Krewe de Speyrer: Best Year Ever!!

Well, it's finally here. Our Kate turned one today. It's hard to believe how fast this year has flown by. Nick and I both have been overwhelmed repeatedly with love, joy and awe at this amazing little person that we created. Each day has seemed to get better and better as we have watched Kate turn from a baby to a little girl with quite a personality (and a little bit of attitude), a smile that melts our hearts and plenty of love to share with us and the rest of her extended family. We simply cannot get enough of her. Nick and I fight daily over who gets to be the one who gets her out of bed (you can't have a bad day if you do...she greets you with a big smile, a bounce or a little dance move and a big ole "Heey!") and who gets to put her to bed (to get all the great snuggles). We are looking forward to the many years ahead!

Now for recent stats--Kate is weighing in at 26.6 lbs. She's still not just walking all over the place but she's getting better and better at it every day. We think that she's not so determined to walk because she's such a good, fast crawler...and she's impatient like her Daddy. When she wants to get somewhere she doesn't have the patience to take her time and walk so she drops down and crawls. But she can do it and walks across the room at least once a day. Kate is also jabbering like a motor mouth. I sure do wish I knew what all she had to say! Some of the recent recognizable words are "Uh Oooh!" and she's uses it correctly when she drops something in the floor, "Hot!" which she says for things that are indeed hot but also for things that are cold and for things that we're not quite sure why she's saying hot, kind of a mix between "woof" and "boof" for what a dog says, and "Heeey!" as a greeting to everyone she sees. Kate is blowing kisses like crazy. She has a funny way of kissing the back of her hand with a "Mwah". She can also give a soft high five and wave bye-bye and/or night-night.

I am posting some pictures from her birthday today, which was pretty low key. Kate just hung out with me, Nick and Nonna, who's here spending the week. Kate's birthday party with family and friends is this weekend and there will be more pictures to come from those festivities.

We started off the day with Kate's current favorite breakfast, homemade waffles.

We ended the day similar to how we started except with a yummy cupcake. We thought that the practice with the candle might be a good thing. Kate wasn't too impressed by it.

Kate also wasn't too impressed with the cupcake. She really hasn't had hardly any sweets at all so I think it was just so different she didn't know what to think. This picture was after her first taste of the icing.

So just for a little fun--below are 1 year old pictures of all 3 of these Speyrers. My mom (Nonna) got us into this because she brought down pictures from my first year and subsequent birthdays up to 10 years old. I think it's obvious who is who in the pictures below. It has been been interesting that EVERYONE thinks that Kate looks just like Nick, but after seeing these pictures I think she looks a little more like her Momma than most people think. You be the judge...

And finally for the grand finale of the first First Birthday post, I have attached a video slideshow of Kate's first year. For those that keep up with our blog it is kind of a "best of" slideshow of pictures and videos from blog posts with a few "never before seen" pictures buried in there. I think this will probably be a version #1 because I plan to go back and add in pictures from the birthday party this weekend but I just couldn't wait to share. It has been in process for over a month and we watch it daily around here because Kate LOVES to see herself on the video. It's a little long (about 7 minutes) but of course we think its totally worth it!! Hope you enjoy!