Happy Birthday, Peepers!

Martin and I have had dear, sweet, impish Emma in our lives for a whole year. A whole year of pursed-lip smiles with big, bright eyes snapping above. A whole year of wet kisses and slobbery salutations from the Queen of the Raspberries. A whole year of enjoying one chill little mama as she sits backs and enjoys the ride of life around her. As you can maybe tell, we're pretty besotted with the tyke.

She's getting to be quite the big girl, too. She says "Ma-ma" and "Da-da" and "bye-bye" and "uh-oh." She also likes to pull out a "muuhhh!" ("more") when asking for more food. She talks constantly with her hands, although I'm sad to report that we don't have a good video of it yet. She emphatically slices her left hand up and down next to her head. Very passionate. I think perhaps she's talking politics when she does it.

She's not walking yet, though. Quite the chicken on that front. Keep checking back, because I'm certain it could happen anytime. (Or it could not happen for months more as she continues to chicken out. Could easily go either way.)

Daddy pinches Emma.

Just give me some Kleenex to pull out of the box and a car to push, and I'm a happy girl.

Emma spent her birthday discovering the joys of crawling around the Cozy Coupe. In, out, in, out. Up, down, up, down. Push, pull, push, pull. (Susan -- Doesn't Eliza's outfit look adorable on her?)

Emma was in charge of putting the star on the tree this year.


Emma digs in to her birthday cupcake.


Poor Emma is always blinded by that cursed orange light our camera sends out before pictures. I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn it off. Help, anyone? (In the meantime, notice how Emma is so smart that not only is she reading at age 1 but she can read upside-down. We're pretty proud.)