Birthday Girl

Yesterday I stayed home from school to enjoy my girl's FIRST birthday - so glad I did! We started the day with some homemade apple-cinnamon muffins for breakfast, then hit up Kroger for a quick bit of grocery shopping. These two sweet older men were our baggers, and they serenaded Miss Anna with Happy Birthday while they bagged - she smiled and waved at the the entire time!

Aunt Melissa drove in from Cincinnati on her way back to Jacksonville, and she, Anna, and I spent the afternoon in downtown Franklin. We had lunch at Merridee's, where Anna had Melissa and I laughing over her incessant raspberry-blowing (she even shot a Goldfish out of her mouth on accident ... it was ridiculous!). Melissa gave Anna a stuffed cat (yet-to-be-named) that she carried around all day - she even shared Goldfish with it! I think it will be a favorite "baby."

Then we shopped around some of the cute crafty shops, getting inspired for future decorating projects ... a fun, girly afternoon!

We had the Naces over for dinner and Anna-sized brownie bites. Anna loved the singing and the candle (as you'll see in the second video). It was a fun night of celebrating our sweet girl.

The highlight of the evening was ANNA TAKING HER FIRST STEPS!!! Melissa and I had been joking earlier, and I had said, "Wouldn't it be cool if Anna took her first steps to you on her birthday?" Sure enough, that's what happened after dinner (it's almost like Anna did it on purpose). Melissa was holding out a toy, and Anna wanted it enough to let go of her death grip on the coffee table and take a few steps towards it. We all got to see it happen! Of course, Melissa and I got all weepy - it was such a special thing to share with everyone and made the night even more memorable. Jimmy was able to get this great video of Anna's second set of steps. My favorite part is how she starts clapping for herself at the end :-)

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Here's a video of us singing Happy Birthday:

We're excited for more celebrating with family in September! I'm going to post pictures of the day in another post ... I was just trying to get the walking video up as soon as I could!