Happy Birthday Emmie!

Dearest Emily,

Every day I am amazed at how quickly you are changing from the tiny baby girl that entered our lives at 12:20 p.m. one year ago today.

Your first year has been full of first moments, joyful memories and countless giggles and smiles. You are precious and beautiful, slow to anger but quick to laugh. You adore your big brother and are patient and tolerant of his too rough hugs and kisses, and even seem to enjoy the wrestling matches he randomly attempts to engage you in.

You love to laugh and are easy to console when you cry. Your biggest smiles seem to reserved for your daddy, and I do believe your favorite part of the day just may be when he walks in the door every evening. You are well on your way to being Daddy's girl!

 Most mornings I walk in to your room to find you playing in your crib, and you greet me with a beaming smile and a whispered "Hi!" You are curious and not afraid to explore, and even though you are not walking on your own yet, I believe you are holding out on us because you enjoy being held and cuddled and aren't quite ready to leave the comfort of being carried behind quite yet. I'll let you in on a little secret, we still carry Kyle around all the time because we aren't quite ready to leave the comfort of being needed behind quite yet.

One of the memories I will always cherish about you comes from our night time routine. Since you were about 5 or 6 months old you have loved being tipped over backwards. It has always made you belly laugh when you are tipped upside down and daddy tap, tap, taps you under your chin. Every night I rock you in your room as you drink a bottle before bed, and one night when you were about 10 months old you had just finished your bottle and you turned to me, buried your head in my shoulder to snuggle for a bit, and then looked up at me with a twinkle in your eye. You put your little hands on my chest and shoved backwards, arching your back until you were upside down. I held you like that for a little while until you tried to sit up, only to have you repeat the process as many times as I would let you. From that night on, this is the game we play every night before you go to bed.

Something else we'll always remember about you as a baby, your love for socks. Any sock will do, and often times if you were upset just the sight of a sock across the room was enough to calm you and make you smile.

Happy birthday my precious Emily, today we celebrate you!

 1 month

 2 months

 3 months

 4 months

 5 months

 6 months

 7 months

 

8 months

 9 months

 10 months

 11 months

1 year

No matter how old you are, you will always be my darling baby girl, and I promise that you will never be too big to crawl into my lap for a snuggle and a cuddle.