I’m sitting on my couch typing this at 7:45am, with one eye on the baby monitor because the birthday girl is still fast asleep, and I’m filled with so much gratitude.

I’m grateful that after an extremely hard year where we lost both of Camille’s grandfathers and our two first pregnancies, we were blessed with the easiest baby ever. Our lives since we got married have been a little bit of a crazy whirlwind, and this girl has brought some much needed peace and calm to that, surprisingly. She is gentle, quiet and patient, pretty much a carbon copy of her dad’s personality with his pretty blue eyes to boot.

And I’m grateful that she’s healthy. So so grateful. We’ve had our fair share of sickness recently and this is not something I take for granted. Even through teething, she’s happy. (She just doesn’t nap great those weeks!) But at night, she sleeps like a champ, and I’m grateful for that too.

One year ago today, at exactly this time, I was hooked up to all kinds of monitors and tubes as I paced in a L&D room at Woman’s Hospital. Eight hours and 26 minutes later, I was handed this sweet girl for the first time. In that very moment, I don’t remember anyone in the room talking except my doctor when he said, “They’ve waited a long time for this.” And the tears that were on the verge just rushed out. I don’t know if the “long time” he was talking about just meant the past 9 months, and I don’t know if he says that to everyone. He wasn’t my doctor for the 2 miscarriages and I wouldn’t expect him to remember that in the moment (but knowing him, he probably did.) But to me it meant everything. We had waited a long time for this. And I’m grateful that he said that.

In the year since then, I’ve watched this girl smile, cry, laugh, and learn so many new things. Lately it seems like she learns 3 new things every day. She wants to walk oh-so-badly but she’s not quite confident enough to let go of your hand. She still only army crawls for whatever reason, but as of yesterday got up on her hands for a good bit finally! Her favorite toys are her puzzles (she can put some of them back together) and balls (but not ball pits!) She loves peekaboo, dancing, knocking things over, and would stay outside all day long if we let her. She’s ticklish on her belly and my favorite thing to do is make her crack up during diaper changes. She says “baby” no less than 300 times a day, but also knows “puppy,” “mama” when she’s not happy, “bye,” and various other gibberish. She sings when she’s tired. She loves to eat, and her favorite food is rotisserie chicken and anything on the nearest adult’s plate. And last but not least, she melts my heart every time she gives me one of those sweet open mouth kisses, especially when I don’t ask for it and she just plants one on me out of the blue!

I have so many pictures to share, but I have to start off with her monthly pictures that I worked so dang hard for! You can see in the progression of her face how much she enjoyed this in the later months! But I’m so glad I stuck with it and got these even when it was a little difficult. The blanket and bear even made a trip with us to the camp in Fourchon once! This bear will always be so special to me, because it was made from one of my dad’s shirts in his favorite color!

It’s so crazy to see how much she’s grown from month 1 to month 12!

Last week, we did a little photoshoot and her smash cake and I’m not sorry for the crazy amount of photos I’m about to share.

We’re definitely in a climbing stage right now!

So the plan here was to put her IN the bucket…she wasn’t having it.

Y’all, she LOVES strawberries!! Loves. them.

And the very few I got from her party, along with some iPhone shots from a couple of guests! Kicking myself for not taking more of our family and friends!

Delicious cake from Shelby at Baking on the Bayou!

So looking forward to seeing what the next year holds! We love you so much, sweet girl!