Today was Olivia's first birthday.

There's something about celebrating your child's birthday that is so much better than celebrating your own birthday. Celebrating another year in my own life seems selfish and unnecessary, but celebrating a year of our child's life is pure joy. When my parents would say "I'm so proud of you" I would always think "What, I didn't do anything, I'm just living.", but now I know what they mean. I've never been so proud as I am of Olivia.

I think Olivia had a great day. I worked from home to spend the day with her. Chris and I played some of her favorite dancing music and took lots of video and pictures. We even all took a nap together. In the evening, Liv's Auntie La-la took charge of dinner and the cake and we had a great time. You see the results of the cake in the picture above. Happy birthday Olivia!

Olivia got her first big "boo-boo" yesterday. It was so big that it's still visible today. She was standing behind our Ikea chair that has a wooden arm-piece, and she lost her balance (even though she was hanging onto the chair) and she fell face first into the edge of the arm-piece. She hit her forehead on the sharp edge and it made a big red bump over her right eye. At first I thought it hit her eye, so I was relieved that it was only skin deep. But she cried like it was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Now you can only see a red line going from the middle of her forehead down to her just above her eyebrow. Hopefully it will be gone by the time she gets birthday pictures!

Hide n Seek
Last night while eating dinner Olivia displayed her latest milestone...engaging others in a game of hide n seek. Okay, I don't know if that's an official milestone or not, but it was a pretty big deal for us.
While we ate, she crawled part way down the hall then turned and looked back at us with a "do you see me" grin. We let her know we saw her. She turned and hauled little baby butt down the hall and around the corner. Then she peeked around the corner to see if we were looking...well of course we were! So her daddy got up from the table and hid from her. The next time she peeked around the corner he jumped out and ran down the hall saying "I'm gonna get you" in that way that all parents tease their kids. Squeals of delight came from the hallway followed by oodles of giggles. We repeated this game for at least a half hour. Oh, it was so much fun!

At long last, an update...
Olivia attempted her first steps this morning. We suspected this was coming based upon other parents' stories of kids losing sleep right before hitting a big milestone. She's been losing a lot of sleep lately, Friday night she was awake and playing until midnight. Saturday and Sunday nights she stayed up until 9pm. This morning (Monday) she woke up in a cranky mood and was yelling at me and Chris. Chris wasn't getting her food to her fast enough and I wasn't cuddling with her enough. So I sat down to cuddle her on the couch. Then she squirmed out of my lap and onto her feet and just started to walk. But she landed in a face plant. Poor girl!