Silver Dawn Almost One Year

On Thanksgiving (3 days ago) I remembered last Thanksgiving (2008). I was less than 2 weeks away from giving birth to Silver Dawn. It's been almost a year that we've had her happy spirit in our home. What an absolute JOY she is to us. It was a special time to have a new baby in our home last year thinking about Christ as a baby and celebrating his birth.
Silver is a very choice spirit - she is very mellow and very happy. She is very smart and determined! She has brought a sweet spirit into our home from the minute she entered it.

River is SO sweet with her, always calling her "little sweetie" or "sweetie pie". They hug and will play really well together. Now that Silver can walk -- Yes! Can you imagine, she's REALLY walking at less than 1 year old! -- they play ring around the rosies together. Daddy is Silver's best friend! She loves to be in his arms, or sitting right by him.

Both of our girls are very healthy. A good sleeper too! I am a firm believer in schedules! She is really good about taking a nap at 10:30 and again at 1:30. We've also started getting her to bed at 8. This is a huge improvement, we used to not get them into bed very early, and it is so nice to have a couple of hours at night to re-group. Being in the office so much, River didn't have a schedule, so it's been nice to be able to develop a routine that we can stick to. River also takes her nap at 1:30. She always tells me that she's not tired. She doesn't have to sleep. Just one hour of quiet time. I set the timer for 1 hour. Sometimes she reads for 45 minutes, and then takes her hour nap!

Here's Silver playing Peek-a-Boo. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a movie is priceless!

Silver LOVES playing Peek-a-Boo! She'll play it laying down on the floor, with a blanket, or pulling up her skirt if she's wearing a dress. What a sweetheart!

Here's a video of River walking. This movie was taken a couple of weeks ago now. She is so solid on her feet. People are amazed at how little she is and how well she walks. She can stand straight up and walk. She walked all the way down the hall at church today. She gets so proud of herself - she knows when she accomplishes great things and breaks out into a huge smile and laughs. At first she would take a step or two and be so happy that she would fall down laughing.

Silver also climbs! We take off the couch cushion on one side. She climbs on the cushion, then on the couch, and up to the cushion ontop of the couch.

The girls (all 3 of us) love to be around Daddy. He is a girl magnet! Wherever he sits down, there is at least one if not all of us sitting by him. River's reading the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet. Lately this has been her favorite book. She makes up stories and turns the pages. She licks all 3 fingers - her thumb, pointer and middle fingers to turn the pages. Silver loves waving, but she's only got one wave in her, better be watching the first time!

Silver crawls REALLY fast! She's such a great crawler. But her sheer determination won over crawling. Walking is now her preferred way of travel.

Video of Silver blowing on her rice! She loves to blow on her food. She also claps, waves and also does indian war whoops - watch the video, you'll get what I mean.

Last movie of the day: Happy Girl!!!