1 Year Old!!

First off, I can't believe this little girl has been with us for a year. In some ways, it has flown by. In other ways, it feels like she has always been a part of our family.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to celebrate in a way she deserves. Will she remember it? No. But, she has definitely grown and learned a lot in the past 12 months, and that is absolutely worthy of a big celebration! June has by far been the craziest month of the year for us, so her birthday kind of took the back seat.

Justin has been working hard on getting things ready in our house so we can move. I've helped when I can with work, but it definitely was not as much as I would have liked. We definitely appreciate all the help we've gotten from family during the past month.

We also got to take a quick trip to Nauvoo to celebrate Jordan's and Aubrey's wedding. Minus me hitting a raccoon and breaking the A/C in our car...it was a nice trip :)  Staci was kind enough to take some year pictures of Evalyn for us.

Evalyn was definitely a trooper. She still managed to give some smiles even though she had been outside in the 100-degree weather all day, without a nap.  I like this one because this is actually the face we get to see most of the time. She thinks most everything is funny, and she tries to get us to laugh at her.

We found out at Evalyn's year wellness check that she is still in the 90th-percentile for height. She's got proud parents about that. She is 80th-percentile for weight. I was surprised, because I think she is pretty solid and thought it would be more. Justin thinks she is slacking :)  She seems to be able to eat non-stop. But, she still hates being fed by utensils (unless she can do it herself). 

The weekend after her birthday, we did a cake smash. Since we're in the process of moving and didn't really even have a place to invite people over for cake, we just did a private photo shoot :) We took a break from working on the house for a few minutes to capture the moment.

Evalyn enjoyed her cake, but has had too much practice eating with her hands, so she kept herself pretty clean.

And, I forgot to take the cake out of the fridge earlier. It was cold and not very "smash" friendly.

Since we were working on the house all that day, Evalyn got to open her presents the next day (talk about an extended birthday).  She got a book...she will always get a book...

...and a baby. She LOVES babies right now.

Again, I can't believe how much this girl has grown over the past year. I'm savoring every moment, moving between being excited for the next stage and what she will learn next, and lamenting that fact that she is no longer my baby. I was holding her tonight just wondering to myself how much longer she's going to fit into my arms, and for a brief moment I just wanted her to stay little forever.  Yes, more babies will come (hopefully), but SHE will never be a baby again. And I miss it already.