Happy Birthday Amelia!

Our little turkey is a year old. Amelia's first birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day and we spent a wonderful day celebrating both Thanksgiving and our baby girl's first birthday. I'm at a loss of words when I try to put into writing what this past year has been for me. Here is my attempt:

• We welcomed our baby girl into the world thankfully in the hospital and not on Lake Shore Drive. The doctors lied to me when they said fast deliveries are not genetic.
• We have watched our families fall in love with Amelia like they have never known life without her.
• We were overjoyed by all of our friends and family who came to meet Amelia, who sent sweet e-mails from faraway and who kept Mark and I well fed during the early weeks.
• We spent many hours trying to sooth a newborn who struggled sleeping and then turned around to find we have a daughter who sleeps like a teenager.
• We shared many of our favorite past times with her; KU basketball, yoga, swimming, long walks around Chicago, traveling and dining out. She still has a few more birthdays to celebrate before we can share our love of red wine......
• We were fortunate enough to take her to many special places such as Kansas, Arizona, Colorado and Minnesota to meet many special people.
• We have cheered for her as she has accomplished many new feats such as smiling, rolling over, crawling and standing up.
• We have reaffirmed that Mark is more patient.
• We worked through my heart ache over returning to work and now have a routine that we find much joy in.
• We have learned that our daughter's smile can take away a days worth of stress in an instant and can heal a grandparent going through major surgery.
• In short, we fell head over heals in love with our amazing little girl!

Here are a few pictures of our weekend birthday/Thanksgiving celebration!

It turns out that I don't have much time to reflect on her first year as this morning I got my first glimpse of what the toddler years will be like. When I was leaving for work this morning Amelia threw herself on the carpet and had a full blown meltdown. Does it make me a bad parent that I found it a bit cute......