Happy First Birthday Claire Bear!!!

Happy birthday sweet girl! We can't believe you've gone from this:

To this:

You are...relentless...serious...determined...adventurous...silly...fearless...sensitive...shy

You walk all the time now and have been for several weeks. You crawled for such a short time!!

Your favorite games:

• Looking under the couch and bed and finding balls. So cute to see you squat down and look under there, and start grunting when you find something.
• Playing peekaboo by leaving the room and coming back, or hiding your face in your chair
• You love to brush your teeth, and get so excited and kick your legs and scream when you open the drawer
• You have started playing actually WITH K more. You bring her toys and try to engage her. You still love to watch her and K is still the only one who can consistently make you laugh.

You are going to be a terror. As I've already mentioned in previous posts, you've been perfecting your tantrum for a couple weeks now. When you have something you know you're not supposed to have, you look at me and then RUN as fast as you can away, screaming the whole time. When I try and pry it from your grubby little fingers, you squeeze so tight and scream bloody murder. Then you act injured and cannot be consoled as you run away from me and won't let me hold you. You repeatedly climb on the fireplace (chairs, tables, you name it) and as we are telling you no, you just look back and smile and continue doing it. You try to go down the stairs standing up. You have been caught standing on top of K's toy box, holding CDs that you have somehow removed from her radio. If you are told "no" when throwing your food, you cry the biggest crocodile tears and make me feel like a terrible mother.

You actually sometimes LIKE to eat:
bread...strawberries...grapes...baby food veggies (no other whole ones, spits them out)...MEAT...goldfish...pasta...cheese...grilled cheese...Everything else is merely tolerated.

You can say:

bye bye (in the cutest little southern accent "bahhhh buyyyyy")...bud...hi...all done ("ah duh")...banana?...ball...bat...I swear you say Kaitlin, at least mimics the pitch and length when I'm calling for her...mama...dada...

Your favorite toys:

Plastic water bottles...train tracks to chew on...tupperware (love to take the top off and on)...your hand against your mouth (making babababa sound like a little injun)...BAGGIES!!!...the remote (only the working ones, none of these fakies please)

We love having you in our family, and as Kaitlin often says "You are the best sissy EVER!" We can't wait to see what the next year holds!