at twelve-ish months...

how do you pick just one? or five even? or shoot...ten? maybe you can. but i can't. so. here's twenty-one. yes, twenty-one pictures from my sweet girl's one year shoot. can't get enough of her. these pictures were taken closer to thirteen months but i'll try to keep the observations about her and her character closer to twelve months...

at one, she is:

so very smiley...

 still so small. she's on the bottom end of the spectrum for both weight and height. petite. like her mama.

 not walking yet. she can go though. and does. she'll grab anything she can, a dining room chair, a random cardboard box, any of the push toys we seem to accumulate, one of her brother's larger trucks...whatever she can find to push across the floor to get herself where she wants to go. if she can't find anything to push, crawling will suffice. she COULD walk, if she wanted to. but other than a few steps here and there, she apparently doesn't have the desire for a pied travel .

 she is learning how to make her siblings laugh. she does this crazy, blinking face that they find hilarious. she pulls it out at least once during every meal time, so proud of herself for the ensuing reaction.

 in addition to not walking on her own, she also doesn't say very many words. her vocabulary is limited to "ah-wa" (water), "da-da" (of course), "lie-jah" (elijah), "baba" (bye), "buh-buh" (bum) and "pooh" (for pooh bear and sometimes poop. nice. i know.). but, given the chance, she will chat your ear off. you will have no idea what she's saying, but as long as you nod, smile and insert the appropriate, "uh huh's", she'll continue. so wish there was such a thing as a baby translator. her soliloquies sound so interesting!

 she is a chow hound, of course. just like her siblings were at her age. something about turning one and they all started eating everything put in front of them while snagging snacks off the floor or from mommy's plate, whichever is easier at the time.

 she is so. very. busy. into everything, she just bops from one activity to the next, leaving a wake of debris behind her. kitchen towels, toys, plastic lids, shoes, socks, etc. i am forever following behind her, picking things up off the floor.

 unlike her siblings, she's still nursing several times during the day. well...i should rephrase that. she typically nurses once before bed, once in the middle of the night and once first thing in the morning. i so wish she would start skipping that middle of the night feeding! mommy wants to sleep through the night again...

 she adores her brother and sister and of course wants to be doing whatever they are doing. she usually plops herself down right in the middle of their game, right on top of the book they were reading or snatches their toys straight out of their hand. this is hardly acceptable to the older two; they are forever running up to me (tears in lu's eyes typically) to report her latest infraction. it's so very hard to have a one year old sister that adores you, apparently.

 she will rarely sit still to listen to a book being read, which saddens me, of course. but both the older two went through this very same stage. i'm hoping she grows out of it soon. there's nothing i love more that a cuddle with my babies and their books.