one whole year

Hi! I'm ONE!

Happy first birthday, sweet girl! You've made this past year the best one for our family yet, with all three of our precious kiddos together! We love you!

This little lassie's one now... Her birthday was Sunday, which coincided with take-cute-pictures-after-church day. Really, before church would be better, but who am I kidding? We're lucky if we have time to comb Nuala's hair before we go...

I do like this one.

There was potential there, let me tell ya...

...until I poked Nuala in the eye while trying to brush some hair out of her face. I optimistically kept taking pictures, telling her, "you're okay, you're okay! Just smile!" She didn't.

But on to the birthday stuff. Nuala and Bran were super excited for Maeve's birthday. In fact, we (Maeve and I, since Z had migrated to some other bed during the night) woke up to two exuberant 4-year olds jumping on the bed yelling, "Happy birthday, Maeve!" Bran's question immediately following: "Can Maeve talk now?!" Guess he thought turning one meant a switch was flipped and she could automatically do all that bigger-kid stuff. Nope. She still just says, "no, chau, mama, dada, baba (baby)," and a strange exclamatory sound that I interpret as "doggy" whenever she hears barking. Could just mean, "do you hear that!?" but I'm going with "doggy". She can sign "milk" (and does it often, little nurse-aholic), "more", "banana", and "all done". She has 6 fully-emerged teeth and 2 half-ers. She likes to dance, swing, jump on the trampoline, and do anything Bran and Nuala do. She loves to play weapons (we've covered that) and has learned to navigate backwards down the stairs. That's good. She's all over the place and is a pretty zippy speed-walker. She is quite awesome.

Yummm... icing.

Can you see it? The huge smile she's bestowing upon her cake? She was pleased.

In the top left pic, I had taken away her cake. That's right. I took it away. Mean mom. I wanted to see how much she really appreciated it. She did, indeed, want it back. Shocker. The big grin picture is just that. A big grin. I love her grin :) And in the last little pic, Auntie Erin, sick Liam, and Aoife (kinda-not-really) are singing her "Happy Birthday" on the phone. She got a big kick out of it!

Present time! Grandma Buttons and Poppie sent her some farm animal puppets, which she loved. She had an extra-good time putting them back into the bag and pulling them out again. Granny and Grandad sent cold hard cash, which Z confiscated for his upcoming trip to the States. She also got a little board book called "Global Babies" with pictures of adorable little ones from all over the world. This is her new favorite book. She loves, loves, loves the babies. Loves them. She also got a Wheely Mouse, and I love him. She likes him, too, and is getting the hang of it. She really likes his little face, but I just love him. He looks so cute sitting in my kitchen. And he's so quiet and does what I tell him to. If I put him somewhere, he just hangs out. He doesn't wander off to strew beanbags and blocks everywhere. Sure, he's not very snuggly and I've never heard him giggle, but he's got his charms.

Breakin' him in.

And now... what you've all been waiting for!!! No, we're not giving away money. Vidoes of Maeve and her cake, of course! Alright, the first one is "the long one." It's 4 minutes long, but it's chock-full of cuteness. We figure this will be best appreciated by the grandparents, so if you're a grandparent, you are now obligated to watch. The rest of you will be missing out if you skip it, but I know 4 minutes is a long time in this day and age, so there is also an abridged version. Only 2 minutes. If you skip that one, you are dead to me. Got that? Dead. Haha...ha... just kidding. I get weirder the later the hour, and it's midnight here now. We really make the movies for us, obviously, but they are cute, so if you wanna watch, enjoy...

Maeve's first cake from Fiona Rollins on Vimeo.

Maeve's first cake (short) from Fiona Rollins on Vimeo.