Height + weight: 30.25″ // 24 lbs

Milestones: Once she hit her 1st birthday, we completely weaned off nursing and bottles. She did both seamlessly and didn’t even miss a beat with moving onto whole milk and only drinking from sippy cups, which made the transition a lot easier for me, too!

Likes: Food! She’s pretty much up for trying anything we put in front of her, which is more than I can say for myself… 😉 Over the past few months, she’s tried chicken fingers, butternut squash soufflé, pb&j sandwich, chicken casserole, tomatoes, fried clam strips (such a weird thing, but totally one of my favorites!), pimiento cheese, cheese quesadillas, animal crackers, cheddar bunnies, veggie straws, french toast sticks, popcorn, and grits. Oh, and a grilled marshmallow and peanut butter sandwich… yum!

It’s clear that Leighton is already a big dog lover. She is obsessed with Coco. She likes to share her snacks with her, lick her fur, and give her aggressive pats on the head. Coco takes it all in stride and is so gentle and patient with her. I took L to PetsMart recently and she was enamored with the dogs staying in their pet hotel. They have a big window looking into the doggy play area, and I’m pretty sure I could have left her there all day if that were an acceptable thing to do. We go back by there weekly now.

Since the weather has been so nice, she loves going outside in the afternoons to play in the street and our yards with her bff neighbor, Emmy. (Not to worry — the street is within our small neighborhood and we stand next to them while they play.) They run down the street to each other and hug, which is just heart-meltingly cute. Emmy has quickly learned that if she hops in one of their cozy coupes, Leighton will push her. Smart girl.

Dislikes: Still not the biggest fan of diaper changes or having her face wiped off after a meal. 

Being told “NO!”… which poses a problem, because it happens fairly often. She has taken to throwing whatever is in her hands when we tell her to stop doing something, so we’re trying to curb that behavior.

Fun stuff + firsts: She has learned to play peek-a-boo; she started by covering her face with her bath towel while she was laying down on her changing table after bath time. Now she loves to play that game by hiding her face in her carseat when Grandma is in the car with us. She has also learned how to fake cough… she is quite the little drama queen and class clown.

We celebrated Leighton’s 2nd Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons, and I am quickly learning that holidays are so much more fun each year as she grows older. I can’t wait for Christmas!

Her favorite words right now are dada, uh-oh, dog (dod!), and uh-uh. She usually says uh-oh when she purposely drops something, and she says uh-uh to argue with me all the time. I’m also teaching her to say “Go Dawgs!”

She can roll her eyes on command, which is all sorts of hilarious – and we’ll probably be regretting it at some point. She also makes a great “mean face,” which involves lowering her chin and staring up at us with a very stern look. She knows it’s hilarious, and she has already done it several times to try to get out of trouble. I’m slightly worried that she already knows how to do that at one year old.

Now that she’s only napping once a day, we have a lot more free time. We go to music class weekly, and we’ve started trying out different parks around town. She has a new fondness of slides and will demand to ride them over and over and over again. On days that I’m feeling brave, we’ll run errands to Target, Old Navy, the grocery store, and anywhere else that I feel confident I can keep her entertained with snacks and a shopping cart ride. I’ll sometimes drop Leighton off to hang out with my mom at their house so I can go to the gym, and I know she loves running around in their yard, playing the piano, and scaring their cats.

Leighton is getting a bigger and bigger personality by the week, and we just can’t get enough of her antics. She’s becoming the best little hugger, and she gives amazing, slobbery kisses. We love her so very, very much!