Annie's 1st Birthday

Annie had a birthday! Shout Hooray! She turned one year old last week. She's practically a full-grown woman. The weekend before her birthday, we went up to Bountiful to have a birthday party with the nearest grandparents. In my opinion, Annie pretty much had the greatest birthday party a one year old could ever have.

To start off with, her totally cool mom and dad made her a butterfly cake (carrot flavored of course).

Aaron tried several times to convince me to make a rocket ship cake for Annie. He really wants Annie to one day get into a field like engineering, math, or computer science. I'm fine with that, when the time comes, but right now she is a one-year-old girl. So I tried in several different ways to convince Aaron the rocket ship at this age would be weird. The argument that finally won him over to my side was when I asked him if he would let me make a butterfly or flower or doll cake for a little one-year-old son of his. The answer to that was a definite no.

Annie liked the butterfly cake and ate it by the handful...just like she was supposed to.




At the dollar store, they only had sports-themed party hats, so I opted instead for the mini-tiaras. They were a hit.



Annie also did a great job opening her presents and playing with each one of them. She got awesome books and a pop-up toy from Grandma and Grandpa Dennis and Aaron and I gave her a doll stroller. We don't have a picture of her using it, but it is currently the love of her life.

For a one-year-old, birthdays don't get much better than this.

One year old is definitely a milestone. Annie has learned so many new tricks. She can't quite walk yet, but it seems to be fear more than lack of ability holding her back. She really walks well with the stroller, though. She says "woof, woof" when she sees dogs or pictures of dogs, but that also seems to be the sound she makes for other animals she recognizes like cats. We'll work on that. Annie also loves sugar. One day we gave her a dum-dum and it has been downhill from there. If she sees cookies, there is no distraction strong enough to make her forget about them. She's smart. She claps and waves and also does the sign for "more."
Annie weighs 19 1/2 lbs and is 30 inches long which I've discovered, while reading Lord of the Rings again, is about the size of your average hobbit. She's in the 30th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height. So she might not be hobbit-sized her whole life.
Annie is a wonderful baby/full-grown woman who makes us very happy. We're so blessed to have her and to see her learn and grow.