Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

One year ago we were celebrating the quick arrival of Ms. Catherine Jennie:

 And today we'll be celebrating a year of smiles, laughter and change.   It's hard to believe this was just 11 months ago:

 10 months ago:

 9 months ago:

 8 months ago:

 7 months ago:

 6 months ago:

5 months ago:

 4 months ago:

 3 months ago (I love remembering how gorgeous this weekend was and how 3 months later it's still snowing!)

 2 months ago:

 1 month ago:

 And this week!  We happened to get a lot of biodegradable packing peanuts this week so I threw some into a laundry basket and let Catherine go to town!  I had grand plans of sticking all of them in the wading pool but got tired of having packing peanuts all over my floor real quick!  Anyway, Catherine had some fun and I just played around with my camera('s aperture if its not glaringly obvious in the poor quality of some of the pics) and got some fun pictures that capture her goofy personality and some of her very serious/silly expressions so here's a ridiculous number of pictures of our baby girl.  She's definitely a joy (when she doesn't have an ear infection!) and a total ham!

Goodness I love this girl and her wild hair, big smile and crazy personality!   It's been a busy year but a fantastic one and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  Catherine's gone from being a fairly quiet, easy-going baby to a rambunctious, hilarious near-toddler way too quickly.  She's fiercely independent yet a total cuddle bug.  Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

I'm a bit behind on sharing a few other photographic gems from the week but we've been busy explaining the difference between Matthew and Catherine's (and mommy's) birthday ALL.  WEEK.  LONG.  Explaining to a non-napping, partially-sick and cranky toddler that this week is a series of occasions where the world does not revolve around him and where cool things consistently happen to other people is about as much fun as it sounds.  I've been trying to get Matthew involved and he was definitely interested in helping make a cake:

Matthew picked the cake flavor ("pink for Caffrine") and we baked it in 1 round and 1 square pan.  Matthew's "declared" he will have the square one and Catherine, Mommy and Daddy can have the "oval" :-)