You're Twelve Months Old!!

Baby Girl,

The time has come….You are ONE!!!!  What an amazing year it has been.  You have brought more smiles and laughs to this family than I have seen in a long time.  You are a sweet, beautiful, little girl who has brought sunshine into our house each day!!  I never knew a love like this, until you.  There have been many tears shed at the thought of you being one, both sad and happy!!  You are growing up too fast and I just wish I could keep you little forever.

As sad as it makes me that you are growing up, you are beginning to be so much fun.  We can play with you and laugh with you.  You are happy ALL the time!!  It has been an exciting month.  We have celebrated you with family and friends and looked back at the journey we took to get you. You are still not walking, but can get places very quickly!!  You talk and laugh at yourself and Mommy and Daddy.

There is a great song "Mine To Love" by Dave Barnes that speaks loudly when it comes to you.  I first heard this song the month we found out we were pregnant with you and it has been a familiar song in our household ever since.  Dave Barnes so elegantly puts it, "Your mine to love….we have all been waiting on you….your mine to love….come into these open arms.  It took some time to wait it out, but I see it now….your worth the dreaming of….your mine to love."  This is so true.  It took a lot of waiting and time, but looking back on it now, as a year has passed, every second of the wait was worth it.  You are truly the best blessing in our lives and I pray daily that you will understand this one day.

Here are a few of your first pictures as a one year old!!!  

This month Mrs. Stephanie took your one year old pictures and some Christmas pictures of us all.  She did an AMAZING job, as always.  The first pictures are so you!! Mommy and Daddy ALWAYS make sure you have a bow in at all times and you are such a JOY!  She did a great job catching your smiling face.  The bottom two are some of my favorites.  Mommy made sure we were all in our jammies for Christmas pictures.  Here we are reading a book, which is one of your favorite things to do.  The top one depicts your curiosity and interest in all books.  You are always happy when we are reading to you and we try to read with you every day.

 This month Mommy, Daddy, and Mrs. Christen took you and MH to see "Frozen."  We had free tickets and weren't sure how this was going to go over.  You like to be down and into everything so we weren't sure if you sit still long enough to enjoy the movie.  But since the tickets were free we thought we would give it a try and if we had to get up and leave than it would be ok.  You surprised us.   You made it ALL the way through the movie.  With about 30 minutes left you fell asleep in Mommy's lap.  But you were totally intrigued with what was going on on the screen.  It was a GREAT movie!!!

Here are a few pictures by the Christmas tree.  We put it up right after your birthday party (I didn't want you birthday party to be associated with Christmas) but I do like it up early so we can enjoy it.  It is hard to believe we are about to celebrate our 2nd Christmas with you.  I was worried you were going to be in the Christmas tree and was a little hesitant about putting it up, but you have stayed out of it!!

Mommy, Daddy, Miss Christen, and Mr. Ben took you girls to Santa's Village this month.  This was your first time to see Santa and I was impressed that you actually took your picture with him without crying.  Santa's Village was interesting but I think you enjoyed the people more than the actual village.  Every 15-20 minutes they made it "snow", there were reindeer, Mrs. Clause and Santa, the Elves workshop where you could play with toys and color, you could write a letter to Santa, and enjoy a story read to you by Mrs. Claus.

Here are a few things about you this month….
* You are  21.15 pounds
* You are 30 inches long
* You wear a size 3 diaper
* You wear 12 month clothing
* You can say MaMa, Dada, Baba, uh-oh and ah (arf) (The doctor was impressed!)
* You still like Mickey Mouse, Princess Sophia, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates,
* You can walk a few steps without any help
* You are only taking a 8 oz bottle at night and in the morning
* You have 4 teeth
* You love green beans and mac and cheese
* You play with your Little People Farm that you got for your birthday
* You like to play with blocks
* You love to take baths
* You love going to school each day
* You love your paci
* You sleep with Mommy and Daddy (we may start you in your crib, but it only last a few hours)
* You are a people watcher





Baby girl you seem to change daily!  You are growing and learning so much.  You are beautiful and strong willed and I can't wait to see you change over the next year as you have this year.

I love you!!
Mommy