Cynthia’s 1st Birthday

Cynthia turned one last week, on the 18th.  This year has gone by so fast. 

                                                                   

I feel like all of a sudden we don’t have a little baby anymore.

She started out her birthday morning with a special card from Lizza.  Cindy loves birds and dogs, so Lizza drew a picture of each on the inside of the card.  It was a big hit – Cynthia carried that card around all day.

She also likes flowers, so Tristan made her a little rose out of colorful duct tape.  Cynthia reminds me a lot of how Tristan was as a baby – I hope she turns out as nice as he is.

Then Henry wanted to pretend that he gave Cindy something, so he stole the rose and posed with it, and requested a picture showing what a nice brother he is, too.  I love Cindy’s face in this one – she’s like, “okay, get off me, kid.  You’re not fooling anyone.” 

Rachel and Cynthia, good friends:     

She wasn’t sure why everyone was paying so much attention to her, but she decided she may as well make good use of it and perform some special tricks.

Later in the day, the birthday girl having fun.  She’s been walking for over a month now, so she’s gotten pretty good.  It’s always funny to me to look down and see this little person walking around everywhere:

We didn’t do presents in the morning because Daniel had a meeting, so we decided to have her open them as soon as he got home from work (and before the boys had to leave for football practice).

A new book from Grandma and Grandpa:

Should I be embarrassed to admit that we didn’t even give her any new toys?  She already has so many, so I just “re-gifted” her a a few toys that the other kids got when they were younger, but nobody has been using.

As I mentioned before, she really loves dogs, so she was super happy about this little pull-along puppy toy (that Oliver got on his 1st birthday).  (And there’s a chance we gave it to Henry on his first birthday, too).  It was new to Cindy, though, and she loved it.

She also was happy about getting this train, which has been out of batteries for about the last 4 years.  I finally bought new batteries, and now it seems like a whole new toy, because she can push the buttons and it moves along and sings loud songs (which might prompt us to remove the batteries again).  She loves to put toys in it and chase it around.

I also caught her trying to ride in it herself.  She would press the button to make it go, and then try to back up to it and plop her bottom in while it was still going.

Then it was time for birthday cake.  She loved the fire on the candle.

I wasn’t really planning on letting her go to town on the whole cake, but the temptation to touch that frosting was just too much for her:

We got her a piece of her own, and the first thing she did was dump it right off the plate, like “what is this, Mom?  I have no use for a plate.  You know the food is supposed to just go on the tray.” 

We love our birthday girl so much!  When she was born all the older kids used to fight about whose turn it was to hold her.  Now, one year later, every day when she wakes up from her afternoon nap, they are all still begging to be the first one to play with her.  The excitement has not worn off.

Tristan and Oliver took these pictures of me throwing Cindy up in the air (one of her favorite games):

Then Rachel and Elizabeth wanted to try taking some.

Here are some things about Cynthia at one year:

Things she loves:  her daddy, dogs, birds, looking out all the windows to try to find birds, going outside to try to find birds, looking on the computer at pictures of dogs and birds, bananas, drinks, wrestling with Daniel and the kids, reading books, going places in the car (in hopes of seeing a bird or a dog), riding in doll strollers

Weight: 21 pounds

First words:  dada, mama, doll, book, and uh-oh. 

Other words she says:  Banana, dog, woof-woof (she barks), bird, turtle, flower, fire, ball, shoe, drink, more, light, baby, big-big (that’s what she calls trucks)

She also knows the signs for:  nurse, eat, drink, more, all done, sleep,  and diaper

Here is a little video from a few weeks ago of her walking around:

Cynthia has been such an easy baby - she is cheerful and friendly and loves to goof around. We're so glad we have her.