Good-Bye Bottle

Hannah has finally given up her bottles. She now drinks her formula exclusively from her sippy cup with no complaint! I'm so glad we were able to get rid of the bottles before it was time to get rid of the formula too. I think two changes at once would have just been too much for her. She really doesn't seem to deal with changes regarding food well! Speaking of food, she now has a new favorite food that has ousted bananas (they are still near the top though!) as top dog. Her new favorite is goldfish crackers. She absolutely loves them and asks for them by name. It so neat to see her sign/say "more fish please." She really is turning into a little person!

On Tuesday I bought her one of her birthday presents, but it was so cool that I couldn't wait to give it to her. So, I caved in and cleaned it up for her to play with (I bought it at a second hand kids store) and we have had a blast playing with it. It's this little dinosaur that has 4 holes with ramps attached to them. You put a ball into one of the holes and it pops out of the dinosaur at the end of the same colored ramp. It also plays a little song each time you put a ball in. One of the ramps exits out of the dinosaurs mouth and every 3rd or 4th time a ball comes out the dinosaur makes this little growl at the beginning and end of the song that plays and I think that is Hannah's favorite part of the toy. Each time she puts a ball in she looks at me expectantly and goes, "rarow". It is SO cute. I'll have to get a video of it so you all can see what I mean. I'm positive it doesn't sound as cute in writing as it does to actually see it!

Hannah continues to try to repeat almost everything we say and today she was on a kick of saying "bible." She kept climbing up in the library chair and trying to get my bible off the coffee table. I kept taking it away from her and saying, "No, that is mommy's bible. Here is Hannah's bible" and then giving her her book. After that she kept raising up the book and saying bible. :) What a smart girl she is! Hannah has also been really practicing her climbing and is getting good enough at it that her fearlessness is starting to scare me. I don't know what she'll be into next (possibly climbing the bookcases!), but I'm sure it will give me a heart attack.

It's been a few days since I started this post and I have some more Hannah updates to write before I publish this entry. Hannah continues to be really interested in reading her bible (and unfortunately mine as well!) in the corner chair in the library. That is officially the bible chair. I guess since she seems me read my bible there quite a bit she has decided that that is where she should read hers too. All morning today she kept climbing into the chair, saying bible, signing book, and tossing her bible at me to read. Then of course she would lose interest in her bible and make a lunge for mine! She certainly keeps me busy.

Yesterday we went to visit Kyle's brother Kevin. It was the first time Hannah had been to Uncle Kevin's house and I think she approved of it. She had a nice time exploring things and really enjoyed it when we played Kevin's Wii. We were playing a tennis game and we were all jumping around and swinging our arms and Hannah got so excited she started yelling, laughing hysterically,and swinging her arms around too and banging her hands on some boxes on the floor. It was quite cute to see her.

Today we took Hannah back down to the park and she played some more. Once again she loved the swings so much that she threw a huge fit when we took her out of them. We actually got some video of this fit so I'll try to post it soon. She rode the Gecko rocking toy again (which she aparently thinks looks like her new dinosaur toy because she kept saying "rarow" when she was on it!) and climbed all over the jungle gym. She's getting to be a pro at climbing up stairs and really enjoyed crawling on all the different platforms of the gym. What we didn't expect was that Hannah would like the slide so much and be so good at it. By the time we were ready to go Hannah was going down the slides by herself! She's a little adrenaline junky so she thought going fast was really cool.

We're gearing up for the big party all this week. I still can't believe that it's been a year already. I took all her pacis out of the cabinet today and I must say that it made me a little sad to think she's so grown up that she doesn't need what I think was the staple of her baby existence-her paci. The time has just flew by so quickly. I still remember so clearly when Donna (Tiffany's mom) came out and told us that we could come in and see our daughter. It was the most amazing moment of my life. I never imagined that she would grow into such a beautiful, wonderful little girl this fast. Right before my eyes she has blossomed into a little person with such an unique personality and so full of love. I feel so blessed that God gave us the task of raising her. She has taught us so many things.

In honor of her first birthday, tomorrow we are going to start weaning her off of formula and onto cow's milk. We plan to start off with a half and half combo until we finish the can of formula we have open and then switch over completely. That's the plan anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Ok, it's Monday now and I still haven't managed to publish this post. We've started introducing the whole milk today and as I feared it isn't going well. Hannah is only drinking about 3 oz of the mixture before chucking her cup and asking for goldfish (or any other food besides milk!). She just threw a HUGE tantrum about 20 minutes ago and is now sleeping in her crib because she exhausted herself screaming when I wouldn't give her any goldfish until she finished her milk.