Tuesday, February 08, 2011

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...

10 comments:

zachariah said...

Happy Birthday little Maeve!

Tara said...

Oh my goodness, I love her little tongue action in the video, trying to get that icing off her lip. Too cute. She is just such a happy little thing! I can't believe she is one already! T and I watched BOTH the videos, and T absolutely loved them, was totally transfixed by the 'baby'. Her mouse thing is so cute, I want one for my kitchen, too ;). I'm impressed with Bran's candle lighting skills, too. Happy First Birthday, Maeve! We love you!

Tara said...

Woops, I got so distracted commenting on the videos, I forgot to mention how adorable her Sunday outfit is! She looks so cute, I love the hat! And the first two sibling pics are pretty good, they're all actually almost smiling, at least!

David said...

Wow, what is there left to say after Tara touched on everything!
What a great post, pictures and videos, what fun! Mom and I really enjoyed them. Glad that Maeve and all the rest of you had a great time! Love, Dad and Mom xoxoxo

Shannon said...

I'm dead to you--ok maybe I did take a peek at the video. Who can resist that grin?

Happy Birthday, Maeve!

Anonymous said...

Gabriel and I watched the videos this morning. Seriously, that girl's smile is unbelievably cute. Congrats on making it through the first year (again) and we can't wait to give Maeve birthday hugs when everyone is feeling better. Warmest birthday wishes from down the hill, K,J, N & G.

Carolyn said...

Oh!!!! Adorable all the way around. I love it.

fiona said...

Heeheehee... I was just scrolling through this post and Nuala is chilling beside me and she caught a glimpse of the pic of her crying, and she said, "but wait, can I see that picture, when it was Sunday and it was Maeve's birthday and you poked me in the eye?" Good memory, kiddo.

Rob and Erin Smith said...

Hahaha! I LOVE that video, she actually blew! We couldn't get Aoife to do that, she just looked at me like I was crazy. AWESOME!!! And I love her Sunday outfit too :0) and I was laughing about poor Nuala remembering the traumatic eye-poke. She's so cute too, and look at that handsome Bran! Aoife really liked the video too, she was trying to talk to Maeve. She did like our singing! Yay! Look at that huge SMILE! Happy Birthday, Maeve!!!

Grandma said...

Loved the video. what a riot from poking your ow2n childs eye to mauve blowing the perfect sunday picture the laughter and bran lighting the candles. Happy birthday little one.