She's ONE!!

I'm not even sure how it is possible that our baby is one!  

We had such a fun weekend with our family celebrating little miss Annie Joy....

We spent Annie's actual birthday celebrating at lunch with Aunt Bree, Blakely and Parker and then an afternoon being loved on by the grandmas!

We finished up our celebrating with a birthday dinner at our house with Annie's grandmas and grandpas and Uncle Peter.  What a lucky little girl to have all 4 grandparents with her on this day!

Annie and her "twin" - Grandpa Ron (I think she looks most like him:)

It was so sweet of Uncle Peter to come up and visit for the weekend to be with Annie - the kids had an absolute blast with him!

Mom and Dad with our baby girl!

Annie's "birthday" shoes - she's taking 2-3 steps and getting so close to zooming off on foot so we started her birthday with some bright new pink shoes!

Love at first sight - Annie just LOVES babies.  She was so thrilled to get her very first bitty baby doll.  The minute she opened her, she scooped her in her arms and just posed like this:)  She snuggles her all night in bed.  It's the cutest!

and loving her cake - she started all dainty and serious and ended with a face full of cake smiles!

Happy ♡ Day!

Hut, Hut, Hike!

Super Bowl XLVI (I don't know....just googled that.....44?) was a success!  We had a blast with our friends - eating, hanging out and letting all the kids be together.  It was more like organized chaos, with 8 families, but it was so much fun to all be together!

Tiny girlfriends playing....they will be so thankful for each other some day! 

Ben configured some sort of "movie theater" for the 16 kids we had over.  And....it worked!!!  The kids all at on the couches and watched Toy Story 2....genius!

When the kids weren't watching the movie, we exhausted them with some bounce castle jumping.

Ben was a busy boy - he also hunted down some pretty stellar prizes for our squares game.  Steph came out on top with a pack of size 1 diapers (no problem that her youngest is in size 5's) and a roll of paper towels.  Know she's dying to claim her prizes:)

Annie was a bit under the weather so we played "passed the baby".  So thankful for my friends, the concept of co-mothering and Bree's ability to keep Annie calm for a bit:)

The guys sort of hung out by the food....

And the kids hung around Mark, who fed them cookies....lots of them:)

And the girls just had fun....eating, chatting, and watching Miranda, Blake and Madonna....you know, all the important Super Bowl things:)

10 and 11

I'm in denial....clearly.  We are 2 weeks away from the big ONE and I have yet to post on months 10 and 11.  That's because I'm not quite ready for 1.  Not ready for Annie to be walking all over my house, graduating to the 1's nursery at church, giving up bottles, etc.  So, without further delay and in order not to rush it, I give you her 10th and 11th months :)

Let me try to sum up Annie's 10th and 11th month.  Teeth.  She now has 6 of them - I swear, one has popped right after another.  Poor baby.

Crawling.

Everywhere!  She gets all over our house on all fours.  Because of her mobility, she really has no desire to try walking.  Why walk when we can crawl?

Clapping.

One day, Annie sat on the floor and clapped for Paige's singing routines for an hour.  She is so proud of her clapping abilities!

Waving.

She's not the world's best waver....probably because she's so stoic.  Ha!  Let the pictures show, Annie can and does wave on occasion:)

Cruising.

Annie's loving her little stroller walker from Grandma Niece and has started cruising all over.  Her other favorite thing is to "work the furniture"  She will walk along our couch, move over to the ottoman, crawl over to the wall, and then walk the wall.  If only I could convince her that walking is a good thing!!

And here she is, our little 11 month old!  Such a happy little peanut!

These days....

...the Ferwerda house has been special:)

Annie discovered her love for our ball popper.  It was literally the only thing that would make her happy.  I held her 98% of the day and was so thankful for the 2% where she was entertained by good ole' ball popper.  A trip to the Dr. later this afternoon confirmed that she is on her 6th ear infection (and her 2nd since getting tubes).  My poor baby....very discouraging for the mama who thought tubes would be the end all answer:(

And Will.....I couldn't find him before bed tonight.  (for a few seconds only...promise).  I found him in my bathroom with a band aid on his lip.  He informed me that his lip hurt and he wanted to keep the band aid on until Ben got home.  I love the shenanigans that he's up to these days.  They are pure boy and are keeping me on my toes...and laughing nonstop.

Lately, Paige can be found in dress up most of the day.  Her favorite obsession as of late is practicing her flower girl duties for my dear friend Kristel's wedding.  She sports her ballet shoes, princess dress and veil and waves her wand all over the house declaring she's a flower girl.  I told Kristel she will be well prepared by May:)

When she's not in dress up, I find her wearing this get up.  Not the top.....but the tights and leg warmers.  She LOVES them.  She attempts to wear the polka dot tights and zigzag leggings every day, preferably with her bright pink clogs.  Paige dressed herself for church yesterday in this top with the favorite bottom ensemble.  We have decided to pick our battles, but not for church.  So, the top stayed and the bottom went.  She's really embracing her own special style these days.  And let me tell you, it's incredibly special and hilarious.

We've been staying pretty close to home these days....we seem to be a giant petri dish for germs.....and I have just loved watching my 3 littles love each other.  They really are great friends and I am so thankful for that!