Happy 1st Birthday Brianna!!

Our sweet baby girl had her very first birthday last week! I can't believe it's already been a year since this little lady joined our clan...she's such a sweetheart and we love having her around! Brianna is such a mellow baby, most people have never even heard her cry! (Don't worry...we can tell you, she's good at it!) Her big brother and sister love her to distraction, and are often in trouble for manhandling her too much and not giving her any space. Their excessive attention must have been a big part of the reason Brianna didn't feel the need to move on her own for a long time. :-) She learned to scoot on our slick floors around 10 months, and her scoot has slowly progressed to a funny frog-like crawl/hop. It's absolutely hilarious to watch, but she's pretty proud of herself and can really cover a lot of distance in a short amount of time with her little frog-hop.

Just in the last two weeks before her birthday, she finally got her first tooth, on the top (so weird!). She's got about half a dozen more teeth trying to come through, so she's taken to having her tongue out all the time as she's feeling the changes in her mouth. Also in the last couple of weeks, she's started to finally stand with help and pull herself up on the furniture. Before that she didn't want anything to do with it. If we tried to stand her up on the floor, she'd lift her little legs up into a sitting position until we set her down on her bum. :-)

Brianna will eat anything we give her, which is really nice for us! She loves the attentions of her big brother and sister and is often found giving them big hugs and wide-mouthed smooches anywhere she can reach them. She loves to play "paddy-cake" and always skips ahead to the roll-it part, where she rubs her hands together back and forth for the roll it motion, and makes noises with her tongue to imitate the word "roll". She loves to wave "hi" to people, and often will wave for several minutes from her perch in the grocery cart as we pass people. She likes to blow kisses but often ends up chewing on her little hand rather than "blowing" the kiss away. :-) She has recently learned how to throw a temper tantrum, and OH MAN can she do it well! She has the highest-pitched scream I've ever heard, and she throws her whole body into it...it's actually kinda cute. When she was a little baby she used to scream out of happiness, and now she's learned to attach it to her temper.

At her nine-month check-up, she had recently been through a really long bout of being sick, and she'd had no appetite at all. Because of this she hadn't gained hardly any weight from 6 months, so the doctor put her on a high-calorie diet with her formula. Luckily it worked beautifully, because at her 1-year check-up last week she weighed in at 19 pounds 7.5 ounces, almost 4 pounds higher than at her last weigh-in.

We have discovered that Brianna LOVES being outside in any way. She loves sitting on the grass while her brother and sister play, she loves going for a walk in the stroller, and she LOVES going on hikes with us in the backpack, usually carried by her daddy. She has become a major daddy's girl, so she loves hanging with him on our hikes.

Our little sweetheart has the most beautiful, big brown eyes! Well, they're the most beautiful since her big sister was a baby. :-) I love our little brown-eyed girls!

Brianna wasn't quite sure what to think of presents this year, but it was fun to let her try. Kylee wrapped her presents again...she's getting pretty good at it. :-)

Brianna loves her cake! But she loves it so much that she doesn't mess around...she's a fairly clean eater! I'll post some of her cake-smash pics later this week.

We're so glad our little sweetheart joined our family last year! She is an absolute joy to have and we couldn't imagine our little family without her! Happy birthday Brianna Shea!