Wow - 1 year old!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I held my tiny, precious, wrinkly Lara Grace for the first time. Now she is a full-fledged, independent, running, babbling toddler! Click here to look back at the day she was born and see how much she’s changed!

This has been the best year of my life (and the hardest!)  I have loved every second of being a mom, and so enjoyed watching Lucas become a GREAT dad!

Here are some highlights from this last month:

• Lara has 5 teeth – 3 on the top and 2 on the bottom. The fourth one on the top will be here any day!

• This month Lara has really picked up on signing! She added ‘drink’, ‘eat’, ‘milk’, ‘book’, ‘nap’ and her new favorite, ‘please’ to her signing vocabulary! We’re working on ‘thank-you’ now, but it is looking very similar to her blowing a kiss... so we’ll have to work on distinguishing the two!

• Lara will now show what a fish says when asked in either English or Portuguese (or when she shes a fish! So funny! :-) Make sure to ask her next time you see her! She will say what a dog and duck say about 50% of the time. She’s really starting to mimic sounds, so I expect there to be more animal noises coming soon ;-)

• Her favorite book is her DOG book that her Granna and Granpa got her (she wants to read it at least 30 times a day, seriously – After a while I have to find a hiding place for it!)

• Her favorite toy is her new Leap Frog cell phone! She thinks it is just about the best thing ever. We talk on the phone a lot

• She’s getting much better at playing with her friends. Her friend Jace came over one day and they played together for over an hour in her new carseat box! It was just about the cutest thing ever!

• She has really started saying things that sound like real words. She is so funny. She will look at me and “say” full sentences using her hands and eyebrows. Cracks me up! She can say Dada, Hailey, Hey, Oi (hi in Portuguese), Tchau (Bye in Portuguese), Bye, Book, Juice and Duck for sure. There are many other words that I think she is saying, but not consistently enough for me to say that they are real words! She still rarely says Mama, but she will at least look for me now when asked where Mommy is!

• She had her first big fall this month... :-( I strapped her into her high chair, which was apparently not attached to the chair. We all three cried for a while after the fall, but once the bleeding stopped, all she had was a cut gum and a swollen cheek. So thankful that it wasn’t worse!

• She is switching to her new big girl carseat when we get back from Brazil! I’m sure that she will enjoy sitting up more and being able to see out of the car!

• Lara had her 1st LadyBug Birthday Party! She celebrated with lots of friends and family, had her first real taste of sugar when she DESTROYED her cake (don’t worry, many pictures will be coming soon!), and learned how to open WAY too many presents....

• She is really starting to understand everything that is going on around her, and I’m pretty sure she will be talking my ear off soon!

• Her personality is really starting to shine! She is just such a sweet natured little girl!

• She is moving up to the next class at school at the beginning of the year. In this new class they eat lunch and snacks at a table with real chairs, sleep on cots (good luck to them! Ha!) and start working on potty training. When did my little girl get so BIG?!

I am looking forward to seeing what this next year holds!  We leave the day after Lara's birthday for our trip to Brazil!  It should be interesting with a VERY mobile 1 year old...