Happy Birthday Ruby!

(brace yourself for gratuitous praise and prolific first birthday footage from a very proud mommy)

Today Ruby turned 1. neither of us can believe it. Now that she is walking EVERYWHERE life is different, but it's also tons of fun. Her personality has developed so much in the last 3 months, it's unbelieveable. There is no mistaking what she wants or doesn't want, and she has no trouble deciding which way she feels about it either :) She says "hi" and waves now.. to everyone, which is adorable. And she wants to know what everything is. Her favorite games are 1) opening and closing doors—especially if someone is on the other side, and 2) opening and closing drawers, and exploring what's inside them. Apparently our blue travel toothbrush holder has more value than we ever imagined. She's also developed what we affectionately refer to as her "maniacal laugh", which we both believe comes from the opposite side of the family.

We had lots of fun celebrating her birthday today, it was a pseudo snow day, so she was at home all day, part of the time with mommy, and then later mom and dad switched, and mommy went to work and daddy stayed home with Ruby. But, we had a blast waking her up in the morning, check it out:

Untitled from Ben Saunders on Vimeo.

and, we had a delicious birthday smoothie for breakfast. it's a new favorite. THen we opened a few gifts, and played. Ruby got some really fun looking bath toys from her auntie rachel, uncle chad and cousin Syd, they know she looooooves bath time :) and some sweet sweats from her great gramps and great grams. Ben is SO happy any time he can dress her in sweats :)
Later on in the day there was cake eating as well. We were incredibly proud and dumb-founded at the same time by what we witnessed. it was like it was destiny for ruby and the cake to meet. videos from that soon :)
it was a great day. and even though i've been a little weepy the last few days thinking about how i'm grieving the end of Ruby as a baby, i'm also incredibly grateful for the amazing year that God gifted to us with Ruby. And I'm super-excited for the next year!!! I can't wait to see how she'll surprise us, delight us, challenge us and humor us :)