Holly is 1!

Happy Birthday to our Baby Girl! It’s absolutely amazing how quickly this year has gone for us. It seems like yesterday that we were posting about bringing Holly home. And what a fun year it’s been! Holly is an amazing little girl. Here is what she is doing at 1:

She has several words that she can say, these include: light, button, kitty, doggie, duckie, Daddy, Mama, Nana, hi, yeah, necklace, monkey, kick and ball. She can also meow like a cat. She understands a ton more than what she can actually say, and will happily fetch a book, or one of her toys when asked to get them. She can point to her head, feet, and ears when asked where they are, and points to our nose when asked where that is. She can also sign “all finished” and “more”, and is working on “milk” and”water”

She is a walking maniac. She started walking about a month ago, and it is now her main means of getting around. She loves to walk so much that when we set her down on the floor, she starts to laugh.

She’s also an excellent dancer, and will sway back and forth or bounce up and down whether there is music playing or not, she’ll often sing to herself and dance along with the song she is making up. When she wants us to play something, she will sing and dance, then look at us.

She prefers finger food to pureed baby food now, and makes it clear that she is ready to eat on her own, usually by bursting into tears when she sees the jar of baby food. She’ll eat almost anything, and will try any new food we put in front of her. she may not always like it, but she’ll always give it a taste at least once.

She is a very happy girl, but she is also highly opinionated, and if she isn’t getting what she wants she’ll let you know in no uncertain terms. But she is easily pleased and it really doesn’t take much to make her happy, a book, a toy, or several kisses to the belly usually does the trick.

She loves people and will wave and say “hi” to perfect strangers on the street. She loves animals and gets wiggly and excited whenever she sees one, whether it be a cat, dog, or even pigeons.

Books are her favorite toy, and she will frequently ask to be read to. She likes to flip the pages herself, and points to the pictures and asks “Dah?”, to which we dutifully answer “pig”, “dog”, “flower”, etc.

Holly is a joy and we are so happy she is in our lives. Here are a few pictures of the last year.

Introducing. . .

Holly Josephine!

Born July 28th, 2010. 8lbs, 14oz. Healthy and gorgeous, with all 10 fingers and toes. And she’s ours!

How it all happened: Today at about 4pm we got a call from our social worker telling us that there was an “instant baby” born yesterday. This means that the birth mother hadn’t contacted the agency until after the baby was born. We agreed to show her our family book, and about two hours later, she’d picked us and we were on our way to the hospital. We meet her birth mom and family and got to hold her. Man, did I mention she’s gorgeous? We don’t get to bring her home until Saturday, but we’ll get to spend all day tomorrow with her at the hospital. We’re very much in shock and so happy!

More later when things have calmed down a bit. As of right now, it’s 2:00 AM and this is how we feel:

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Birthday presents for baby and me

I recently celebrated my 30th birthday. This year we asked our family and friends not to give us gifts for birthdays and Christmas, but to instead give us the money they would have spent on gifts to go in our adoption fund. Everyone has been really great about it, but it sometimes gets boring just writing cards and checks. So, my sister and parents decided to get sneaky. They hid the checks in presents for the baby! My mom bought us a beautiful, handmade baby sling, with a satin Asian print on one side and cotton yellow and pink daisies on the other. And my sister found the cutest little maryjanes in an Asian print. Joel got a great Sandra Boynton board book wrapped around his birthday check from my sister (Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!). There was one “check carrier” that was just for me, my folks got me a hot pink skin for my Razr phone 😉

Thanks for all the fun stuff, best 30th ever! Here are some pics of the shoes and sling:

Shoes from Kate’s sisterSling from Kate’s mom