Her 1st Birthday...and a few other things!

Oh my goodness. She is 1. More shocking than that is the fact that I made it through the first year too! No one ever really tells you how much work it is to have a baby. Yes, it's totally worth it, but geesh, I'm exhausted all the time! All I have to do to get through the tiredness is to look at her big blue eyes and cheesey smile and everything else goes away. (My increase in diet pepsi doesn't hurt either!) She has brought more joy to my life this past year than I ever thought was possible. And every day just gets better and better.

On her big day, we went swimming with my family that morning for my niece Sydney's birthday which was a few weeks ago. Amelia loved being in the water and thought it was just a riot. Then we had a big shindig at our house with all our family and a few friends and neighbors. It's so overwhelming to see how many people love her. She got lots of toys, books and clothes. We even got her one of those little kid chairs from Pottery Barn and she loves it! When they started singing to her, she got SO shy and buried her face in my neck - I loved every second of that! We let her dig into her own cake and she loved it - I tried to upload the video but it was taking too long. It was a magical day for me to watch her turn into this big kid right before my eyes. And even today, she doesn't seem like a baby anymore. It's almost a transformation that happened overnight. It's crazy. She had her 12-month check up today and got some shots, so it's been a little rough, but she is doing just fine. She is still off the charts in height and is dropping a little bit in weight. I think being able to crawl all over the place has really slimmed her down. So here is a recap of the past month as well as the events from the big birthday. As always, beware of how many pics I post! I can't help it!

11 Months Old

Wow. Really? 11 months? No way. It's gone SO fast. She's had a bunch of firsts this past month. Her hair finally is long enough (sort of) to be pulled up into a tiny little pony. And on New Years Eve, we took her bowling for the first time. She wasn't too sure about all the noise and couldn't figure out why Mark and I kept throwing the ball! She also has gotten too big for her little pink infant tub that we had in the big jetted tub, so now she gets the whole tub all to herself. She loves it! This past week has been development after development for her. She's standing really well, she finally plays "peek-a-boo", she thinks it's funny when I say "where's Mommy's belly" and she lifts up my shirt, and when she hears a loud noise or a truck she makes a little "ohhh" sound, she rolls the soccer ball back and forth with us (yes!), and when she hears the garage door open she looks at the back door and says "Dada." But, the biggest one is...she finally figured out how to crawl today!! It was taken on my Blackberry, so the quality isn't great and it's not very steady, but you get the idea. I know she is a little late figuring it out, but hey, better late than never. I can't believe how smart she is and how big she is getting. I love her to pieces!

Date with Daddy Downtown

Our life seems to be getting more and more busy, so Amelia and I now have a standing date with Mark every Tuesday for lunch. His Tuesdays are ridiculously busy, so that is the only time they would be able to see each other. It's so fun to get downtown and go somewhere fun. We chose one of our favorites that used to be just around the corner from our house. The Robins Nest. Deeeeelicious sandwiches. We stopped by to see my sister Ally who also works downtown and it was a fun surprise for her. She was still at lunch when we got there so Amelia patiently waited with me in the front seat, watching some Baby Einstein. I got some strange looks from people on the sidewalk! Such a fun day for everyone!