The big 4-0!

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday. It started off with a surprise visit from Doug at school. He walked in the door between 1st and 2nd hours with a card, balloons, Hydrangea, milk duds for me (my favorite!) and Herhsey kisses for all of my students. He is now quite popular with my students. Friends and family had flowers and cookies delivered to school and more cards, gifts, and still more flowers were waiting for me at home. I asked Doug for a quiet night with just the three of us, Chinese food, and a rented movie. It was perfect! I am so happy to be living another year in this blessed life!

We have a walker!

Mati has been walking behind push toys for awhile now, a few weeks ago she started taking a few steps on her own between close pieces of furniture, Tuesday night 9/22... she took off! It was as if she forgot she needed a prop to hold and just started walking. She walked all over the living room last night, walked around day care today and is walking more tonight. She is so proud of herself; she walks around laughing. You'll see in this quick 10 second video...

Silly Daddy

Doug loves to invent new ways to entertain Mati. From putting puzzle pieces in an old blueberry container for a shaker toy to flying her around like a plane to falling over pretending to get run over by her toy car, he'll do anything for a smile from his little girl. Here's the latest... he put a bed pillow on our long bar counter in the kitchen and then slid Mati back and forth on it. As you can see, she loves it!

Miss Independent

Now that we have a full-fledged one-year-old she is embracing the "I can do it myself" independence that comes with the age. Mati loves "using" a spoon. I would put her on the spoon to in the mouth food ratio at about 1:20; but she's tenacious! She will eat anything you give her in a bowl with her own spoon. The look of pride she has is amazing... it probably helps that mom and dad applaud and cheer "Yea Mati" when she succeeds at feeding herself. Its still a little hard to believe that we can skip the baby food section at the grocery store. Time really does fly.

Lions and Tigers and Lemurs, Oh My!

Back to the zoo! The whole family celebrated the end of summer with a trip to the zoo. The animals were really active so Mati enjoyed the sights much more this time. We made it in time for feeding time in the feline house. The male lion had just been fed a cow leg... wow!

Happy Birthday Mati!

Mati is 1!

While I was sad to have to go back to work on Mati's birthday and take her back to day care she ended up having an awesome day. She got to play with all of her day care friends and the dogs she loves! The elementary age girls made her a birthday hat (bottom picture) and she got to have a special treat, baby gold fish and sugar cookies! When she got home we took her monthly picture and daddy took her for a tractor ride (middle picture.) She loves riding on the tractor to the point that if she hears our tractor (or the neighbor's lawn mower) she crawls to the window and peeks out looking for Dad to take her for a ride.