One Year

Our little miracle is ONE!! Well, actually she is close to 15months now, but holy cow! The time spent around her birthday had us thinking a lot about the year before. The whole experience almost feels like a dream now. Words can't express the love we have for her and for her birth family.

At her one year check up she was
30 in long or 75%
21lbs 6oz or 55%
Head was 10%

Now on to bragging and mentioning some things I want to remember.  Everywhere we go people comment how smart she is.  They always guess she is a lot older than she is.  Even her pediatrician is always amazed by her vocabulary and motor skills. She has been mimicking words from about 9 months.  None of the credit goes to us by any means.  She is just one smart cookie.  Maybe everyone feels this way about their first baby though.  Her favorite toy by far is books.  She would sit in my lap and read all day.  She has an alphabet train and she has brought me the c for car and v for van and said "car? car?".  She has also brought me the m for monkey and did her arms like a monkey and made the sound they make.   She will copy every word we give her {in fact she never stops jabbering}, but some of her favorites are: pompa (grandpa my dad), papa (Gregg's dad), baby, push, owl, dog, Grant, no no, yes, ya, cow, moo, roar for lion and dinosaur,car, ball, and of course mom and dad.  She makes the sound of many animals and sometimes only needs to hear it once.  I can ask her to find something in one of her books and she will flip to the right page and point to it.  She's even figured out how to push the button on my iPhone and slide to unlock it.  Along with having such a busy mind makes for a busy kid.  She never slows down except to read books and still puts everything in her mouth and I mean EVERYTHING.  Even in an empty room she will find something to do.  Whether it be pulling off dry wall or finding the tiniest speck to taste.  Luckily she sleeps like a champ and loves to go nye nye (night night). That is a big help so Gregg and I can refresh for the next day.  My favorite thing is how cuddly she is.  She gives the best loves and kisses around.  I never mind having drool smeared on my face if that means I get a smooch from her.  I will admit that we snuggle her a lot and give her maybe too many squeezes, but we just can't resist her.  Gregg even made up the phrase, "I've got the squeezies."  Meaning when Emme does something cute and you grit your teeth because you want to squeeze her so bad.  And yes, just looking at these pictures gives me the squeezies.  We love that emme memmer moo of ours. 

My favorite picture.  No fancy bows, background, or clothes needed.  Just Emme in her purest form.

Birthday Under The Sea

On Emmer's real birthday we both took the day off so we could take her to The Living Planet Aquarium.  Gregg's dad has an aquarium and it's the first thing she runs to every time we visit them.  She normally calls fish "Pi", but occasionally will say "Fi".  So we thought it would be fun for her to see the BIG aquariums.  She loved it and not once did she get bored.  Looks like we have a winter activity for her to get some energy out. 

Can You Tell Me How To Get, How To Get To....

 Ses"Emme" Street?
       -Brought to you by the Letter E and Number 1

We do first birthday's big around here, so for Emme's third and final birthday party we spent it at our house. We decorated Ses"emme" to the max although I only took pictures of some of it for some reason. It's always more stressful to be the host and I don't always get to take the pictures I want. We had a blast though and everything turned out great.

The dessert area.

Emme's birth aunt drew this picture.  Talk about amazing!

Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster showed the way to the party.

Thanks to Gregg's cousin for making her cake.  For the record I did do most of Elmo.  :)

These are my beloved cousins whom I lived with for a while when I first moved to Utah.  Emme is making what we call "turtle face".  She makes it when she feels awkward.  She made it a lot at her party because of all the attention she was getting.  So funny.

Turtle Face

Total Pro at this cake stuff now.

I love K's face as she's laughing at Emme.

PAPER!!!!

Cue turtle face.  I didn't realize how many times she did it until I did this post. 

Let Them Eat Cake

We also had a little party with my parents and brother's family while still in Idaho. Yep, that's right two parties so far. We celebrated all month long.

Emme and I share the "don't bug me I'm eating" attitude.

Not afraid of getting dirty. 

Playing with Colby after.

You can't tell Colby likes Gregg or anything can you?  I think because we've spent so much time at their house, he's gotten used to us. 

First Birthday

Gregg and I were so excited for Emme's birthday party with her birth family. Most of them hadn't seen her since she was born so we were ecstatic to show her off. They were so cute and got her balloons and the cutest gifts. Emme had no problems warming right up to them. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see her birth mom this time, but we love her and we're so glad we got to see everyone else. We felt such a fast connection to them when we met a year ago and it was as if we had always been family. Hanging out at the hospital with them was like hanging with people we had known forever. We are so lucky to be connected to such great people.

Emme with her birth brother (K) and aunt.  Doesn't K and Emme look so much alike?

We went with a Ses"Emme" street theme this year.

She had no fear of the cake.

Here, you have some.  It's good!

Best. Day. Ever.

Getting a kiss from her birth grandma.  Isn't that the cutest thing?

You want some cake?

K got her a baby doll, that she loves dearly.

Loves

This is typical Emme.  She'll eat any paper she can find.

They surprised us with a giraffe costume.  So dang cute.  Contrary to this picture she loved wearing it for Halloween.

Great picture of the two of them.

Emme is so happy.

Chilling with Papa.