Happy 1st Birthday, Kensley!!!

Well this day snuck up on us much faster than we anticipated. We can’t believe our baby girl is 1 year old!  Where did the past year go??!!

Kensley is such a joy and we’ve loved watching her grow throughout the past year. She is learning so much so quickly and it’s fun to watch her personality emerge more every day.

How big is Kensley....SOOOO BIG!

Kens and Mommy were able to celebrate the big birthday together today. After a nap and lunch, we spent the afternoon at the Children’s Museum (the membership was an early birthday present from Nana and Papa).  We had a nice girls day out together, but were excited to celebrate with daddy after work.  Here's a little about what Kensley is up to these days.

Where's your belly button?

Kens loves to walk and in the past week has seemed to develop more confidence. She is walking all over the house all the time. There are still times when she loses her balance or gets too excited and takes off too quickly, but I think it’s safe to say we have a definite walker on our hands.  It's still kind of crazy to me to see her walk right by us.

Here lately we’ve noticed more of a shy side to Kensley. While we’ve always attributed it to stranger anxiety, we think she has a little shy side to her. She seems to take a few minutes in new situations to warm up to new people or family she hasn’t seen in a while. She definitely seems to be more comfortable in smaller groups of people.

Where are your ears?

Despite being a little shy, she still loves to be out and about and is quite the social butterfly when in the comforts of the grocery cart or close to mommy. She likes to greet fellow shoppers with smiles or her throaty scream/cough (hard to describe unless you’ve heard it).  She also loves other kids and loves to follow them around.

Clapping her hands.

Kensley loves her books! Her latest thing is that she’ll pick out a book that she wants us to read and holds it up or brings it to us to read. It’s so cute as she has to sit on our lap in order to read the book. She, of course, has her favorite books so we can basically recite them from memory now.

Kensley is still maintaining her usual sleeping patterns. 2 naps a day and bedtime around 7 – 7:30 p.m. and up between 6:30 – 7:00 a.m. We’re currently trying to wean her of her paci’s and have limited them to only naptime and bedtime (Does that make the Speech Pathologist proud???). They now remain in her crib at all times (with the few exceptions when we need a back-up plan and we’re out of the house…specifically when Kens goes to the nursery at church).

Kensley is recognizing more objects now by name and will often point out or look for it when we mention it.  Daddy is teaching her body parts during bathtime and she can now point out her ears, belly button, feet and Mommy/Daddy's nose. 

We feel so blessed by this little girl and are so grateful to have her a part of our lives.  We can't imagine our lives without her.  Although we want her to always remain our "baby", we are excited to watch her grow.

 Happy 1st Birthday, Kensley Elise!  We love you!!!