It's hard to believe it's been a whole year...what a whirlwind year it has been!! And what a joy getting to know our sweet Arwen! She is an incredible little person! Her smiles can light up a room and they come easily and often. She loves hanging out with her big brothers and is just now trying to say their names. Sometimes she just defaults to "browa", though. It is so delightful to hear the three of them laughing together! Of course, sometimes they are too rough and there are tears instead, but for the most part they are pretty, well sort of, careful. But she is pretty tough so they usually get by just fine.
Zak was in Great Lakes, IL for three weeks playing Navy and missed Arwen's actual birthday by three days, so we decided not to celebrate until he returned. On the day of her birthday we just celebrated by watching the video from the day of her birth when the boys first got to meet her. That was so fun to see their reactions again and to see just how much they have changed in this year. When Zak returned we spent one evening celebrating as a family and opening gifts together (you can see her sweet little vintage rocking horse which she loves in the picture above!), then the next Sunday we invited friends to join us for Sunday Parkways immediately followed by her party at a playground. There were a few mishaps and disasters along the way, but it turned out to be a great party with friends both new and old from Sherwood and Portland! We enjoyed ice cream cones together and sang "Happy Birthday" as well as her favorite song, "Skinnamarinkado". She loved the coconut ice cream and had a ball playing on the playground. She even climbed up the slide and turned around and came back down all by herself for the first time! And she was delighted by it!
Afterward we all rode our bikes around the park a bit more (well, Arwen rode in the trailer) and then we went to our favorite wings place (Fire on the Mountain). Usually Arwen loves chewing on the chicken bones, but on this occasion she was crashed out the entire time! I guess we wore her out!
You can see pictures of Arwen's first birthday in her photo album.
