Thank you so much for the kindest first birthday wishes for Sadie this week! We had such a wonderful, low key day celebrating as a family on Tuesday (Did you catch the letter I wrote to her?). We put balloons in her crib a few minutes before we expected her to wake up and then listened closely for when she started shuffling around. When we poked our heads in, we saw her sitting up and already playing with the balloons (probably a little bit confused about why they were in her bed!)

We ate breakfast, gave her presents from family and friends (Hadley was not a fan of this part!), and then got ready to head our separate ways for a few hours. Hadley went to preschool, Jamie went to work for a half day, and Sadie and I went to MOPS. By the time Sadie was awake from her nap around 1:30, Jamie was home and we were getting ready to go grab Hadley.

The rest of the day consisted of play time at a local playground, an early dinner out at Old Chicago, and then the grande finale – a homemade, chocolate smash cake on the back deck. 🙂 She got to FaceTime with her grandparents, her aunt, and her uncles, and it was just the sweetest day.
It was 82 degrees out on Tuesday night, so the weather was perfect for letting Sadie make the mess outside. 😉
A few people have asked if we are going to do a party, and we made the (very) easy decision months ago to forego the big party. Our families are so far away (but would make the long trip in a second if we asked), and our closest Army friends are all going through a lot transition-wise and schedule-wise, just like our own family is. We don’t think Sadie feels slighted not getting a big party. 😉 We do hope to have a second birthday party though! We’ll see. You can only do as much as you can do!
I chose to do just a few updates throughout the last year about Sadie specifically, and I wanted to do one final quarterly update now that she’s a whole year old. 🙂
Previous updates
Eating
She still eats almost everything we give her, but we can tell she’s “wising up” and giving us a side eye more frequently when we put certain things down on her plate, like pears or peas. This month we spent just as much on fruit, veggie, and yogurt pouches as we did on our monthly gas utility bill! She eats an average of two per day (typically one with breakfast and another for an afternoon snack). We purchase a few different brands ( and ) via Amazon’s Subscribe and Save (saving 15% off), and she loves them!
She started something at Disney World that we now affectionately refer to as the “call of the Sadie” (kind of weird, I know). Whenever we put her in her highchair, she immediately starts banging on the tray and hollering for us to hurry up and get her food. When there’s food in site and she knows she’s about to eat, she simply cannot wait a second longer! We usually give her 10-15 Crunchies to hold her off for a few minutes while we get her meal prepared. She’s a riot!

Sleeping
She’s sleeping 12 straight hours at night, which is all thanks to our sleep specialist, Sarah. She is in her crib at 7 p.m. almost every night and usually fusses for anywhere from 15 seconds up to 10 minutes. She always passes out though. She usually wakes up in the morning between 6:30 and 7:30. Maybe once a week she wakes up at 5/5:30 if she hears Jamie leaving, but I just let her cry until she goes back to sleep (usually a tough five minutes).
Naps are all over the map, but that’s not her fault. Every day looks different for us, so we’re never home at the same time to let her routinely sleep. If we’re home all day, I put her down two hours after she woke up and she usually sleeps for 90 minutes. I’ll put her down again that afternoon about 2.5/3 hours after she woke up from her morning nap, and she’ll sleep another 90 minutes. If she’s only home to get in one nap, it’s usually for about 2/2.5 hours sometime between 11-2. These days with one nap are hard because she struggles to stay awake until 7, and she’s not a fan of a 4 p.m. cat nap.
We use the white noise function on her , and it seems to be a signal to her that it’s time to go to sleep. Highly recommend!

Talking
She can say “dada” and “no” (accompanied by the cutest head shake) but hasn’t said “mama” in over a month. She babbles all the time but isn’t saying many specific words yet. I remember when Hadley was this age that her new words would come completely out of nowhere, so I’m excited to start hearing her talk a little more day by day.

Mobility
She enjoys walking along furniture and walking with toys, but she doesn’t even want to attempt walking while holding our hands. She just goes right to her bottom! I predict it’ll be a couple more months (at least) before she’s walking, but everything else she’s done has been completely out of the blue, so maybe this will be the same. We’ll see! She also climbed our entire flight of stairs last week, and we weren’t even sure she could do one step! She’d been practicing on Teddy’s pet steps for a while, but since we don’t spend much time in our basement, she hadn’t had any practice on a real flight of stairs. She shocked me!

Growth
She had six teeth by eight months old and hasn’t popped a single new tooth since! She hair is slowly growing, and it looks like we’re going to have one blondie and one brunette. 🙂 We weighed her at home last week, and she weighed a whopping 22.5 pounds. She’s wearing 18 month tops and dresses and 2T shorts. (Jamie said he almost needed Crisco to get a pair of them on her yesterday though!) We go for her dreaded one-year appointment and shots later this week, so I’ll be curious just how tall she is. Both Hadley and Sadie have always hovered between the 60th and 70th percentile for height on any given appointment.

Her Favorite Activities and Toys
- Leaning in to give kisses
- Waving when someone says “hi” or “bye”
- Destroying her playroom and discovering every toy in it
- Sneaking away from us 24/7
- Snuggling against our chests (my favorite thing in the whole wide flipping world)
- Blowing raspberries, especially if someone else does it to her first
- Playing Patty Cake
- Unrolling the toilet paper
- Throwing her sippy cup off her high chair
- Sitting in Teddy’s dog bed
- <—- My aunt got this for Sadie, and both of my girls are totally obsessed!!
- Walking toys
- ;—-We didn’t get Hadley this until she was 2.5, but we didn’t realize even babies as young as Sadie would love it!
- and the <—-Highly recommend this play food (for matching) and this adorable kitchen
- Lounging on Hadley’s bean bag
- Hiding in the play tent
- Drinking out of a straw
- Books that have some kind of texture that she can “pet”
Whew, that was a big update! We are so grateful for our healthy, silly girl. It’s such a joy and privilege to share her life with you all.
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Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo