And finally, Life as a 1-Year-Old

She screams, is possibly more cantankerous than ever, but the kisses and the occasional full night of sleep and the watching her grow and learn and love and be loved is pretty awesome.

Daph discovered the drill from her brothers' tool bench, placed in her mouth and then squeezing the trigger, tickles and makes her laugh uncontrollably.

 And this is today.  Hello Baby Girl.  I love you, even if sometimes the only to have you hear reason is chocolate chips in small quantities.  I know, my mothering skills...but they are smart and healthy and we are working on the rest.

P.S.  We finally got her crib lowered...goes to show you her cautious nature.  Lily was diving head first out of hers at 9 months.  Daph made it safely to a year, and now we did preemptive safety precautions, because every Nicholes has the desire to dive eventually...I don't know why.  We also moved Shawn back into the room with Daphne.  He seemed to need to be babied a little more, to be near his mom and dad, and Daphne needed a buddy.  Perfect match (and did I mention the last 2/3 nights have been sleep all the way through ones.  Woot!

Ok, I am so caught up on things, as much as I care to be on this blog for now.  I must now prepare all the veg and meat for the rest of this week's meals.  Seriously, did I sign up for this whirlwind life?  Yes, yes, I did.

Lucas found my camera

There are all kinds of ways to be a knight in shining armor to your wife.  On the morning of Ben's birthday, Lucas went to the garage, dug around for awhile in the camp chairs (which were put away since the 4th of July) and Wala, I had a camera.  Half a year of my kids' lives without a real camera, using only my phone.  I may live to regret it but such is life, and what a treasure trove of pics were on that puppy.  Just a few to share!

 Mother's Day!

 Preschool Graduation for Ben

 Like father, like daughter.

 Father's Day!

 Neighborhood Swim Party

 The Fourth.  It was dark, okay!!!

Then my camera got lost.  :(

Valentine's Day

I will have my act together better next year, because I have important plans for such a day, but this year we KISSed, which is what I do best.

I had to work a full day on V Day, so I made cookies the day before, and the kids and I decorated them Saturday morning before I needed to work.  We had fun, of course.  Below are some of Lily's.  Shawn went frosting crazy, naturally, and grossed himself out, throwing his away.  After I finished work, I got the kids pizza and made them Cupid Float with Cherry 7-Up and a licorice straw.

 The day before V Day, Shawn, Daph and I braved being helpers at Matt's school party.  Look at HER!!!  The purple tutu completes me...when she's wearing it.

 Matthew is always so proud when I manage to make it to school to help.  He wanted to show me things and gave lots of hugs and kisses.

 Daph and Shawn honed their eating cheerios off the floor skills...keeps me humble, and I stopped most of it at least.

We Made It-52 Weeks!!!

And what a year it was...

Well, in case you can't tell, Daphne is the youngest.  I've heard all sorts of things about you have a million pictures of your first and then it all goes down hill from there.  We went a little crazy (for us at least) for Daphne's birthday.  We didn't go present crazy.  We didn't go decoration crazy.  We just went documentation crazy.  So lots of pictures...that's all I can say.

At a year, Daphne has 7 teeth (got her last one the week before she turned 1).  She is still unsure of the whole walking thing.  She loves to be cheered as she stands, but move those feet, no thanks!  She loves kisses and kissing and getting doted on...by each brother, her sister, her mom, and dad.  Her little language is so adorable.  She talks up a storm sometimes as she sits in her Dad's lap.  She loves to hunt Pluto kitty, who is ever so patient with her.  Basically, Daphne knows she is loved, and though she is definitely a diva, she is a doll as well.

Talk about full circle.  Lily and I started this chevron quilt for Daphne 2 days before she was born.  We finished it 3 days after she turned one.  I think it shows a huge amount of love that Lily did this for her sister.

About 2 weeks pre birthday, I became obsessed with Daphne getting a rag doll for her birthday.  I saw some very cute ones on Etsy and some crafty bloggers' sites I follow, but I couldn't rationalizing spending $40 on a beautiful display doll that my 1-year-old would trash.  Enter me making a doll because I totally had 2 days to play-around with a sewing machine.  Oh well, it was good for me.  I used all things we had around the house...except for stuffing and yarn for the hair.

 For Daphne's birthday I made a lemon blueberry cake with raspberry buttercream filling and lemon buttercream frosting.  It was very delicious but plain jane and intended for everyone BUT Daphne.  We knew the missionaries would be here that Monday night and would help us eat it up.  Then for Daphne we made a smash cake, wherewith I practice my weak piping skills but had a lot of fun since it was a no-pressure situation.

 Naturally, it couldn't have been a Daphne celebration without some serious tears.  In her defense, she jsut reaches for the candle, and Lily and I said, "No, no," because we didn't want her to get burnt.  Daphne does not like, "No!" but at least she was unharmed.

 After 5 minutes of serious crying, I soothed her into checking out her cake.  She soon decided face first was a good way to go...kept the hands clean for a minute at least.

 Daddy showing her the finished doll I made.  It was a good night, and a fabulous day to celebrate the milestone we've all made it to.

51 Weeks

Stinkin Picasa blog interface.  I can't get all my pics on for this and one other post, but I will say BIG WEEK for Daphne.  She learned to climb a whole flight of stairs, all at once, without me watching, which is scary but amazing.  Who knew she had it in her?  And she decided to start standing in the middle of the floor, and it was so adorable.  She's all in squat position and then carefully stands, still not completely upright and with her hands out just to be sure she is ready when she falls.  She smiles and squeals and loves the attention it gets her.  A funny thing about her this week is that it was the first week I've seen her get mad about wearing a dress.  She was feeling particularly curious at church and would crawl out into the hallway and disappear.  When she came back in, I could tell her scoot/crawl wasn't working so well with her dress.  She would sit every so often and just pull at her skirt and try to pull it over her head/off/anything to get rid of it because it was slowing her down.  Yep, girls, sometimes we have it a rough.