got to rip open presents, and finally my parents came into town for Andromeda's birthday weekend and we threw a party (more details in a later post).  Oh, and the big one - Andi started walking!  
Digging into the holiday books at the local bookstore.

Learning about tools with daddy while he fixes the chair.

Tools first and now driving practice - daddy couldn't be prouder!

Andi loves looking at leaves that have fallen from the tree, so this pile that we raked in the backyard was a big treat!
We try to get out and about with Andromeda as much as possible so she can learn about the grocery store, the library, the park, and basically any other place than just our home.  She loves to go for walks (especially once all of the houses in the neighborhood started putting up their holiday decorations!), swing on the swingset, go down slides, make friends at the local HEB, and explore new books and toys when out and about.  She's also become a little fishy at swim class!  She loves to get dunked, play with the water toys, watch all of the big kids in the pool and she can hold her breath for 8 seconds now!
Standing all by herself!

We're trying to teach Andi to kick, kick, kick!  It's a work in progress.

Holding her breath underwater while swimming to daddy.
For Thanksgiving we drove out to Hill Country to stay with S's parents and celebrate with his family.  Andi was a champ for the ride out there (we tried to time it with her morning nap) and then proceeded to devour her Thanksgiving dinner.  Andi is about 50/50 with food these days.  Sometimes she won't touch it and other times you're left wondering where she fit it all.  Her Thanksgiving favorite was the brown sugar sweet potatoes!  Andi had also been toying with small bouts of walking up until this point, but this weekend we got some solid 5-7 consecutive steps.  By the time her birthday came around she'd upped it to 10-12.

Andromeda posing with a bunch of turkeys at daycare 
Happy Thanksgiving!
Practicing walking to grandpa.

Mmmm, lasagna!  Another weekend favorite!

Reading with grandma.
While we were out there, I also got the opportunity to take a glass blowing class, which has been on my bucket list for some time.  It was fun, but not as involved as I'd like for it to be.  It was a good introductory class, and I did have fun, but I'm going to keep this one on my bucket list until I can try some more actually blowing of the glass on my own.
Getting to blow some waste glass just to see how hard the initial bubble is to make and how fast it can balloon out of control.

Shaping the colored glass that went inside the paperweight I made.
Once we got home we got the house promptly decorated for the holidays at Hanukkah started only about a week later.  Andromeda got to learn about the menorah and dreidel and open 1-2 small presents each day.  She had fun tearing open the paper and was actually quite appreciative of her new toys and books for a 1 year old.  Especially the books.  S and I are proud to say she's turning into quite the little bookworm!

Andromeda discovering her first dreidel!

Tearing open a puzzle and book for her first night of Hanukkah!
My parents were able to make it out for the end of Hanukkah and Andi's first birthday weekend.  They arrived on a Thursday night and so Andromeda and I played hooky from work/school on Friday to spend time with them and get ready for Saturday's birthday party.   I'll write up another post for the party, but Andi had a great time!  And with that a I leave you with a few funny photos from our little goofball!  I won't be posting monthly from here on out (it's a lot of effort!) but I'll try to post every now and then with the fun stuff!
Andi's new trick.  She loves to eat with forks and spoons now.  In fact, putting food on a utensil is the easiest way to get her to try something new!

And an outtake from this month's photo.  There were a lot of outtakes this time.  Getting her to stay still is a feat!