Gracie is 1

What an amazing year it has been. To be honest I am so glad that I have kept this blog. As many of you know I don't have that great of a memory, so this will provide documentation to Gracie as she gets older and starts to ask me questions about her first year. Her birthday celebration started a little early with a cake the night before her birthday. We will just say the cake wasn't good enough to provide Gracie incentive to smash the cake in her face.

The birthday morning started out very nice with her sleeping in a bit. Daddy was off to church to serve while my folks came over to help prep for the party. Grandpa kept Gracie busy while my Mom and I got things ready. The decorations were minimal, cake provided by Aunt Michelle, and many friends to celebrate with.

The cake could take a whole page of the blog to explain how amazing Michelle's hard work looked. Here are a couple photos of the bear cake with the mini smash cake. It was almost too perfect to cut. Gracie was completely spoiled by her Aunt with this amazing cake that could have been in contention on Ace of Cakes!

Gracie didn't really enjoy the smash cake nearly as much as we thought she would. Like us, I think she didn't want to ruin the amazing cake. Here are photos of her starting to enjoy the cake before we had to run inside due to the rain that started that quickly stopped after the huge rush into the house.

There were two traditions we started this day. First I made a plate at a pottery store that we will use for celebrations to come. Gracie's first birthday cake as served on this platter. Second we took from the Korean tradition and had Gracie select an item from a tray of different objects to help tells us what her future will hold. Items like a hammer - judge or carpenter, ball - sports, money - wealth, calculator - finance, photo - photographer, were on the tray and our lady picked the money. There are worse things she could have chosen.

We were able to enjoy celebrating with family and friends. Gracie is loved by so many people that we feel completely blessed to be in our lives.

Gracie's big achievements:

• As of today Gracie is using about 10 words: mama, dada, uh oh, dog, ball, ollie, out, up, quack (just she ck sound) hi, and is working on bye.


• Today was a huge day of milestones: she signaled all done with her hands up in the air.


• SHE TOOK HER FIRST UNASSISTED STEPS!! Baylor was enjoying some Cheerios that she wanted to share, so she walked a couple steps to him. Here is a photo afterwards.

• Gracie is 19lbs, 10oz (25%), and 90% on height. She is long and lean like her daddy.
• She loves to wave, say hi to people, blowing kisses and giving high 5s.
• The girl will eat pretty much anything without teeth. I can only hope she is getting them or she is completely taking after Brandy and her drooling.

Looking back to one year ago it is so hard to imagine our life without Grace. She continues to be the light of our life and what we focus our time on. Her smile brings such joy to every person she meets. There is nothing more that I love then coming into her room, after hearing her say mama over and over in the monitor, and seeing her standing at the edge of her crib just smiling and motioning for milk. How can you not love your daughter giving you the biggest open mouth kiss with a little lick from her tongue to show you how much she loves you?!?! Daddy might get a little nervous knowing that his little lady just give her buddy Baylor a big lick kiss as well. The girl loves everyone.

Thank you all for celebrating our daughter's life! She is a gift from God that we are thankful for everyday.