Happy Birthday Harper Noelle!

My sweet, sweet, perfect girl. One year ago, you came into this world and brought a league of angels with you. You are a miracle, and a blessing, and a gift of love, for love. We love you so very much. Happy birthday!!

Ham!

Today you ate your first dinner that included a full serving of meat. This is kind of small and silly to mention, but when you look back on this years down the road, these little tiny moments in your life meant the world to us, and it's fun for you to know.

You are not fond of the jarred baby food meat - I totally agree! Your papa suggested that we try mixing meat in with fruit. So what goes better with apples than ham?! You ate, and I could tell that you could tell that this wasn't just apples, so you made a deal with me. Let you eat a little baked snack (that looks like a mini cheese puff) every four or five bites, and you would eat the whole thing.

You are such a cautious little human being. Perspicacious. You notice details. You laugh easily, but you never ever stop picking up everything going on around you.

I love you so much. What I want to say is like an immense tidal wave of observations of a brilliant creature, and it swells so high that the words are lost in the magnitude of it all. One day, the words will come.

Almost 1.

In 9 days, you will have your first birthday.

You have 6 teeth. And your two front ones are slightly crooked, with a slight gap - just like your adorable Papa.

You are mesmerized by inspirational sounds and music. You do a "dancy-dance" on command and when you're excited.

Papa makes the tuba sound, and you make it back at him.

You and Papa have sweet, sweet conversations going back and forth with "da da da da da". You love it when he talks to you in your language.

Today, when we were leaving our cousin Aimee's house, I was repeating "bye bye" and you looked at her and said "bah bah bah bah". It's a blessing - every one of these tiny little moments of your life.

Girl, you SCREAM like nothing or no one I've ever heard before. DEM LUNGS!

You are going to have Wreck It Ralph imprinted in every cell of your brain, I swear. I don't know why you love that movie so much - I mean, it's a wonderful movie and I'm glad you picked THAT one - but it's calming effect on you is still unmatched by anything else.

You love bananas the most, and all fruit. You are giving me trouble with eggs in every form. You looked at me like I insulted you when I tried to feed you baby-food turkey. And you've got a thing for animal crackers...and ice cream. ;)

We love you to exhaustive levels. You're so completely adored.