Allison is growing up.

My baby girl is almost 1. Allison's birthday is coming up this week and I thought I would just take a moment to make a first year memory list.

--The 2008 Olympics in Beijing were going on when she was born and we thought it was neat that the number 8 is a sign of good luck in the Chinese culture. Allison had a lot of eights that accompanied her birth. She was born 8.18.2008 at 8:10am and weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz.
--The nurses told us that Allison held the record at St. Marks for the least amount of Jaundice in a baby. Already a champion!
--She never caught on to nursing yet I knew that was the healthiest stuff for her. So I pumped 4-6 times a day for five months so that she could have the best start to life.
--Ate rice cereal at four months and baby food at five months.
--She was such a good eater. She liked almost everything except green beans. But now she will eat them.
--Allison has slept so well since she was about a month old. At a month she would sleep about 5 hours and by three months she was sleeping 7-8. Currently she sleeps about 12 hours a night with 3-4 hours of napping in the day.
--She got her first tooth when she was four months old and now has ten teeth!
--Allison went on her first airplane ride when she was three months old. We flew to Aruba.
--For her first Halloween she was pumpkin. The cutest pumpkin ever!
--She crawled at eight months and is now starting to try to walk by herself. She will sometimes take two or three steps. She can stand by herself but gets nervous and usually lowers herself back down once she has realized what she is doing. She does love the applause she gets though.
--She can say six words. Dada, Mama, baby(bebe), ball(ba), hi, and yeah. She is working on saying Grandpa.
--Her two best friends are her lion and baby doll. It is so precious when she holds her baby she will pat its back like Mommy does. And with Mr. Lion she grabs it by the back of its neck and crawls around taking it everywhere with her.
--Allison is very good at making animal noises. She growls like a lion, barks like a dog, makes monkey sounds, sticks her tongue in and out like a snake, scrunches her nose up like a bunny rabbit.

We are so blessed to have this angel be here with us. She is the light of our lives and brings so much happiness to our home. I am a little sad about Allison turning one. I feel like it is letting her go just a tiny bit more. She will be my baby forever. I hope that she will always know how much she is loved and that she is one of the best things that will ever happened to us. Allison, I hope you have a Happy Birthday and a new wonderful year full of learning, growing, and lots of fun.
Mommy and Daddy love you with our whole hearts!