One year ago.....

I can't believe that a year ago today, I was lying in a hospital bed with the most beautiful baby girl snuggled in my arms. This may sound cliche, but it is true....it seems like only yesterday that we welcomed our sweet Rylie Marina in to our lives... But at the same time, we can't even imagine our lives without her and can hardly remember what it was like before her. Our little angel is turning in to such an adorable little girl. She hams it up in front of a camera (wonder why?! Must be all that practice i give her, haha!). She crawls all over the place...she even made it all the way up our stairs last weekend without anyone noticing until she was at the top, crawling around in our bedroom (yikes, bad parent moment!). she pulls up on everything and stands on her own. She claps at just about everything! She has just stated her "oooh"s and "uh oh"s, and will make a woof woof kind of noise around dogs...and they are absolutely the cutest sounds! If we point to something, she will follow suit by raising her arm and extending her hand. She thinks her mommy and daddy are hilarious! She has been a litle more picky with eating lately, but thinks green beans and pasta are great. We packed up all of the bottles this week and have completely switched her over to sippy cups and milk. I'm not ready for her to give up the paci yet (yes, go ahead and groan!)... She loves it and she reminds me of when she was itty bitty when we give it to her (only for bed time, usually!). She is a pro at passing us something, and knows that we can only accept it with our palm facing up. If we hide something in our hands, she knows that it's still there, even though she cannot see it. It is really funny if she passes us something and we switch it with something else without her seeing...you can practically see the wheels turning inside her brain telling her that something isn't quite right....she is a smarty pants :-). Oh, and she continues to be an amazing sleeper! Although at day care she has a little more trouble sleeping, she takes awesome naps when she is at home (today's nap was 4 hours! But that could also be because she has been running a slight fever all day) and sleeps at night from about 6:30pm until 6:30am. We couldn't be happier and we know that we are truly blessed. We are blessed with a happy, healthy, and "easy" baby...we are blessed with each other's love and commitment. And we are blessed with a caring and supportive family. Although I do wish that we had more time in the day and a little more money in the bank account, I wouldn't want to change anything else. Our sweet Rylie has taught us more about ourselves and what it means to be selfless. Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girl. Mommy and Daddy love you, Rylie! xoxo