Nellie's First Birthday

It's the end of an era.  My baby turned one!  

I'm not sure whether to bawl or jump for joy.

 

Nellie is a strong-willed, loving, joyful girl.  She has an opinion, and is quick to make it known.  She loves people, but preferably from a distance.  Her favorite word is, "Hi" and she makes lots of friends by calling out, "Hi, Hiiiiiiii!," and waving.  The friendly greeting will quickly turn into a howl should her new acquaintance try to hold her.

 

Nell's recently figured out how to climb up the stairs, and gets so proud of herself when she makes it all the way to the top.  She has not figured out that she should not stop mid-way up and lean backwards.  So, we've brought out the baby gate. 

She is an expert crawler, but is not yet walking.  She's at the pull-up-on-everything-and-put-everything-in-your-mouth stage.

Nellie's birthday fell on a Sunday this year.  That's fun if you want to get lots of attention, but terrible if you want to get any sleep.  You see, Nellie (like her sister before her) is strictly a crib sleeper.  With church at 11, she misses her morning nap.  On the day of her birthday, I snuck into the mother's lounge during the Sunday School hour hoping to coerce her into taking a short snooze.  What a joke!  The rocking chairs were much too interesting.

After church, Katie and her crew joined us for a celebration and brought Nellie's best buddy, Jordyn.  Nell thinks it's great fun to crawl right over the top of Jordyn.  Cousin-friends are the best!

To entertain themselves, the older kids got out our stacking cups (we call them "Sunday Cups" because they're only allowed to use them on Sundays) and built a pretty great tower.  They called Seth over to place the very top cup.  Two seconds later it toppled, possibly "helped" by a very cute just-turned-three-year-old.

 Nellie discovered the tupperware cupboard and kept herself happily occupied.

 

Did I mention yet that this stroller is, by far, her favorite toy?  She will walk it until she runs into something, then one of her siblings will turn it around so she can repeat the feat in the opposite direction.

 

After dinner it was time for cake and ice-cream.  Aubree made cupcakes for us.  Nellie dug right in!

 She's such a cute cabbage-patch baby!

 

We thought hard and were finally able to think up a gift for her - new bath toys. She seems to like them well enough.

I took Nell in for her one-year well-child appointment and she is 20 lbs. 8 oz. (40th percentile) and 31" long (95th percentile).  Her head is still in the 93rd percentile.
Ready or not, here comes toddlerhood!