One

Yes, it has been a whole entire year since that miraculous event.  After 9 months of being warm and snug inside of me, Elise finally entered the world for us to see on January 14, 2012 at 12:17am. 

From being a helpless newborn who didn't quite know how to respond to things except for how her reflexes told her to, she has grown into quite a sweet, expressive and active little lady.

She really is sweet.  She loves people.  She will try to get your attention just so she can give you her cute smile and show you something she thinks is pretty cool.  She can give "kisses" now, but gives them sparingly which is ok because they tend to be kind of slobbery. 

She loves to explore and when she sees something new she will point to it, look at me (or whoever is around) and ask "EEh?".  She also knows there are some things she probably shouldn't get into and will give a raised eyebrow look to see if it's ok...or maybe she's just looking around to see if no one is watching.  She is a curious one.  We want to encourage that.

She is still saying Dada, Mama, I do, and lots and lots of other noises.  She seems to learn object words quickly and will point things out if I ask where something is.  She's learning her body parts.  She knows nose, mouth, feet, toes and fingers.  We're working on ears, belly, belly button, eyes and knees.

She loves books.  She'll listen and turn the pages as we read.  She also likes just looking at books on her own. 

She'll often play by herself.  When she wakes up from a good nights sleep or a nap we often peek in her room to see her playing in the crib.

She's walking...on her knees.  She mostly gets around crawling, but her latest thing is to walk around on her knees so her hands can be free to point at things.  She will stand by herself for short periods of time.  She's learning to come down stairs feet first.  We don't have stairs in our house, which might explain why she loves stairs so much.  She could climb up and down stairs for at least an hour without getting tired of it.

She's eating pretty much anything we let her try.  She was chewing on some dog food today. (I didn't give it to her, she found it on her own)  If she's chewing on something when a different food or drink catches her eye, she'll just spit out what she's currently working on and try out the new food.  She mostly feeds herself unless it's liquidy food like applesauce.  She's nursing about twice a day now and I'm not sure how much longer she'll do that.

I love her giggles.  She still has the fake laugh and the real laugh.  Both of them cute.  Some of the oddest things make her laugh, but since they're making her laugh we continue to do them:)

Elise has changed our lives.  We love her so much.

(One last installment of red chair pictures soon to come)