Marie turns 1

I'm writing this almost one year after the fact. I'm woefully behind. Turns out, it's much harder to keep up with a blog when you're doing your own housework!

On Marie's first birthday, we had just spent three or four horrific days house-hunting and had finally decided on a house, but hadn't moved in yet. She received a present in the morning before Matt went to work, I drove a gigantic rental van to our new house (on the left side of the road and the right side of the car!) to use the oven and make some cupcakes, and then drove back to our temporary home to eat dinner (my first ever Pita Pit if I recall correctly) and have cupcakes. We had some candles, but we had no matches, so I knocked on our temporary neighbor's door and luckily she had some. It was a difficult time, but we tried to make it as special as we could.

The night before her birthday, I had this experience that I related on Facebook:
This little lady turns 1 tomorrow. As I held her as she fell asleep tonight, I cried some big, fat tears. I'm not ready! I want to keep my sweet baby forever. My boys have been raising hell lately and I feel like she's the only one left who still loves me. I don't want her to get older!! We all love her so much and I could not be happier that we decided to have a third child. Not sure what kind of celebration I can cook up for tomorrow since we are in the middle of a move, but let it be known: Marie Joy, you are so loved.

I feel similarly still. Part of me wants to go back to her immobile, super squishy days. Another part of me wants to hurry up and have her be independent. And the part of me that I should emphasize the most loves watching her develop every day.

 The boys picked out a talking piggy bank with a British accent that also teaches counting in French when put on the advanced setting.

 I bought this lovely outfit for Marie in China and had visions of doing a photoshoot of her, much like the one I did when she was 6 months old, but the lighting wasn't great in our temporary home and she was MUCH more mobile and difficult to photograph.

 I know the exposure of this one is funky, but I kind of like it anyway.

 I love photos of people with their birthday candles lighting up their faces. Marie didn't understand the concept of blowing out the candles, so we all helped.