Happy Days

It's been awhile! I had hoped to post the following pictures weeks ago, but due to Gustav, we had to take a bit of a detour...an "evacuation vacation" which ended up lasting 10 days for me and the girls! Our family has much to be thankful for considering the events of the past few weeks. We had two wonderful places to spend our time away (T's and my parents' homes), no damage to our house or trees in our yard, and the protection of our friends and family who stayed in the heavily affected areas during the storm. So, although the effects of the storm surround us, we are glad to be home and, I hope, will appreciate the big and small blessings and comforts of our lives a bit more..one of which, I must admit, is sitting down at the computer every now and then to record the big and small events of our lives! It seems appropriate that in this (200th!) post we can record the fun memories made two weeks ago, as we celebrated SJ's 1st birthday...even while planning to leave town the next day!

Here's the birthday girl before going to bed on her birthday night. What a big girl!


I love this one because you can see all her teeth, which she's been cutting like crazy over the last month. Three top teeth came in at the same time, so suddenly she has a really toothy smile!


We had her party at our house the day after her birthday. Here she is considering what to do with this big piece of cake we just gave her. After grabbing it and smashing it up a bit...


she figured it out and went for it with gusto...so much so, in fact, that after a few minutes T and I had to get her out of her seat thinking we were about to have to do the Heimlich! Thankfully we didn't, and she was fine, and she was returned to her seat and kept on eating...


but we managed her intake more carefully after that! She was just as happy with bits of cake as with the whole thing!


Here are most of our party guests...Uncle Matthew, Grandpa, Nana, Gran, Pop Pop, two big sisters, me and T. Behind the camera were two special friends from church, Mrs. Sheila (who came to keep AG and LL when we went to the hospital to have SJ!) and her husband, Mr. Tom. SJ is still preoccupied with those cake crumbs...


SJ had fun with her presents, though her sisters did most of the opening. Here's one that she quickly discovered and loves to pull up on!


She'll be taking her first steps in style with these cute new shoes!


Being one and wearing new shoes is exciting!


Tasting the new bath toys from her sisters...


She is such a delight to us all! In the last few weeks she's definitely started expressing her opinions about things more...like tonight when I took her out of her bath with her sisters before she was ready...so I know we are on the verge of getting to know her little personality even better. We look forward to seeing her blossom into a toddler, but oh how I treasure these fleeting "baby" days, too!