Happy Birthday Jenna!!!

Is it really possible that our sweet baby girl is really a year old??? It sounds so cliche but I really can't believe how fast this last year has gone. It has been so fun and so amazing to have this wonderful little creature in our lives. I'll post some Jenna updates tomorrow after our 1-year check-up, but for now, here's some pictures from Jenna's day.

Checking out her birthday cupcake

Yeah...I'd say she likes it

Jenna and her two big cousins, Paige and Ally

Self-portrait with my sweet baby

The three sweetest little girls I've ever seen!!!

Seriously????

Yup...that's a picture of our latest purchase...Jenna's new nebulizer.
We had a bit of a rough weekend around here. Jenna started coughing during the middle of the night on Friday night. It was that super hoarse, barky type of cough. She had a very restless night, although we were still able to sleep fairly well. Saturday she didn't seem quite as perky as usual and still had the cough, but no other symptoms. The middle of the night was similar to Friday night. Sunday, she was a precious, sweet natured baby, with the horrible cough. Sunday night, it all went downhill fast. She was wheezing, coughing, and showing signs of respiratory distress. I knew it was likely croup, and we had many moments where we almost packed her up and headed for the hospital. The on-call pediatrician recommended taking her out into the cold night air, and trying to keep her as calm and comfortable as possible. Yeah, right. Pat and Jenna were up most of the night. I didn't sleep well at all, but luckily Pat did most of the getting up because I had to work today.

Our pediatrician is so awesome and he always manages to squeeze his patients in when they need to be seen. Pat took her in and our Dr. confirmed that it was in fact croup, and that it doesn't get any worse than Jenna's case. He gave her a breathing treatment in the office, which she hated, and prescribed some medications for her. One of the medications has to be given by the nebulizer, and so we had to buy one. Jenna screamed bloody murder tonight when I tried to give her the treatment so I ended up rocking her to sleep and then treating her after. What a long and tiring day. We are hoping to get some more sleep tonight and hoping our baby gets well soon.

Lazy evening watching TV with mommy

Not feeling so hot. Oh and notice the red mark and bruised forehead. Early Sunday morning, Jenna tripped and hit her face on our dresser....awesome, huh?

Smiling while watching The Wiggles.

First Zoo Trip

Today was an awesome day. With the schools all closed for Veterans Day, Pat didn't have to work, and I took the morning off. We decided to take Jenna to the zoo for the first time. When we took her to the fair, she totally loved all the farm animals, and she loves looking at books with pictures of animals. I wasn't sure what she'd think of the zoo if anything at all, but she really seemed to have fun. She was super giggly all day and kept laughing at all the animals. For whatever reason, she seemed to like the camel, the bear, and the elephants the best. Here are some pictures from our day.

Jenna laughing with Daddy

Smiling and laughing at the brown bear

I told you she was giggly!

Funny story...Pat is holding on to her in this pic because the first time we set her down she promptly ran straight toward me and had her first run in with a step

She wouldn't look at me...so enthralled with the elephants

Daddy Phase

Jenna is in a total daddy phase. She is so clingy with Pat, and is just all about daddy right now. She follows him everywhere and wants to be held by him all the time. It's really pretty sweet. This is the second major daddy phase, and the first one was a little hard on me. She seemed to really prefer him to me and it lasted a long time. This time I'm handling it much better. Pat is in school right now and so he often has to shut himself away in the office to study. Poor Jenna just doesn't understand why Daddy needs this time to himself and she spent all day Saturday glued to the door of his office. She literally stands outside the door and bangs on it with her face pressed up against the glass until Pat turns around and/or comes out. Pat, of course, can hardly resist this sweet baby girl.

Pumpkin Painting

So I was trying to think of a way to get Jenna involved in the whole pumpkin decorating thing, and I knew there was no way that she could actually carve one, and so came the idea of painting. I figured she might have fun using finger paints, and boy was I right. She loved it! She loves to squish her food in her hands and in between her fingers, and she loved to do the same with the paint. I bought non-toxic, children's paint because I knew she'd try to taste it, and luckily she decided it was pretty gross. Anyways, it was so fun to watch her get so dirty. I ended up with quite a bit of paint on me as well but it was so worth it.

Halloween...finally!

Ready to go trick or treating!

Allright, allright....here are some Halloween pictures. Just to be clear though, none of these pictures are on facebook yet. Anyways, I have a ton of really crappy pictures that I attempted to take of Jenna in her costume. Thankfully, I also have a few really cute ones that our photographer took for free! I'm sure you can tell the difference