Cheers, Ladies

Orelia and her best gal pals like to toast the weekend with a glass of bubbly.

One of them always manages to have an extra bottle around and once the cork is popped, they might as well finish it.

Cheers, ladies!

Sometimes the ladies get fancy and don their hats.

And sometimes Orelia gets a little out of control.

After one too many glasses...

She's down for the count.

Luckily the hostess can handle herself a little better than my girl.

As a side note, when I came across a baby photo of me holding a PBR can, I berated my parents to no end.  When you're the parent, however, this humor somehow has more appeal.  (These baby cups are sold at IKEA, and once we handed the gals the cups they just had a blast chewing on them.)

Ten Words

People say that your kids are born with their personalities, and the way they are as babies is the way they continue to be their whole lives.  During Orelia's past year I've noticed that her personality has essentially stayed the same, though she's added on more defined traits as she's gotten older.  I thought it would be interesting to record her personality in a few words at age one and see if in a few years she still could be described roughly the same way.

A big thank you to my friend Anika for the beautiful photos to accompany this post.

At age one, Orelia is...

Silly.

Funny.

Sweet.

Mostly cautious.

Curious.

Focused.

Happy.

Impatient.

Independent.

And Social.

Orelia at Thirteen Months

 Orelia is now thirteen months old and busy busy busy in everything she does.

She crawls almost faster than I can walk, and gets great pleasure in scurrying off in an attempt to get me to chase her.  She wants everyone to chase her - me, John, Harper, and all her little friends.

She is doing some solo standing and walking around using her wooden push cart.  (Actually since I'm writing this post a couple weeks after she turned thirteen months, she has taken some solo steps at this point too.)

She is getting good at mimicking when the mood strikes her, and sometimes repeats sounds and words pretty accurately (quack and hop, recently).

She's started pointing at the things that interest her and has started signing again after a brief interlude where she had stopped (because I got lazy and stopped).  The day I started signing again she started right back up, and learned a new sign ("milk") that day.  Today she signed "more" when I stopped tickling her - I guess she wanted to laugh some more!

Her most used words are still "mama" and "dada," but she says "ball" and "dog" regularly too.

She understands a lot, though, and is getting good at following simple directions like "get a book," "come here," "throw me the ball," and "give that to me."

She loves handing toys to people and also loves feeding Mom and Dad her food.  She's a good sharer when she wants to be.

Orelia is a lot to handle at thirteen months but completely hilarious and lots of fun.

Lost Photos of a Summer Day

I've been taking A LOT of photos recently.  So many that I'm coming across old photos in my folders that I never posted and barely remember looking through.

 About a month ago, I snapped some photos of a typical summer day around here.

 Harper and Orelia were playing fetch together.

Or something.

I probably thoroughly confused Orelia by snatching the dirty dog ball from her mouth one second and then letting her have her way with it the next second.  I have mixed feelings on that dirty dog ball.

Orelia only has feelings of love and adoration for that thing.

After what I can only imagine was some bodily fluids accident, we had an outfit change and brought out the steel tub.

Oh the fun to be had by pouring water from a cup.

One year olds are fun tiny humans.

Apparently we finished off the day with her favorite pucker face.  She loves to make this face and snort through her nose.  She especially likes it when someone else makes the face in return.  (I imagine I do look pretty silly doing it.)

Though these photos were nothing special, I'm glad I found them again.  They epitomize my first summer with Orelia which is coming to a close all too quickly.  By next summer I'm sure we will have lost the precious pucker face and the steel tub may no longer hold any appeal.  I have high hopes, however, that fetch with Harper will remain a favorite activity.

The Water Table

Joyce and David gifted Orelia with an amazing water table for her birthday, and Orelia and her buddies have been enjoying it all month.

It's perfect for these prewalkers to have something to pull up on in the yard.  They love practicing their new skills.

Luckily for us, Orelia is a light splasher.  She might get a little damp, but she doesn't soak herself.

Some of her friends are a little heavier on the splashing, and need to be striped before the water table comes out.

Thanks to David and Joyce for this wonderful gift that has already provided hours of entertainment to all the little one year olds we know.

And thank you to the former owners of our house for leaving the swing set for some post water table drying off.

Uppies, Or Else

We are going through a phase - I sure hope it's a phase - where Orelia wants to be picked up by me.  A lot.  And I sure as hell better not deny her.

We've got quite a few "uppies" pictures lately.

And a few of the "or else" photos too.

She has started experiencing some seriously clingy-ness towards Mommy.  If I'm around (and especially if not much else is going on), she wants me to be holding her or at the very least on the floor right next to her.  It's become a bit difficult physically and emotionally (though obviously there is the sweet, loving aspect to it as well).  I'm glad my girl wants to be with me, but I also loved her being able to play independently.  If any seasoned parents have advice or words of wisdom on this, I would much appreciate it!