Oh no!

My camera is broken! I don't know how I am going to live until I get a new one... and of course it had to break on the very day we had Aurora's little birthday party :( Jacob's family came over and we had tacos and birthday cake and opened all of her great presents and everyone stayed up way past their bedtimes but it was worth it, I think. Anyway, not much else to report here - I'm taking donations for the Camera Fund, if anyone wants to contribute! ;-)

Happy Birthday Little One

Wow - has it really been over 2 weeks since my last post?? Lest you think I'm just a lazy slacker, let me assure you that I have had quite a few good reasons not to be online. Let's see... there's the master bed/bath painting debacle, which turned into the master shower and toilet replacement adventure; then there was the wrecking of my car (not by me) and subsequent 2 week absence of it; then there was the guest toilet tank repair; then there was the truck heater core repair.... Let's just say we're getting all the trials of 2008 over with as quickly as possible and the rest of the year is going to be a piece of cake.

Before:


After:


Yes, she climbed up there herself:


I'm not saying who did it, but it wasn't me!


Speaking of (birthday) cake - one year ago today, a 9 pound, 9 ounce, wiggly pink bundle was brought forth into the glaring lights of a hospital room to meet her anxious and fully unprepared parents. She opened her blue eyes and looked around almost immediately, as if sizing up the situation and determining her plan of action for the year to come. I don't know what plans she had in mind, but the past year has brought so much adventure and excitement to our little home. She's gone from just watching and learning about the world from the comfort of our arms to being a full fledged little toddler - independently careening about the house, laughing and talking to everything she sees. She loves to read books to herself, in fact its the only way I can keep her still long enough to change her diaper - just hand her a book to read while I do it. She still likes to play with socks - anyone's will do, including the ones on her feet. And her new favorite thing is to chase Pepper around the house, squealing and giggling all the way. When she catches her, they take turns licking each other (I know, gross) until Pepper gets tired of it and runs off to be chased some more. She's quite the little mimic - monkeys go AH MM AH AH, cows go MMMMM, dogs go AGH AGH (with tongue sticking out), and tigers go AAARRRRR! And she can 'cough', 'sneeze', 'laugh' and 'fart' (pbbttt) just as well as any grownup around. She's finally sleeping like a little person - 11-13 hours in her crib at night, with just one wakeup to eat, and at least one decent nap during the day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can maintain that progress during the weaning process that is now imminent. Just one year has brought about changes in her parents, too - we started out as just sleep deprived zombies trying to figure it all out and do it all right, and now we're slightly less sleep deprived but we're still trying to do it all right. Hopefully the year to come will be as great as the first one was. Happy Birthday, my little monkey!