It's been a whole year of learning and fun, I can hardly believe that Evelyn is One!!!

Yesterday my little baby turned one! I still can't believe it...this year has just flown by and SO much has happened! We've moved three times, had lots of adventures, and have enjoyed every minute watching Evelyn learn and grow. It's been so much fun seeing her little personality come out and seeing her excitement for life. It's amazing how a child can change your life and your outlook on life. She is the most amazing thing to happen to us and I am so utterly grateful to have her!

So here's a little run down on the girl Evelyn. First of all, she fits the fiesty red head stereotype to a T...she's SUCH a determined little thing and already gets mad/upset when we try to distract her from what she wants to do or we aren't getting what she wants fast enough. She's also quite the little dare devil. She doesn't care what she's crawling/walking/climbing on, doesn't really look where she's going-if she's got a target she wants she just goes! She LOVES trying to figure things out and put things together. She's a very curious little soul and SO observant, much more than I realized at first! She copies things I swear she's only seen me do once but she remembers. I've seen her take a screwdriver and "try" to fix her toys cuz she's seen me tighten screws, etc.

This is an example of her fiesty-ness :) She throws little tantrums when she's tired and mad and I'm not getting her bottle fast enough...first she gets on her knees...

Then throws herself onto the ground.....

And sprawls out on the floor, usually with her head down, crying or whining...it's pretty ridiculous really but at the same time really funny! I just don't know where the heck she learned it though!!!

Anywho....she's always loved kids and she still does. She absolutely LOVES our neighbors kids, L and V, and gets So excited when we're headed to their house. She wants to play with the big kids so much and now that she's walking she thinks she can keep up with them, but she's still a little uncoordinated and can't quite keep it yet. She's still a very talkative little thing and is getting really good at getting the right amount of syllables and rise and fall of words when she tries to copy what we're saying. She's such a smart little cookie! She loves fruit and would eat that all day long if I let her. She's also a BIG moocher. No matter how much she's eaten on her own, she comes over to our plate and mooches off of us til we're done and then if it's something she really wants she goes to other people and mooches off them til they're done, which includes our neighbors, both kids and adults :) She's such a fascinating little girl and I just love her to pieces!

As for her actual birthday...we celebrated by going out to lunch, going to a "pumpkin patch", and having a little party! The pumpkin patch was pretty cute. I took a few pics of her there and then we picked out pumpkins for Mark and I to carve later this week. But the main reason I wanted to go was to take pics and it was worth it cuz I got some way cute ones!!!

My super cute lil' one year old!

Picking a pumpkin!

I love these little head bands and flowers but she will only keep them in for a few minutes :(

We didn't really get a good one of us all together, Evelyn wouldn't pay attention to the camera....

She was too worried about the scarecrows, she was kinda scared of them!

For her party we had a Strawberry Shortcake theme, since both Evelyn and Strawberry Shortcake have red hair and strawberries are probably Evelyn's most favorite food. And I liked the green and pink/red colors that the SS party stuff had :) We had a little BBQ and had our friends/neighbors the Korpi's, the Over's, and our friend Susan so it was just a small little gathering but it was a lot of fun! Evelyn had fun playing with L and V, opening presents, playing with presents, and eating cake and us adults had fun eating and talking and playing with presents :) Morgan got Evelyn some cool blocks so the guys, two engineers and one architect, had fun playing with those, which was pretty funny. I knew Mark would enjoy them :)

She of course of was more interested in playing with her presents than opening them....she loves toys like this though where she has to sort them and such. She's getting pretty good too!

Trying to get her to open one by herself...didn't work.

L was very helpful though! He was very excited to help Evelyn open her presents :)

I'm one!

The big flower didn't turn out as well as I wanted but it still looks cute!

Cute mini cake!

Waitin' and wonderin' what the heck is goin' on :)

Oooo!!! What's this?

She doesn't use plates much, just dumps everything off

So off it came!

And straight into the mouth! She just picked the whole thing up and took a big bite!

Then she made a nice mess mooshing it up and eating it....

Luckily she kept her face clean pretty clean!

And the best part, running around in a diaper afterwards!

So it was pretty much a wonderful day and we had a lot of fun! I'll be excited next year though when she actually knows more of what's going on but it was still fun seeing her this year!