The Birthday

Here's the big frst birthday recap.  It started on Tuesday with her actual birthday.

Opening her gift that her Godparents sent.  They sent a children's Bible.  She loves it!

Giving Mama a hug first thing in the morning.

Chowing on the chocolate chip pancakes daddy made for breakfast.  She was too busy shoveling them in to pose for a picture.  These are most definitely her favorite!

She had fun lifting her tutu and spinning in a circle all day.

We went with lots of friends to McD's for lunch.  Anna enjoyed playing with all of the kiddos.

And for dinner we went to a local authentic Italian restaurant that we all love.  They have straight from Italy gelato and Anna was a big fan.  :-)

Then we continued celebrating with her giraffe themed first birthday party on Saturday.

Here's the cake I made for her.  It turned out like I wanted it to :-)

And the cupcakes with the chocolate giraffe on top.

Throw in some pink punch and we had a party!

Daddy's contribution.  He insisted on decorating her high chair!

Ok guys, I'm ready or my party!

Mama, Anna and her cake.

Party time!  Playing with friends.

Anna and Gee-Gee ready for some cake.

And it was anticlimactic.  She doesn't like to get her hands dirty, so we ended up feeding her some with a fork.  And then she played with the fork.  Can't blame her for wanting to stay clean :-)

Hanging out with her grandmas

Opening gifts.

Anna said "forget the gifts, this tissue paper is great!"

All in all it was a fantastic birthday celebration for our beautiful girl.  She had so much fn and we are so blessed to be surrounded by so many family and friends who love her so very much. 

Happy 1st Birthday, My Beautiful Girl!

How do I put into words how joyful I am to celebrate today?

Are there any words to describe how beautiful this girl is?

Or how wonderful it is to wake up every morning to her hugs and kisses?

Or how lucky I feel to be her Mama? 

Is it really possible to express how much gratitude I have for her birthmom?

One year ago, I had no idea what God had in store for us.  I had no idea that a little girl had been born and a courageous young woman had decided to give this baby a life that she knew she couldn't provide.  I was unaware of the pain that R was going through.   I didn't know that there was a sweet baby girl who was surrounded by people who instantly fell in love with her infectious personality.  I didn't know that one year later I'd be writing a post about the sweet young girl who still has that incredibly infections personality.

We are so thankful for our daughter.  We cannot imagine life without her.  She makes us smile a million times a day.  There is something about her that people just can't resist.  It's the same trait that will hopefully make her a very strong and very holy young lady. 

I simply have no words to express how blessed I feel to be able to say "Happy 1st Birthday, Anna".  God is so good.

Busy Busy

I feel like last week and this weekend were a whirlwind. 

Friday we had our Homestudy for our second adoption.  It was super quick (compared to the first one) and we were left with some paperwork and some other things that needed done.  Our caseworker let us know that she was presenting couples (to be approved) next week.  So we can either get our stuff in quick and be presented right away or wait until next month.  Um, I'm not waiting...

So this weekend we spent a lot of time doing our paperwork.  I did our new profile.  We did our new video.  I also figured out how to turn it into a DVD on our computer and I even created a menu (I was pretty excited, that's not generally something I would have thought I could do).  It turned out neat.  We've made copies of necessary paperwork, editted, contacted people, etc...

All of our "homework" is done and ready to turn in tomorrow.  There are just two things we still need, but they can't be done quite yet and they won't matter as far as being approved is concerned!  So we can hopefully go into circulation at the beginning of February! 

We also started planning and organizing Anna's first birthday party!  I ordered the invitations and they turned out super cute, and because of a coupon, they hardly cost anything!  I can't believe our baby girl is turning one in just a month!  It seems like yesterday that we met her for the first time!  And it's amazing to watch her develop and discover new things.  Just this week she's started copying things when we say them.  "Out" and "up" are her favorites...

We're super excited to add another baby to our family (hopefully soon!).  We feel so incredibly blessed!

7 months, 100 years, and a Godson

7 MONTHS

Our sweet Anna is 7 months old today!  I can't believe she's that old already!  I just watch her everyday and wonder how I got so lucky to be her mom.  She's unbelievably sweet and has taken to giving hugs to anyone who holds her.  She gives a hug and then wants mom back.  She's crawling everywhere, she's gotten fast, fast, fast and since it's not good enough to just crawl, she's started pulling up on everything.  She has yet to understand that in order to stay up, she has to keep holding on... So she falls a lot, but she's tough and usually just picks back up and keeps going!

Her favorite things are mama and dada and she talks about us frequently all day long!  She loves her giraffe and tends to have one with her at all times.  She's a big fan of cold teethers, although she has yet to cut any teeth.  She loves sitting under her jumparoo and playing with the toys from underneath.  She loves being outside and she loves finding cords in our house.  She especially loves drawers, and anything with a handle and she LOVES to eat!  She's eating all kinds of things now and is great at chewing up chunks (even without any chompers!).  She loves knocking over towers too.

Basically she's one big ball of fun!  She's so busy all of the time and definitely crashes for naptime and nighttime.  It's hard work playing all day!  We just love her to pieces and can't imagine our lives without her!  Happy 7 months to my sweet girl!

100 Years

And a very happy birthday to my great-grandma!  She is 100 years old today.  Quite the milestone I'd say!  We're excited to go celebrate her birthday on Saturday!  She's overcome a lot in her life, including lots of knee replacements and cancer as well as standing up for her rights as a woman when she was young.  She raised 3 kids, has 5 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren!  We have always enjoyed our time visiting great-grandma Maize, she always had many stories to tell (often more than once :-)) and she was always giving me things of hers that have my birthstone in them, since we have the same one.  She always loved to quilt and has many beautiful crocheted and quilted pieces amongst the family.  I'm so blessed to have so many grandparents alive!

I stole this from my dad, but it's interesting to think about.  Here are a few things that were not around or prevalent when she was born: Refrigeration, Cars, Air travel, light bulbs, the telephone, electricity was a new concept. World War I had not occurred yet.  She lived through a lot in history, its amazing that all of that happened in one person's lifetime!  And sadly, as old as she is, even my great-grandma hasn't seen the Cubs win a World Series...

I've posted this picture before, but there's 5 generations here.  My grandma, my great-grandma, myself and Anna, my dad!

Godson

Our Godson was born last night (I think it was last night, it could've been this morning though, I found out this morning).  Theodore Justinian Joachim B. was 7lbs 12oz and is adorable!  We can't wait to go see them in 3 weeks for his Baptism!  Check out Justine's blog to read about their journey!  We're so excited he's here, he is so loved!

In the last 7 days, we have 5 friends who have had babies!  It's quite amazing really!  September is the best month for birthdays! :-)