Happy 1st Birthday, Lola!

My dear sweet, darling girl.... you are ONE today!

At 6:00 AM on March 9, 2010 I was largely pregnant with you.

And at 12:49 PM we got to meet you and see your beautiful face!

You wasted no time in stealing our hearts. Since the day you were born you have been nothing but sweetness and joy. Okay, maybe not EVERY moment, but pretty close. Almost without exception everyone who spends time with you tells us how sweet-natured, happy and smiley you are.

You are getting to be a big girl now. Not so much a baby anymore, which makes mommy a little sad at times. I will miss the cute little baby things you do.

Like the time you were playing in the living room and you literally just put your head down on the floor and passed out asleep.

And the way you scooted everywhere on your bottom rather than learning to crawl.

And your yummy, chubby cheeks! I could kiss them all day long!

You aren't taking any steps on your own yet, but for the past few weeks you've been pulling yourself up to standing by the furniture. You've gotten very good at it, but it seems like you sometimes don't know what to do once you get up there.

You don't have many words yet. You say "ba" for "bye" and if we ask for a kiss you put your hand up to your mouth as if to blow a kiss. You make other sounds like "da" and "ga" and "ma" but they still seem to be just jabber rather than real words.

We are beginning to wonder if you might be really easy to discipline like your mommy was. If you're going after something and we tell you "no" you usually stop right away and just start crying.

You really like when we put sunglasses on you. You'll sit there just looking at us with a silly little smirk on your face, as if you know you're super cute.

You have six teeth now and no more patience for pureed foods of any kind. I can occasionally get a little spooned foods into you, like oatmeal or cottage cheese, but for the most part you definitely prefer anything that you can feed to yourself with your fingers. You eat lots of banana, Cheerios, graham crackers, apples, peaches, pears, dried prunes, avocado, lunch meat, turkey hot dogs, cooked carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese, pancakes, toast. I'm not sure if there's anything that you don't like right now. This morning mommy had a piece of coffee cake and you were very quick to scoot over, open your mouth and say "ahhhh" and beg me for bites. You loved it!

We are SO happy to be your parents, and your big sister loves you SO much (even if she does steal toys from you all day long)! Happy birthday, Lola!