Happy 1st Birthday Payten -December 22nd

For Payten's 1st birthday I wanted to make her a cake! And not a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. So I made her a funfetti cake with fondant. This was my first fondant cake so I made a huge mess and it took me a long time to make. Now I know some tricks and how to make it go faster the next time. Since I made Payten's 1st cake, I am going to have to make all our kids cakes. But that is ok because I had a lot of fun doing it!

I need a few more cake supplies at my house, so I had to improvise. It is so much easier decorating cakes at Baskin Robbins where I have a lot more supplies.

The finished cake! I really cant complain for my first fondant cake. However, we are always hardest on ourselves, so there were a lot of little areas I did not like.

Payten had no clue what was going on and that all the presents and people were for her.

A few of her cousins

Ethan and Payten are good little buddies. They are only 5 months apart.

Payten was not sure about opening the presents. Her cousins however were all about helping her open them.

Once the presents were out of the wrapping paper she loved her new toys.

Grandpa Alan and Grandma Kim got Payten her own recliner. She loved it! And Deven had to make it even better by having a Dr. Pepper in her hand! She is her fathers daughter.


She thought it tasted pretty good!

Buds again sharing the new chair!

A few of the cousins on the bird side. Getting pictures with kids is not the easiest thing. Ethan LOVES to always get Paytens hair bows.

12 month check up:

Height: 30" (76%)

Weight: 20 lbs 13 oz (44%)

Head: 17" (6%)

• She is a very big daddy's girl! Every time he is about to leave she gets so upsets and has to be held by him. If I try to take her from him she cries and puts her head into Deven. She snuggles with him and loves to play with him. If I leave she does not care! I love how much she loves her dad.
• Loves to sing to Old Mcdonald! She is really good at the ee-i-ee-i-o.
• Has learned how to push the home key on our iphones. So when she has my phone I constantly hear Siri asking "how can I help". And Payten jabbers at her and she then responds with "I'm not sure what you are asking"!
• If there are clothes by her I'm trying to fold she will go over to them and try to put them on or throws them around.
• Can take a couple steps when she feels like it. The most steps she has taken is about 5. She would much rather crawl because she is so fast.
• She loves to blow kisses
• Loves to sound like an indian with her mouth and hand.
• Kinda strange but loves to slap her hands to her face or over her ears. Maybe because we always laugh at her when she does it.
• Loves drinking regular milk. Well actually I don't think she notices a difference from her formula. I think we like it more than her, so much easier and cheaper. Right after she started drinking regular milk I found a coupon for her formula for $5 off. Man it would have been nice to have that before she switched!
• If we laugh at something she thinks that she needs to laugh out loud too :)
• Has 5 teeth coming in, including 1 of her molars
• Claps whenever she hears people clapping.
• Loves to drink juice or water. If we did not limit her, she would drink so much!
• Loves to climb up on her chairs or toy train she can sit on.
• Loves being outside. Gets mad when we bring her inside.
• A big help when we load/unload the dish washer. Loves to take things out and then climb onto the dish washer.
• Good at re-organizing my cupboards daily.
• Loves ice-cream! I think that just comes with being a Bird!
• Been on 9 different planes
• Finally can hold a bottle by herself, she would rather us hold it though! And I don't mind, I love those times to cuddle!

At a year she has been a really good sleeper! She sleeps about 10.5 hours at night and then about 5 hours during the day between her 2 naps each day. She goes to sleep around 10 and wakes up around 8:30 (unless she gets all out of schedule during the day, and will randomly wake up for a bottle around 6:30-7, then sleeps until 9-9:30). Then she will have her first nap around 11:30-12 for about 2.5 to 3 hrs. Then her second nap is around 5pm for about 2 to 2.5 hrs. I know it seems really late for her going to bed, but I think it is important for Payten to have time with her daddy whenever he gets home! And with her good napping during the day, she gets plenty of sleep!

She drinks 4 bottles a day. When she wakes up, before her first nap, before her second nap, and then before she goes to sleep. Totaling around 20-25 ounces each day.