HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY!

Wow, that year sure went by fast! Morgan is officially 1 year old! She is such a sweet, loving, smart, and funny little peanut! For her first birthday party, we planned a backyard Sesame Street bash. We had cold meat sandwiches, potato salad, fruit, chips, and beans.

  We also had ice cream, cupcakes, and homemade cake. Turns out cake making is not my forte. This first picture is what I felt I was capable of making...oh dear lord was I ever wrong!

This picture was my first test run to work on layering. I still laugh every time I think about this...did I really think I could pull this off. Brad's comment at first sight was "That looks great honey?" And yes he really did ask me that as a question mixed with laughter.

Here is what I ended up with after many hours of work and revamping what I really had in my bag of skills.

I do have to say I was pleased with how the cupcakes turned out, so may try those again, but there will never be cake making in my future. And then to top it off, I saw a super cute polka-dot sesame street cake at Sam's for $17.99. Lesson learned!

Friends and family came to help celebrate, which made the day even more special. Miss Morgan was spoiled with many gifts and is loving every one of them! She seemed to know exactly what she was doing as she tore open each gift. She ate her birthday cupcake, but was very dainty in taking a little nibble here and there. We thought she would dig right in, but that wasn't the case. The party was a wonderful time and we are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that shared in our little girl's special day!

At 1 year old, Morgan:
- loves to read books
- has started to dance by bending her knees to bounce up and down
- walks
- rides her Pewi bike
- climbs on and off her rocking horse
- eats almost anything
- drinks whole milk from her sippy cup

- attempts to use spoons to eat, but resorts to her fingers after failed attempts to get it on the spoon

- signs "more" & "all done"

- jabbers a lot!

- does the gesture of "I don't know" with her hands and a shoulder shrug

- does the hand motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider"

- draws with sidewalk chalk

- loves to swing

Our 1 Year Old!

And she's off...

11 Months and Miss Morgan is walking...wobbly, but none the less walking! August 14th is the official day that Princess Morgan took her first steps! She was sooo excited to be on the go that she would attempt a step, get about one or two in, fall, and then start to giggle and clap for herself! So fun to watch the videos we took of her.




August 6th - this is the date that Morgan stood up all by herself from the sitting position. We were over at The Helgerson's house for dinner and were sitting out on the screened porch while the kids played and the adults chatted. She was playing on the ground one minute and just stood up out of no where!









We met some friends at the I-Cubs game on August 9th. This was Morgan's very first baseball game and was in the skybox seats! We made it through half of the game, but bedtime got in the way, so we changed into PJs before heading home about half way through the game.

 Gramma came down to watch spend time with us and we all went out to have our first meal at PF Changs. Morgan did a great job and loved the sweet and sour chicken. Thanks for coming to visit Gramma!

Morgan is able to sign the words "more" and "all done". At times she gets confused and will sign at the wrong times, but for the most part seems to grasp the idea of communicating what she needs. A new party trick she picked up from her DaDda is taking a drink of water and then following it up with "aaahhh" after she takes the cup away from her mouth:. )

She loves to drive the trains and cars around and makes the "vroom" sounds as she does it.

In August, we made a trip up to Uncle Joe and Aunt Denise's cabin with the Karnick Family! It was a wonderful weekend filled with beautiful weather, great memories, and fabulous company! Morgan took her first boat ride, played in the water, and couldn't get enough of the sand. She even did a pretty good job traveling the 4 1/2 hours.

It is so fun to watch her grow and learn! More to come next month...stay tuned for the big 1st birthday details!