Happy 1st Birthday

Happy Birthday banners, balloons, presents, cupcakes, food, family, friends, and baby sitters filled our home this past weekend as we celebrated Jade's 1st birthday. I can't believe our little 7lb 14oz bundle of joy is now a crawling, "waking," babbling one year old! We couldn't be more in love with our little girl or more excited to see what the next year has in store for us. She truly has been the best addition to our lives. Things have certainly changed around our house in 1 year too.   Lazy nights/weekends of laying on our comfortable couches TV and movie watching no longer exists. We can't just randomly choose to go out with friends, we have plan and find a baby sitter.  If it wasn't for DVR, I would never see any of "my" TV shows. Our DVD's are no longer alphabetized, in fact we are lucky to have all of them in the DVD stand. All kitchen drawers at Jade's level are an unorganized mess. Our bathroom doors are kept closed so Jade can't "play" in the water or show us all the amazing things she finds in the garbage. Just in-case we forget to close the bathroom door, our garbage cans now sit on top of our toilets and the toilet lids are always shut.  Our blocks that we had in the basement that used to say UND SIOUX now say something along the lines of UN SI  X. Where are the missing blocks? Your guess is as good as ours. We've searched the house and they are no where to be found. There are little finger marks all over the bottom of the TV screen because Jade thinks it's cool that she can turn the TV on and off. We are lucky that she hasn't changed the language on our phone or ordered anything on the TV yet, as she LOVES electronics. The sliding door to the deck is full of drool, along with the full length mirror in our bedroom. Even when our house is "picked up" and clean, it still looks messy because of the explosion of baby paraphernalia. These are just a few examples of what has changed over the last 12 months. I'm sure the next 12 will bring even more change and we are excited to continue to watch Jade change and grow. Here are a few pictures of the birthday girl...enjoy!

The rocking chair Daddy got her. She gets into it all by herself!

Her baby sitter got her a drum set. So far she hasn't been too bad with the noise, but I'm sure that'll change!

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to..."

I would like to take credit for her CUTE birthday outfit too! She had the skirt from the wedding she was in in September, I found the leggings online, and I made her shirt!

And She's Off....

Our tummy's are still full and the pounds have been packed on thanks to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. We enjoyed a 4 day weekend out at the "Noland Ranch." The new and improved "ranch" was the host to it's first, of I'm sure many, Thanksgiving dinners. We enjoyed food, drinks, stories, and hunting with Nate's parents, his brother Lee and his fiance, and his Uncle Mark and Aunt Barb. Hunting was unfortunately unsuccessful for all of us, although Nate put up a good fight as he was out driving the minimum maintenance roads of 2L much of the weekend. I was even able to get away for a night cruise. We saw a handful of deer, but either not for long enough to get a shot off, on posted land, or 300+ yards away. As they say... better luck next year! Here is a family photo of Jade's first Thanksgiving!

Sunday morning we were all ready to head home. Our little girl seemed a bit homesick, I was ready to decorate for Christmas, and I think Nate was just sick of unsuccessful hunting and wanted to watch some football. Jade was busy walking her walker up and down the hallway as she often does when she decided to ditch the walker and try walking all by herself! Nate was sitting on the floor ready to catch her fall, but she didn't need Daddy's help and walked all the way across the living room to Mommy who was on the couch! I'll have to admit...this brought a tear to my eyes. I don't know if it's because my little girl is getting so big already or because I was so proud of her. Probably a little of both I guess. Here are a couple video's of my BABY walking! She is so interested in the camera that it's hard for me to get good video, but here is what I managed to capture. 

She still isn't "cruising" after figuring out she can walk on her own, but I'm sure we're not far from her being EVERYWHERE! She's growing up so fast, but it's so much fun too. She has such a personality!