Last night we did our annual pumpkin carving for family night. We had one for our family, one for Luke and Mom and one that Dad and Sam worked on. While carving, we watched a Halloween Sing-A-Long that my family has loved through out the ages, and Addy loved it just as much as we hoped. Then we finished with the classic movie Clue. The pumpkins all turned out great, and we all had fun doing it-even Addy, who participated by squishing the insides and trying on different pumpkins.

If Halloween is ending up to be this much fun, I can only imagine how wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be! Hooray!

OK, real talk time people. The fact is, I have never really loved Halloween. I enjoy dressing up as much as the next person, but I have never really been a big candy person. I guess I always saw it as more of a preparatory holiday then a real full fledged one-like lets just get to Christmas already right? And then, with my husband having grown up in another country where its not so much a big deal, I felt even more justified, that while the season itself is fun, its just ain't all that.

Well. As much as I feel in denial, my daughter is a one year old. I can't help but look over all the pictures of her this last year-from the first moment we saw her, to the first diaper change, smile, crawl, step etc etc-to now, where she is such a little independent lady, ready to dive in to anything new. I am bursting at the seams with pride for this girl, and the fact that I get to say she is mine, at least for now. I love being her Mom and being along for the ride as she grows and changes every day.

Since we are home we thought we would do her first bday up right and have a big party. I'm lucky that I have the supportive husband I do to say the least haha! I think I learned a lot of what I will do and what won't do again when it come to my kid's bday parties in the future, but over all I think it was as success. Addy seemed to have a lot of fun, and it seemed like most people didn't want to leave, so I will chalk that as a win. We had it outdoors, at Frontier land park, and pigged out on bbq and other goodies we made. The weather was perfect, and it was good socializing with our loved ones, watching her devour cake and open presents, all while playing around and celebrating our ever smiling girl. Ultimately I'm really glad we did it.

Today, the day of her actual bday, we were lucky enough to be able to attend my brother-in-laws wedding, which was beautiful. Later, we also got to do cake and presents with Lester's side of the family, then pie with mine that night. We certainly get the best of both worlds being home, and I am loving watching Addy adore both sides of her family.

You know you live in paradise when someone you love says "Hey-its been so hot out-lets all go over to the beach and eat dinner there." And then. You do. Because you actually can.

Moving home has its ups and downs, but I for one am 100% confident that it was the right decision for our little family right now. We have had a few short months to be able to rejuvenate our relationship and cherish the little things like going to bed and waking up together-going on family outings together-vacations, visits, parties, walks, etc; all things which seemed to be impossible when we were being improved in Oklahoma. So now that all the callbacks are starting to roll in, and Lester has secured an awesome job close by, with a great schedule-we are ready for it. At least for my part, anything sooner would have been a little quick, and anything later would have been too long. I am looking forward to spending time with just my girl again, getting into a routine, and to welcoming my hard working handsome husband home from work.

Its been a long road so far, and we still have a long ways to go till we get where we want to end up. But for now, life is so, so good and I am going to do everything I can to soak that all in, and just enjoy being in the place, with the people I love.

To say Lester and I are 'enthusiastic' about the holidays would be putting it very lightly. BUT one of the best things about the holidays is the phrase 'holiday season' because that turns what would normally be one awesome day into a few months of awesome days! 

While it may not matter much to anyone else, I am very far behind in our month to month review of Adelaide's first year. Since we're coming up on her first bday in about two weeks, I thought I 'd take this opportunity to write some thoughts and memories about these past few months.

When I last wrote, Addy had just turned 9 months and we were in the process of moving. While very mobile in her furniture cruising, she didn't take her first real, legitimate steps until after that, when we were here. When she did, they were very wobbly and she was extremely hesitant, and we thought that although she was venturing out on her own, it would be a while before she was fully considered 'walking'. As usual, she proved us wrong. It has now been 11 months, and she is climbing and practically running. It is ridiculous how fast she is, and although sometimes it make for a lot of running and catching up on our part, it is so fun to see her face light up when she is chasing something or running away from us, and watch her little chubby baby legs scurry away. So officially, we will consider her as really consistently walking on her own at 10 months, which is around when my brother Luke was. Crazy to see him now helping his niece to walk when we used to help him do that. I love love love it!

As far as talking goes, she still thinks she can talk, but only has a few words to her name at this point. She uses them only when SHE wants to, not necessarily when we do, and while they are the real deal, they are still baby talk garbled. The words she tries to uses consistently are Dadda [this one is her favorite], Momma, hi and bye. When she says the last two she also waves, sometimes with one, or sometimes two hands and it is adorable. She also likes to try to copy the noises we make-like clicking her tongue, sneezing or coughing or squealing in excitement.

She is still just as friendly as ever. She loves people and people love her. Her smile takes up her whole face, and she gives them out often to people she knows and ones she doesn't. Lately, she has particularly been enjoying other kids and its fun to watch her play and interact with them. She has no problem sharing, although she does seem to get sad when the other kid does not seem to want to play with her-which is also adorable bc it leads to special cuddle with Momma, which I don't mind at all.

She is compassionate, and if she hears another person crying [like her cousin Audrey] she gets very concerned and whispers to me or her. Sometimes she even tries to touch her face or comfort her, but we are still working on the concept of being gentle haha, so that can't happen to much.

She still loves to show us how big she is, by throwing up both hands in the air-she does this whenever we ask her 'how big is Addy?' or when she hears clapping, yays, or even just sees a camera. She is such a ham, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

She loves reading all books [although we stick to board books bc she likes to rip pages], Curious George and of course, Disney movies-what can we say, she is her Mother's daughter haha. She is very good and focused whenever these are involved. She loves her families and lights up all our lives.

She still eats well, formula, fruits, veggies, breads and meats, but has no teeth so they have to be pureed or in tiny bite size pieces. Of course this doesn't stop her from trying to get her favorite scraps when she can get a hold of them-namely chocolate chips. She loves them and is hilarious, especially when she successfully finds one and tries to hide it.

Even as I'm sitting here writing this I can't believe we are coming up on her one year old birthday. Being a parent has changed my life, my relationships, my maturity and everything else. But I can truly say that thus far it has been in completely positive ways, and we are far better people for Adelaide's being here. I don't think before this I could have fathomed how much love a person can hold for their children-I am realizing that it is truly endless and impossible to imagine. I love seeing her thrive and grow and change, but at the same time I don't want her to grow up and change to much-I want her to always be my little girl. But still, that is the reality and joy of parenthood. I'm so glad God trusted us enough to raise this precious girl-she is a blessing and a joy and it has been fun to borrow her for this first crazy, hard, wonderful year of her life from him.

The next time I write about this, she will be a year. Until then!

Thanks to my hard working Dad, this past week my family and I were able to take a trip to Utah for our  cousin's wedding and to visit with family and friends. Once again, the amount of pictures I have to add here is substantial, so I will just narrate as I go.