My heart is so full right now, so full of thankfulness for my family. Life isn’t always easy. There are always good and bad things happening, triumphs and trials alternating. But we have it so good because we have each other. I’m so, so grateful for you, my Adela Lane, and for Daddy and for our family. The holidays are just a time when something that we’re always grateful for takes center stage. We all stand up a little straighter and pay a little more attention to all we have, to the people we love, to the memories we’re making. It’s a wonderful time of year.

Daddy and I have had a few traditions since the very beginning of our relationship, now over 10 years ago. We’re upholding those and adding new ones every year. You change everything baby. You make everything better. Instead of me and Daddy having a leisurely read through the Black Friday ads (every Thanksgiving morning, Daddy gets up at the crack of dawn to go buy every newspaper he can find), sipping coffee and being all adult, this year, I mostly kept my camera out and hung out on the floor with you and Jeffrey as we played in the sea of  discarded ads littering the floor while you made us laugh every few minutes with all your adorable toddler antics. You  found Daddy’s Cougar hat in his closet and came out and modeled it for us. And you left it on for a good hour.

After nap-time, we got you all prettied up for Thanksgiving dinner at Mima’s house.  I love your little sweater dress and Mary Janes. So cute. And you have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. And, if I may be so bold, this is one of the first days I really feel like you are starting to look like me (but much, much prettier!) when I was a toddler. Mima and Papi saw it too. That made my day. I’m glad you’ve looked like your Daddy’s girl since day 1. But it’s good to start seeing me in there too.

At Mima’s house you played on the floor with the Little People Nativity set Mima bought you while we got dinner ready. You love being at Mima and Papi’s house. You’re so loved, even more so with extra family members around, and you just glow with excitement and run around in a frenzy of happiness whenever we’re there (which is often, another huge blessing in our lives).

And a couple days later, we continued our family tradition of putting up the tree and decorations on Thanksgiving weekend. Mima and Tia Carmen came over and helped us set up our growing Dicken’s Village (every year or 2 we add another building), huge tree, stockings, and garlands. I should mention that all morning, Daddy worked on lights outside, which are AWESOME. I expected him to line the roof line on the front of the house. He lined the entire roof. You can see our house from the highway. It looks beautiful. I still need to take a picture.

We dug out the bag of knit and crochet ornaments I made for your first Christmas and let you go at it. This year, you actually understood the concept of decorating the tree, took one ornament out of the bag at a time, and chose spots to place them on the tree. Actually, you chose a 12in square area and tried to fit in many in that one spot as possible. And then Daddy got you kissing every ornament before hanging it, hehe. I don’t know why. But it was cute.

Another fun and love-filled Thanksgiving. And so, I’ve made a small dent in the photos I’ve taken of you this month. Now it’s on to your birthday celebration and first time at Disneyland next…

We finally got you a kiddie table! It’s been on our list of things to buy for awhile and Mima and Papi chipped in and bought most of this awesome Pottery Barn Kids one for your birthday. It’s super nice – exactly what we wanted. It’s a table you can grow into, bigger than most of the children’s tables out there. It’s antique white so it matches your bedroom furniture (in case we ever want to move it in there) and it’s incredibly sturdy. And let me tell you, we are getting soooo much use out of it! This was the first day after Daddy put it together.

We’re using it for coloring, crafts, play dough, snacks… I even used it to wrap all our Christmas presents. And it’s in the playroom/family room/office, right next to my desk so I can set you up with an activity and still talk to you and watch you while I work occasionally. It’s perfect. You’ll be seeing a lot of this baby and your cute little self for sure.