Andersen's 1st Birthday Party

We celebrated Andersen's first birthday on Sunday, May 8th which was her actual birthday and also Mother's day and also my Mom's bday! We had a BBQ and Crawfish boil which was a lot of fun! We had about 50 people over to our house and luckily it was a beautiful Spring day:) Andersen had never had a cupcake or cookie before and she absolutely loved it! There really isn't a lot she doesn't like to eat. She enjoyed the party and had a great day!

12 months old!

Andersen is a year old! It is really hard to believe that our tiny baby girl is now a toddler. Everyone tells you it will fly by and they are right. I remember everything from the pregnancy and delivery like it was yesterday. I remember the sleepless nights and worrying if we were doing everything the right way and counting (somewhat obsessively) the number of pee and poop diapers she had to make sure she was getting enough food! There are too many things to write down from the past year. We truly do feel immensely blessed and fortunate to have a healthy, loving, beautiful baby girl. Every day is better than the last and every day we see more and more of her personality emerge. She is a happy baby girl. She loves to play with her friends, loves to play outside with her water table and cozy coupe, loves to go for stroller rides and loves to give kisses to Norlina, lovies and family & friends. She is really starting to walk around and is so proud of every step! We went to the doctor yesterday and she is 23lbs 8oz (80%), 30 1/2" tall (90%) and her head is 18 3/8 (90%) - the doctor said she is actually quite proportional - although we did all laugh at her big Buddha belly (which incidentally, she loves to rub now)! She has 6 teeth now too. We will start weaning the bottle next week as she transitions to milk, wish us luck! Thank you to all of our family and friends for being there for us during the last year - your words of wisdom, advice, love, laughter and support has meant so much to all of us! Here are a few photos for her 12 month session (sorry that the walking action shots are out of order).

Dancing

Andersen LOVES to dance! We finally got her moves on video. Yes, she is topless, and yes, Bill did post her up on a barstool. Here's the link to her rocking out to Katy Perry:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ack02cjTJoE

Walking

Andersen started "walking" this week. I got really excited because I assumed when she took multiple steps in a row over one day that she would wake up and do the same thing, if not more. Well, not so much. She is still doing little bits, but we are not full fledged walking. She is getting braver, but still gets scared to take steps sometimes. She did walk all around Target today, sometimes on her own and sometimes holding one of my hands. It was a slow Target run, but she was just so excited to see and play with everything at her level! I was able to capture some of her first steps on video. This is from the first day, Wednesday, May 4th. She has gotten better, but this gives you a glimpse:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOCY8KRsMDI