One year old today. I can't believe it!

One year ago, today, I was laying in a hospital bed, holding a new baby girl. I was so tired from being up for over 24 hours and from a 12 hour labor (only 30 min of hard labor though and I had an epidural.)

My baby isn't really a baby, baby anymore. She can walk. She can kinda talk. She can brush her own teeth. She can brush her own hair. She isn't really a baby anymore. It makes me kinda sad. But it makes me happy too! I am excited to see how she blossoms into a beautiful young lady and eventually a woman. I am excited to see if she turns out more like me or her dad or neither one of us! I will miss my baby girl. But I will love these new experiences we are going to experience!

Today we had family over for cake and ice cream to celebrate her real birthday. She loves ice cream and likes cake alright. She got 4 books from my family, a spin wheel thingy from Jeff and Venus and a wiggly music piggy from The Maugers! We gave her some clothes in the morning before church and a BIG GIRL car seat!! ( she now faces forward!) She went to everyone and ate little pieces from them. I think the ice cream part was her favorite.

My Dearest Miss Hadleigh Belle Kananikeona at 12 months you...

• Walk, a lot! You walk circles around all the other 1 yr olds. You try to run but can't quite keep your balance. You love to walk. You want to walk everywhere, by yourself. We try to get you to hold our hands and you will for about 10 to 30 seconds and then you're off on your own.
• Laugh! You love to play hide-n-go-seek. You love to play peak-a-boo and you love when we play Giants-gonna-getcha. You will laugh and laugh until you can't laugh anymore. You will give a little "Hahaha" when you're doing something you think is cute or when you are doing something naughty. You just love to giggle and squeal and clap your hands.
• Dance to ANY music you think is good. You will dance to the hymns in Sacrament meeting. You will dance to commercials. You will dance to country, old rock and 80's music. You will dance to most blues songs and you love "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" BY Aretha Franklin til the sun comes up!
• Like books and pretend to read. You like to read the books with "flaps" so you can "find" the object. You have your favorites too! You love your Sesame Street books the most and will point to each character and toy and explain what they are.
• Still take a bottle to bed. You will probably do it for the rest of your life! You love that bottle.
• Mimic what we do. You say "No-no-no" to Titan when he does something naughty. You will say "night-night" and bring me a pillow and blanket. You will walk behind me from room to room and you try to fold clothes. You definitely need your tooth brush when we are brushing our teeth! You give high-fives and kisses (sometimes) and wave.
  
• Try to talk. You say "mom mom mom" and "da da da" and "tanktoo". You say "titi" and "papa" You are going to be a really good talker.
• You know what you want, when you want it. You will bring us your books, snack bag, bottle and formula holder. You will point and pick up and try to show us whatever the thing is you want. If you don't get it.. well you have gotten pretty good at throwing fits.
• Starting to share. Today in Relief Society (the 5 minutes we were in class) you kept trying to give baby Paige Miller some cars and her binkie! You kept picking up her binkie when she would drop it and put it in her mouth! It was so cute!

You, my love, make me so happy, even when I am overwhelmed, I am happy. I try to keep in my mind the song by Trace Atkins "You're gonna miss this, You're gonna want this back, You're gonna wish these days, hadn't gone by so fast. " I know that I will never be able to repeat a day and I want to have only good memories with you!

I love you more than you will ever know! You are the reason I try to live my life so well. I hope you had a great first birthday.