First Birthday Celebrations

A year's gone by,

How time has flown,

We can't believe

How Adrianna's grown!

She's such a joy

And so much fun,

Oh my! Our baby's

Turned One!

Unknown Author

September 16th, 2009

It was morning of Adrianna's first birthday. Harvie stayed home in the morning to celebrate the grand occasion. Of course, it is the one day that Adrianna decided to sleep in, but we waited patiently for her to wake up. The first order of the day: open birthday presents! It took her a little bit of time to figure out what was happening...she kept crawling away from the wrapped gifts towards her usual toys. So with a little help of her mom, Adrianna discovered that there was something underneath the paper worth some attention...

And once it was all unwrapped and out of the boxes the fun began...


What do eat for a birthday breakfast? Cupcakes of course! Although Adrianna wasn't quite sure of what to do, she did have a LITTLE taste of cool whip and cake. Yes, even cake and cool whip did not make our little girl eat...

On Sunday, September 20th we celebrated her birthday with a family gathering including both sides of the family. She enjoyed a lunch with her cousins first (or as Gabriel calls is...cousuncle and cousauntie, after all they are my cousins).

We enjoyed a last summer burger barbecue for Adrianna's birthday...

...and cake for dessert. This time Adrianna ate a little bit more of her cupcake.

Then it was time for opening the wonderful and thoughtful presents from her loving family. She is well stocked up with toys, books and clothes for a while now! She got a Barbie set from Auntie Jennie, an early start for her Barbie collection. And, she even received her first cheque, an addition to her college fund from Uncle Marlen and Auntie Sue. Thank you for the generosity of all!

Sharing a moment with Auntie Sandy...while having a little taste of a book.

And the moment Uncle Jeff has been waiting for an entire year...holding Adrianna without her screaming! We have made some great progress this year. Yes, Adrianna, he may look scary and act funny, but he loves you!

Adrianna,

You're as cute as a bug

So precious to hug

A darling child

Who's nice to be near.

So.. hope turning one

Is happy and fun

And takes you along

To a second great year!

Author Unknown

12 Months

This past month, Adrianna has not only mastered the art of crawling, but has become very confident in her ability to "furniture walk" and even crawl up the stairs. Although she understands the word "no" quite well, sometimes she chooses to ignore it. Especially when approaching all the buttons on the electronics, much to Harvie's dismay. We had to start to child proof the house and slowly we are figuring out what we still need to do as she explores and discovers the many different things around her. At the moment she has a fascination with the fridge, dishwasher and the pantry. It's amazing how quickly she crawls when one of them is opened. She is becoming very playful. She loves to play pekaboo, clap her hands, play ball with someone and have books read to her. She loves to look at books herself, but needs to be supervised because at times she confused the edges of books with food. Adrianna has a remarkable liking to dogs, much to our surprise. Her smiles and squeals when she sees dogs are incredibly precious. I always said I would never had a dog for a pet, but watching her eyes shine around dogs is slowly chaging my heart. Maybe my heart will overpower my mind. As for challenges, Adrianna is finally not throwing up anymore. She continues to be very difficult with feeding, and as a result has only gained one pound in three months. The doctors are not concerned at this point, so I guess I should relax a bit on the feeding thing. She is now 20 pounds and 31 inches...making her long and lean (unfortunately they don't make baby clothes that are long and lean). She hasn't quite figure out that she is too big to crawl through certain places...funny girl!

I am back at school, taking another semester at SFU towards my masters. This semester I am also going into a friend's classroom to complete the field work part of my studies. It should be a pretty busy three months ahead, but hopefully Adrianna will cooperate and take some good naps so I can read, write and research. Harvie continues to have more than his share of work at his job. He is working on a project for the Abbotsford Airport and is able to be home in the mornings once in a while when he has a meeting in Abbotsford. It's so nice to have Harvie home a little more, if only once in a while for the morning. Most days he leaves before either one of us is awake and comes up for 7 pm just in time to kiss Adrianna's good night.

It's amazing how a little one changes life. Dinner out in Vancouver was a regular event before she came. I would head out after school on Friday, shop on Robson till Harvie was finished work and we would eat out. That doesn't happen very often anymore. This month I headed out that way again, thanks to my mom's babysitting services. It was great to reconnect with Marlen and Sue and hear all about their Europe adventures. Thanks for a great dinner and night out!

As tradition have it, Marlen had is annual birthday bbq at the beach. Adrianna was already eager to go last year. On the way there last year my contractions increased, but sure enough they slowed down once we got there. This year Adrianna made her full appearance at the bbq!

What is summer without a beach and gelato? We headed out one afternoon to White Rock. It's so close, but it's the first time Adrianna ventured that way. It was beautiful and we ended the outing with a great gelato that even Adrianna enjoyed.

This past month we invested on a season's pass to the zoo. With Adrianna's love for the outdoors and animals we thought we would get some great use out of the pass. Already in one month we paid it off. I went three times, two of which with Harvie. The first time I went with Pam and Lyra, the second with Marlen and Sue and the third time we met Kevin and Sheri there. We still need to see Shadow, the bear. We are planning to head to Seattle's zoo as well in the next year since the passes give us entry there too. Check out our little biker chick on Kev's beautiful bike at the zoo's parking lot! One year and the training wheels are already off.

We had our first, and I am sure not our last, trip to the emergency room. We were at a bridal store in Chilliwack with my cousin Sandy who is getting married (Adrianna will be one of the flower girls!). As Sandy was trying out a beautiful dress, Adrianna crawled over to the mirror, found something, and before any of us knew had something in her mouth. When I rushed over to see it, all I saw was a metal type of pin on a pearl. My first thought was an earring, but at a bridal store it could also have been a sharper item like a pin. So off to the ER I went, with my cousin Becky to keep me calm. Two hours later the doctor showed me the x-ray which displayed an obvious earring. Two days later, it made its way through Adrianna's digestive track and into the garbage it went. The doctor thought it would be an interesting memory keep, but I wasn't about to clean and keep it. Yuck! If Adrianna wanted earring I think she found a very creative way of letting us know! Through it all she was incredibly cute, laughing and entertaining all in the ER waiting room.

One year! What a milestone! We are planning a birthday party with our families this coming weekend for our little girl. We look forward to celebration. We feel so blessed by her smiles, giggles, and playfulness. She is a gift from our heavenly Father. Thank you, God for giving her to us. May You bless her this coming year with your love, joy and faithfulness. May we be your vessel of love in her life and may we teach her about your faithfulness each and every day. May we live with your joy this coming year, remembering that the blessings we have are from you. Happy Birthday my dear little one!