Scarlett Turns 1!

Family Christmas photo shoot

Scarlett turned 1 year on New Year's Eve. We had family over for a red and zebra themed party. I couldn't resist making a red velvet zebra cake, even though 1st birthdays are more traditionally princess, animal or cartoon themed. Scarlett thoroughly enjoyed digging into the cake and savoring the cream cheese frosting. She loved all of her gifts, especially a little pink stroller that she uses to happily push her dolly around the house.

The past month or so, Scarlett has started to do a lot of new, fun things. We are seeing a lot more of her personality and she seems much more like a little girl than a baby. Here are a few highlights from the past few months......

• 9 months - Our baby decided crawling was less efficient and started walking! After a week or two of falling a lot and sea legs, she now keeps us busy running around the house.
• Scarlett has become quite the copycat lately. She loves to take sips from her bottle or sippy cup and follow it up with a very exaggerated and refreshing, "ahhh." She saw us do this a few times and adopted it as her own. She loves to mimic everyday actions like talking on the phone, picking up a brush and brushing her hair, scrubbing the floor with a rag like mom, etc. She loves to "pop her hands" to Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree, and mimic patty-cake.
• Although she doesn't have many words yet, besides "yea" and "wow," I'm amazed at how much she can understand while being able to speak so little. She can respond appropriately to, "share your dolly with daddy, where's the light, block, etc." It always surprises me when she follows commands so readily because I mistakenly assume her understanding is limited like her speech.
• Her favorite thing as of late, is to waltz with Daddy to the Sleeping Beauty Theme Song. Whenever Micah stops waltzing, Scarlett picks up his hand, places hers in the correct position and starts "singing" to get him to keep going. She loves her dad and runs to meet him at the door when he returns from school.
• She enjoys games of chase and being thrown onto a mound of bed pillows. She will often approach us and put her head down on the floor with bottom in the air to get help with a summersault.
• The last few weeks she loves to point at everything she finds interesting. I use the term interesting liberally because she seems to point to everything from blank walls to pinatas in the store. Sometimes she runs around the house with both pointer fingers stretched out so she's prepared in case she runs into something notable along the way.
• She's surprisingly accurate at "singing" the melody of the songs we sing to her. She has mastered the "wee-ooh, wee-ooh," part of "In the Jungle."
• Scarlett loves music and dancing and will stop immediately in her tracks when a song comes on to shake her little hips, bob her head, and bounce up and down to the beat.
• She has a great appetite and devours almost all foods. Surprisingly though, she is not overly fond of sweet fruits and prefers peas, beans, carrots, butternut squash, etc. She is a huge fan of her morning, "baby omelet."
• We love that Scarlett feels she has to be a part of everything Mom and Dad are doing. If we leave the room, she always follows to see if we are doing anything exciting. If we use the computer she drops what she is doing to climb up on our laps and participate. If Micah and I hug, she comes over and wraps her little arms around both of us. She circles the kitchen table like a vulture hoping for scraps of food from our plates and protests until we pick her up and share our meal. We love that she likes to "share," and brings and shows us toys and holds out smashed blueberries or black beans for us to eat also.
• Currently her favorite toy is her little doll. When we ask, "Where's dolly?" She quickly scans the room, locates dolly and rushes over to snatch her up. She seems to know how to take care of dolly and gives her hugs, kisses and replaces her pacifier when needed.
• Although the first few months of life she existed as a chubby, round-faced baby, she is now tall and slender for her age. It remained a mystery for most of her first year, but we can now officially pronounce her big eyes, brown.