one.

Twelve months.  One year.  That’s how long it has been since my beautiful baby entered this world.  It has been, by far, the fastest year of my life...and the most wonderful, most challenging, most fun, and most terrifying.  Milestone-wise, she is thisclose to walking (the doc predicts that she’ll be doing it within the month), she says about 20 words, is cute as a button, weights 18.75 pounds, and is 29 inches long.  That pretty much sums up the magnitude of the changes that have happened over the past year.  (Except the cuteness part -- she was cute as a button when she was born, too, so that hasn’t changed too much.  Although she doesn’t have soft craters on her head anymore, so I guess she is a bit cuter now.)

To celebrate the little lady, we had 30-40 of our closest friends & family over to the abode for a bday picnic.  The weather cooperated (thank gawd) and there were no major catastrophes.  The only bad thing that happened was that I forgot to take any pics of the setup, which was a shame because we put a lot of effort into the look & feel of the party.  I mean, Martha Stewart was consulted and her advice was heeded, as I ordered asked my sweet sister to make a million tissue paper pompoms to hang from our maple tree.  Unfortunately, there is no visual proof that this effort was made.  Sadness.  We do have some of the most important pics, however...the pics of A eating her first piece of cake EVER!  (Can you imagine going an entire year without cake?!?  Poor baby.)  It was awesome, actually...she tasted the cake herself, but thought it was awesome enough to share it with both of her parents.  The sweetness could not be rivaled.  

Oh, and our friends/fam SHOWERED her with gifts...I mean seriously, our living room was full of stuff.  I think we need to build an addition for some sort of play room, because this kid has like a hundred million things to play with.

Alright, here are a few pics:

First and foremost, the cake.  (oh, and in case you’re wondering, the 2nd candle is for good luck.  we always do a +1 candle on our cakes.)

& now, the princess:

blowing out the candles

being cute

that looks ah-mazing!  i can really eat it?!?

hmm...

try it, momma!  it's awesomeness!

you too, dada!

it was a's cousin's bday too...so we got a few "tool"-themed cupcakes for him.

opening gifts with the cousins

checking out the new toy chest

relaxin in the adirondack chair that grandpa and grandma MADE!

a new wagon from uncle g!

the lone photo of the decorations, after daisy started attacking them

proud mama, tired baby.