Happy 1st Birthday Karina!

It's hard for us to believe that yesterday was Karina's 1 year birthday. She has gotten so big so quickly! Although she has her ups and downs, she is a wonderful and happy little girl. Now that we have her, we can't imagine life without her. Happy birthday to our princess who is now a walking toddler!

Karina enjoyed opening up her presents and playing with her new toys. She even understood the concept of banging these plastic pieces with her new hammer.



She was also eager to help assemble her bead maze (or perhaps tear it apart before it was assembled properly).


Here she is concentrating hard while walking her cute, unbalanced walk:


An expert clapper:


I made her a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for her big day. Nothing fancy, but it tasted good.


Karina liked it too, though she didn't eat particularly much of her piece.


Life is good when you have a fun walker to push around the house. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see all her seven teeth.


Karina has the habit of stuffing her mouth with as many pieces of food as she can fit in. Of course she also ends up spitting out half the pieces because she can't chew that much at once. The grilled cheese sandwich didn't have a chance against her:


Daddy is exciting when he holds her upside down:


We also made another attempt to get our front and back yards looking a little better. We bought two new azaleas for the front to replace ones that have been dead/dying for quite a while and put in new mulch. Also we are trying to get the grass to grow better. This is especially true in the back yard where there basically isn't any grass under the deck, among other places. We bought about a third a ton of soil (literally), grass seed that grows in 'dense shade' and covered the whole thing in straw to keep it protected. Hopefully Snoopy will have a nice green backyard soon!




Today Karina also had a horrible doctor's visit. She got 3 shots in her thighs, and she had 2 vials of blood drawn:-( It took forever for the woman drawing the blood to find a suitable vein in either tiny arm, with her poking and pressing Karina's inner elbow like crazy. Karina even had the tight rubber piece tied around her upper arm. It was a grueling experience for such a tiny person. She just kept screaming and screaming.

As far as her measurements go, she is in the 95th percentile for head circumference (47 cm), slightly above the 50th percentile for height (29 1/4 inches), and between the 25th and 50th percentiles for weight (20 lbs 6 oz). Those percentiles are similar to where she has been the last several visits.

Happy Toddlerhood to our little princess!