Ashley turns 1

I'm still looking over my shoulder wondering where the year has gone! Ashley, you surprised us arriving four weeks early but it hasn't slowed you down one bit.  At one year, you still enjoy two naps most days and sleep through the night. You've picked up the lovely phrase, "uh-oh", from your mum and Wyatt and you even know when to apply it. You drop something on the floor and stand there looking at it saying "uh-oh" repeatedly until someone notices. You are happy walking around holding on to all the furniture. We have bought you a push car in hopes that it will help you walk away from furniture but so far you get really frustrated when you push on it and makes you fall down. You have clear ideas about what you want to do and cry when things don't work out, like pushing the car too fast and you fall, or when you try to get off the deck and instead land on your forehead, or when you aren't allowed outside and the door is shut in front of you, and lately, when dad comes home to take Wyatt out on the motorbike and you get left behind. These are your frustrating moments and mum often gets captivated by your cute little face all screwed up crying and forget that sometimes you need comforting. If you weren't  so darn cute when you cry, I'm sure I'd be better at remembering to give you a cuddle right away.

You are momma's girl through and through. You love sitting in mum's lap when you first wake up and eat your toast. You expect to be cuddled and talked to, you like to share a laugh with your mum and dad. Music is very much a part of who you are and when mum turns up the radio in the car, you laugh, clap your hands, and kick your feet like its what you've been waiting for all day!

We celebrated your first birthday with a party and some friends and family attended. It was a beautiful day and we spent most of it outside. Now heavily pregnant, I didn't have a lot of motivation so opted to let the bakery make Ashley's cake. This is quite normal for my American readers, but let me indulge you for a moment into a glimpse of NZ birthdays. Mums and grandma's bake and decorate gorgeously creative birthday cakes. This is the norm. I am not yet part of this group because I have yet to bake a cake that is cooked through the middle, let alone wield frosting and decorations into cute themes like mushroom houses, or fairy castles, tractors, diggers, farms...the list goes on and on. One of my friends had sympathy on me and showed me the big SECRET...its the Woman's Day Birthday Cake book which comes complete with stencil patterns, shopping guides of all the candies you'd need to make your chosen cake. I must get my hands on this book someday! But not this year. This year the bakery was my ally and baked a suitable cake that everyone enjoyed eating and a few mummies even sidled up and admitted that they would be doing that one year too. We fed everyone lunch and had a nice buffet selection of various bits that I prepared. The kiddos got homemade sausage rolls (another iconic thing eaten here, but I really can only stomach homemade ones and not the frozen variety so often presented at parties), fairy bread (buttered bread dipped in sprinkles), jello (known as jelly here in NZ). All the food was gobbled and Ashley thoroughly enjoyed eating cake.

We love you sweetheart and look forward to all the fun we are going to have with you as a one year old!