One year ago.....

I ordered Ashley's 1st birthday party invitations this evening. How in the world has an entire year gone by? One year ago I was on restricted activity trying to keep this baby in my belly for a few weeks longer. One year ago I cried because I wasn't able to make Christmas dinner for my family and we had to order it from a store. One year ago, I laid on my bed and felt my baby doing flip flops in my belly and cried knowing it was the last time I would ever feel a baby move and grow inside of me.

This baby is no longer a little baby.
She climbs, she screams, she walks. She walks! We have a walker. She took a few steps a couple of weeks ago and then slowly progressed. Now she walks like a pro. Well, like a pro after having a few cocktails. Its cute as heck though!
So now I'm planning her 1st birthday party. Faith is excited to know she will no longer be "nothing" but will now be one. Caleb is excited because he is just in love with her and loves every single thing to do with this baby. We are all in love with her.

On another note... we are planning our trek to Alabama to see Mimi and Pops. They are finally home again after a long 9 1/2 months in Houston. Jamie says we will leave at 4am on whatever day we decide to leave on. He said he wants to drive "until we can't drive anymore" and then stop to find a hotel. No planning ahead. No reservations. Then he said he was going to find something he could buy and have handy to pee in rather than stopping. And he tried to fist pump me and get me excited about this whole plan. But I have so many problems with this plan. First of all, we are traveling with three chlidren who complain on the 6 mile drive to Wal-mart. Driving until we can't drive anymore... we may make it to Missouri. Secondly, peeing into a container of some sort to avoid bathroom breaks. Well, this just is not going to happen. No fist pumping on this matter at all. Not happening.

We saw Santa last weekend.

 This was the picture where Ashley had her bottle and was happy.

This is the picture where she was not.

And this is when she thrashed around until she couldn't see and Caleb was beside himself cracking up.

And Faith was like a statue the entire time.


After seeing Santa, we went to Target and did some shopping. Faith had told Santa that she wanted a doll that you pushed her belly button and it danced. Since we had never heard about this, we were curious what she was talking about. We found the doll and Faith pointed out, kind of disappointedly, that it didn't look like the dolls belly button after all, it looked more like a penis. Caleb cracked up and said there should be a sign that said "Push penis to make doll dance". My kids.



Faith also had her Winter recital this past weekend. For the first time ever, she didn't want to leave me to go backstage. She never ever has any issues leaving me. But this time she did. I fought back my tears and the urge to just grab her and run. Thank goodness too. She did an amazing job and had a blast!
Can't wait for the Spring recital now.


But first, we have to get through my last baby turning one. The last time I will ever throw a first birthday party. Yes. You better bet I will cry. As a matter of fact, I might just cry now.