Happy Birthday, Lacey!

Lacey turned 1 year on Saturday. We had a little gathering of family and close friends to celebrate. We made pizza for dinner (I hope that I can recreate that bbq sauce, cuz it was really good and I just threw stuff into the pan til it tasted good) and chocolate zucchini applesauce cake for dessert, and no one voiced any suspicions that there were vegetables and fruits hidden in the cake. Here she is reading her books with Aunt Em.

Eating pizza for dinner.

Here she is sitting in Grandmother's lap before we sang Happy Birthday to her. She got so excited when we started singing that she got to the floor and started doing a funny zombie walk--arms stretched out in front of her, waddling back and forth, squealing in delight, opening and closing her hands. Silly baby. That's not the reaction I have when people sing Happy Birthday to me.

And here she is with her chocolate cake. She picked the little pink dots off and ate them first. It took a while for her to know what she was supposed to do with it, cuz, believe it or not, we've never just set a big piece of cake in front of her before.

But she figured it out before too long and ended up like this.

Evidently, she missed a spot and Daddy had to fill it in for her.

After a cleansing bath, we opened presents. She's a master at unpacking bags. She got lots of books and some cute clothes and shape blocks. She's such a lucky baby--er, toddler!

Lacey is a healthy, happy one year old. She's 21 pounds which is right in the middle of the growth charts, and 28.5 inches tall, which is in the 27th percentile. Pretty good! She's such a good eater--she'll eat pretty much anything that her daddy or I will eat (though we're pretty picky). It sure does make life easier when I don't have to make two dinners. She is SO happy, most of the time. When people meet her, they ask, "Is she like this all the time?" And yes, yes she is usually that happy and excited about everything. She gets in to absolutely everything. It's impossible for me to keep my home orderly with hurricane Lacey on the rampage. But we do what we can and are happy with it.

Lacey has one or two words under her belt so far--Dada and baba. She definitely imitates speech sounds and inflections, though, especially while she's playing with her books. And she LOVES her books. She loves to play with them on her own, and she loves for me to read them to her. She'll bring one to me with a look of anticipation on her face that I just can't resist, and I'll try to read it to her while she turns the pages faster than I can get the words out.

She's so smart, too darn smart for her own good. I can see the wheels turning behind those blue eyes of hers, and I know that she's eager to learn everything that she can and explore every place that she can. She's such a joy to have, and I'm so lucky to be her mommy!