Aria is one!!!

September 13th was baby Aria's first birthday - can you believe it has been a whole year?!?!

She has been an amazingly wonderful addition to our family and I am very lucky to be her Mama. Its been wonderful watching her grow and learn this past year - amazed at each new trick and milestone. She has always been a pretty "easy" baby (minus the sleep thing) and has added oodles of joy and fun to our life. She has a very even temperament - just goes with the flow of our busy days - although recently she has been more assertive communicating her wants and dislikes. She is rarely fussy, smiles all the time and has a contagious laugh that gets others giggling. I refer to her as a "velcro baby" - always attached to me somehow - and as long as Brian and/or I are in the room, she is content and playfull. She adores her big brother and sister, loving to wrestle and follow them around. She is not a fan of koosh balls, is a Baby Einstien junky and eats grapes by the dozen. She crawls super fast now, can get helself standing very easily and is starting to cruise on furniture. She loves to be outside, is a big fan of slides and falls asleep easily in the car.

We had a nice celebration on her birthday - she was a perfect little birthday star all day long - smiling, laughing, and waving at people - loving all the attention (as long as noone besides Brian or I tried to hold her).


Here she is concentrating on opening one of her gifts.



She must have been moving too slow - b/c here is Mulu & Aaliyah opening up the rest of the gift for her.




Her with her birthday bib, birthday crown, birthday cake and birthday smile. She had the whole group of adults in front of her with cameras and big smiles watching her with her cake - and you can see she loved all the attention!



post birthday cake smashing - she didn't eat much of it - but loves squeezing it through her fingers.


and some of the other kids at the party enjoying the cake too (yes, they are sitting on the floor in the kitchen - I didn't like the idea of chocolate cake all over the carpeting and our table was being used for the real food)