Lexi is ONE year old!!

Can you all believe it? Lexi turned ONE year old on Saturday! It seems like only yesterday we were anxiously awaiting her arrival. But here she is now a full-fledged toddler! How the heck did that happen??

We celebrated her birthday with her Gramma and Papa who flew here from Ontario to shower her with love. We also had our neighbour come over with her two boys (the younger of the two is completely in love with Lexi and remarks on how cute she is every time he sees her). And we had 3 families from our play group join us. It was a nice small party. Well, if you can classify 8 adults, 6 kids and 3 babies as a 'small' party. In my book, it's a small party.

Lexi did not know what to do with her cake. First she just leaned over and licked it. Then she started leaning over taking bites of it. I finally wiped some of the frosting off to show her that it had cake hidden underneath (she'd sampled the cake a few times before and therefore knew it was good stuff!). At that point she started taking small handfuls. I have to say, she was very ladylike and neat with her cake. We had spread a garbage bag on the floor under her highchair because when Jackson turned one the cake was flying! Literally, he eventually tossed it off his tray with force, lol!So now our 'baby girl' is one. I don't care. I am still going to call her my baby girl. And I am still going to think of her as my baby. She's not a toddler. No siree. She's still wee. If you can believe that 25 pounds is wee. Yep. Our little girl, the same one that we had worried wasn't gaining enough weight, is now 25 pounds. That would be in the 90th percentile. She was in the 10th when she was born. She's also now in the 50-75th percentile for height (she was also in the 10th at one point). So she's not so 'little' anymore!

She is now crawling, pulling up to stand on everything, cruising, and walking holding your fingers. She prefers to stand and will try to stand up on anything that isn't moving for a moment. That makes it hard to get stuff done because if you pause near her she is on you like a little monkey.

She also said her first word on her birthday. It happened to be 'Rowee'. Since you can't see her when she is saying it I will translate. She is actually saying 'Roly'. As in Roly Poly. It's a song we sing all the time. Complete with hand gestures; which she was doing when she said it. That was the only way we knew what she was actually saying. But the look of pride and happiness on her face when we responded to her saying Rowee by singing her favorite song! So freaking cute!! We are now asked to sing that song 8,000,000 times a day. It's cute but getting a little old, lol!

AND... Drum roll please... We had her pediatrician appointment yesterday (that's how I know her percentiles). I thought it was going to be more of a check up info type appointment. Nope. Our doctor has given us the green light to take her off her reflux meds. AND we can switch her formula to regular non-hypoallergenic formula! AND I can eat dairy again! AND if she doesn't react to the milk proteins in the formula and breast milk then we can give her dairy!! OMG!! That is so exciting! I completely thought that we would have to continue this crazy dairy-free diet for at least another year! But nope! She had regular formula mixed with her hypoallergenic formula today and so far so good! And I had CHEESE today! Cheese!! It was glorious.

So here's hoping she is over her milk allergy and we can soon introduce cheese, yogurt, and milk! It will be wonderful to stop buying formula and just buy whole milk for her. We'll know in a few days how she does with milk protein. If she turns into a rashy, irritable baby who is in pain then we'll know she's not so good with the milk proteins! Let's hope that does NOT happen!