Officially a Walker!

Kaia Mae is now a walking machine. She has been working on it pretty steadily the past couple weeks. This weekend she started getting more confident and would walk from an object to one of us or from one of us to an object if we asked her to. But yesterday she finally decided for herself she wanted to walk around. We had her birthday party with the Swaims last night and I guess she decided the Birthday Princess needed to walk at her own party. There was no stopping her- she was all over the house! I guess it'll finally be time for baby gates. We're very excited! She's very good-I'm surprised. She can walk pretty long distances without falling and if she falls she gets right back up and keeps going. She can even turn around pretty easily. With the way she moves, I'm sure it won't be long before she's just running everywhere!

Kaia will be 1 tomorrow! It's so exciting! We had her bday party with the Swaims last night and were so glad both grandmas could come too. She had a great time opening gifts and loves everything she got! She wasn't too sure about the cake and mostly just played with the icing. I'll post pictures after her other party on Saturday.

Besides walking, Kaia's busy expressing herself. She shakes her head no when she doesn't want something and screams if something she wants gets taken away. I wasn't ready for that to start already. She can throw a mean temper tantrum, but it usually doesn't last long. She loves to climb, especially at the park. She will climb up the slide and then turn around and sit on her bottom to come back down, or just slide down on her tummy. She'll only eat big girl food, and now only takes bottles twice a day-at naptime and bedtime. We've moved her to 1 nap a day in the afternoon and this has helped her sleep at night so much better. Instead of two 1/2 hour naps and up twice at night she's taking one 1 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon and sleeping all night. If she does wake up at night she's able to get herself back to sleep. This makes a much happier baby and mommy. She's doing well and is growing so quickly. We just had her 1 year pictures taken and were surprised to see how much she looks like a little girl and no longer like a baby. We're excited for all the next year brings!