ONE YEAR.

It still seems surreal to me.  An entire year has gone by since I gave birth to our sweet girl in San Antonio.  Hard to believe that this time last year, we were still in the hospital; Nic was almost finished with his Nurse Transition Program, and we were preparing to make the drive back to Lubbock.  Since then, we've moved across the country, made new friends, Nic started a new job, we joined a new church and small group, and have gotten pregnant again.  My, what a year. 

The thing that's most surreal about it is how far Audra has come.  The cliche "they grow up so fast" definitely rings true.  She's really not much of a baby anymore.  She's a toddler.  She's walking, and doing things on her own.  Of course, she needs my help with nearly everything; but not like she did when she was first born.  When Nic and I sang "Happy Birthday" I felt a little tear-y just thinking about how she'll never be the tiny little girl we brought home again... from here on, she only gets bigger.  Of course, I know that's a good thing, it's all just happened so fast.

All about our newly-one-year-old-Audra:
Motor Development: 
She's walking, pretty much like a pro.  She can cross the entire length of the house, and definitely gets to where she's going.  She walks a lot more than she crawls.  Crawling is still faster, though, so if she's on a mission she'll resort to crawling.  

Talking:
She can say:  mama, dada, hi, bye-bye, nigh-nigh (night-night), bobble (bottle), and whoa.  The funniest of these is "whoa."  Her timing with it is perfect.  Just a few minutes ago, she vigorously shook the bag that holds all of her plastic Easter eggs (still a favorite toy despite it not being Easter anymore), and all the eggs went flying everywhere.  She looked around and said, "Whoa."  On her birthday, she was being crazy and shaking her head back and forth really fast (can you say too much sugar?).  She lost her balance and fell backwards then immediately rolled to her stomach and said, "Whoa."  She's quite the crack-up.  I don't know where she got "whoa," since I don't think I say it too often, but maybe I'm wrong. 

Favorite "toys":  Of course, most of her favorite things to play with are non-toys (which is why we don't buy all too many of them ourselves).

• Her very most favorite thing to play with is the dishwasher.  She loves to splash around in the wetness that falls out of clean dishes.  She will also take out most of what she can reach while we're loading the dishwasher... which is why we now load it while she's sleeping or eating, or super distracted.  (Though as soon as she hears us doing dishes, she races over to the kitchen haha.)  
• Her next favorite thing to play with is probably any paper product, most specifically toilet paper.  It really sucks if we accidentally leave the bathroom door open haha.  
• After that I would say she loves things with buttons; especially any remote or phone she can get a hold of. 
• Of her toys, she will sometimes play with the little blocks we got her for her birthday.  She enjoys putting them in and taking them out of the bucket.  (She generally enjoys putting anything in and taking anything out of a space.)  
• As mentioned above, she still likes to play with her Easter eggs.  
• She has figured out how to gracefully get out of her little kid armchair that her Lolli (Nic's mom) got her.  She used to just throw herself out of it, which was funny to watch.  Now she knows how to get both feet on the ground and stand up.  So lately, she's been doing that over and over.  
• She often opens her books and will "read" them.  This is super cute to watch. 
  
  It's been a lot of fun to watch her learn through play. 

Eating:
She is trying nearly everything we eat, not always liking everything at first.  We rarely feed her pureed food anymore.  She's good at feeding herself finger foods, and is getting decent as using a spoon when we're in a mood to let her get messy.  She's not a huge fan of vegetables unless they're seasoned in some way, and I don't blame her.  ;)

Temperment:
She's a pretty easy-going baby.  She wakes up happy, and will stay happy throughout the day if all of her needs are met within a reasonable amount of time.  She really enjoys getting out of the house and being around people.  She's most in her element when she's interacting with others.

Sleep:
She takes one nap a day around 11 or 12, and sleeps for 1.5-2 hours.  She goes to bed between 7 and 8 and sleeps about 11 hours straight.  We've found a correlation between amount of calories consumed in a day and the time she wakes up in the morning.  The more we feed her, the later she sleeps.  She's usually awake by 6:15 or 6:30; 7:00 or 7:30 if she ate a lot the day before.
  
One whole year of getting to know this girl.  I couldn't dream up a more perfect child for us if I tried.