Happy Birthday Annie-B!

This is the most important birthday I've ever experienced. And having travelled once around the sun with Annabelle, from her birth to 365 days later, I have a better understanding of what it means.

No Betty Crocker here...from scratch!

Colin and I were trying to remember, at various moments today, what we would have been doing exactly 1 year ago. Were we learning to bathe Annabelle? Trying to take a nap through all the hospital buzz? Trying to nurse (ouch)? Visiting with family and friends? Talking to the doctor? Staring at the baby? Most likely staring at the baby...

The details of the days following Annabelle's birth are a bit fuzzy, but one thing we agree on was that beautiful rosy post-birth glow. It softened the whole crazy, human experience, making it in retrospect, romantic. I believe that feeling is Love, true unadulterated LOVE; a one-way outpouring of emotion unlike anything I've felt before. Colin felt it too. And at moments we still feel it.

Well, today we celebrated Annabelle's first birthday. It was a simple affair, at the park near our home, with family and friends, playing some pick-up sports as the baby was passed from one set of arms to another. I guess maybe not such a baby anymore! It was a perfect day in Toronto, and exactly the kind of celebration we wanted: simple and outside.

Annabelle with her cousin Addison. I have a feeling that we're going to have to watch these two.

For first birthday parties, the Brooks family has a tradition of giving the baby their own cake; they get to go nuts, hands covered in icing and tastebuds in heaven. Sometimes the babies are weirded out by the experience (my nephew was scared of his cake), and others are all in.

Well, it seems that Annie has been waiting her whole life to eat that cake. Once we put a tiny taste of it in her mouth, she simply planted her face into the first layer. She then proceeded, to the great delight of her "audience" to lick the icing off the top. After awhile, I put a stop to the madness; I'm afraid that her first experience with sugar was a success.

Annie practicing for her first pie-eating contest.

So, Happy Birthday Annabelle! Or Annie, or Annie-B, A-B, Annie-Banany, Bananabelle, Adorabelle, Mud-Puddle, Peanut, Monkey-Doodle...whatever we call you, you're the best. THE BEST. Thanks for the most exciting year of my life. So far :)

'Til next time,

Caroline