One Year Old!

The official JC Penny portrait!

Little Miss Lena Joyce is a toddler!  It seems that daily she is changing;  learning new words, showing off new moves, asserting her will, making her personality known.  Recently she learned to climb stairs and more gates are going up in our three story house.  She can now say "kitty kitty" in addition to "dog dog" which she does in a cute little whisper voice.  She calls Dan "Da Da" and me "Dahh".  She won't say "ma ma' yet but we work on it everyday.  She is jibbering more and more and falls into these huge laughing fits when Dan does something funny.  She loves playing chase especially when she is being chased.  She is still pretty small but definitely growing.  She likely weighs somewhere around 17 pounds, wears 6-9 month bottoms and 9 month tops and just moved into size 3 shoes and diapers. 

First pigtails!

 Lena had her first visit to the ER this month.  She caught bronchitis for the third time in the last five months and this last time was the worst coming only five days after the second bout.  We had to do breathing treatments and steroids and she is finally better.  The doctors suspect that she may have allergies and/or be asthmatic but it is too early to officially diagnose her.

Lena's little first Fall pumpkin!

We took Lena to her first pumpkin patch and corn maze.  She LOVED touching all of the pumpkins and seeing the chickens everywhere.  She really enjoys animals and strongly prefers toys that have faces and that are fuzzy and furry.  We have a big purple bunny that we got from a friend and she just falls on top of it and smothers it with loves and hugs.  She can be very cuddly. 

Lena has really been enjoying table food lately.  It started last month at my cousin's wedding.  Dan was holding Lena and while we were distracted visiting she had reached down to his plate and had eaten half of his dinner roll!  She loves puffs, crackers, cheese, chicken, and other small morsels...oh yes... she LOVES ice cream!  We have been practicing self feeding but pretty much she still just makes a huge mess.

 

Learning to feed herself!

Happy Birthday to our precious Lena Joyce who has made the last year one of the best in our entire lives.  We love you so much and can't wait to see the young lady that you will become!