12 MONTHS

Our little birthday baby is, well, no longer a baby. She's one whole year old. She's a toddler standing up and almost taking steps. She drinks and feeds herself. She laughs whenever anyone else laughs. She steals food off of our plates. She holds up our cell phone to her ear to copy us. She makes very loud demands. She doesn't love baths but loves watching the bathtub fill with water. She likes salty food better than sweet food. She dances to music. She hates getting her diaper changed. She loves books, her favorite is still Brown Bear Brown Bear. She has a huge personality but when strangers approach she tilts her head, puts her hands on her hips, and shrugs her shoulders. She is just learning to cuddle. She can clap and wave. Her favorite place in our house is the bathroom - if we accidentally leave the bathroom door open she crawls as fast as she can so she can stand at the toilet or the bathtub then laughs hysterically when we come get her because she knows she's in trouble. She sleeps about 12 hours every night and every morning we bring her to our bed and let her crawl around, sit on us, pull our hair and we wonder how we ever got so lucky.

Her birthday celebrations were spread out over a few weeks. We had our family celebration on her birthday and next Saturday we are having a birthday gathering with a few families from church. We weren't planning on doing anything but we will be moving right around her birthday next year so we thought we'd make this year special. I figured it's better to spoil her when she won't remember a thing.