ONE!

December 31, 2008, Adelyn Mei Anderson was born. 8 lbs 14 oz, 20 inches. Here is what she looked like when we brought her home from the hospital:

December 31, 2009 she turned one...not quite sure her current stats since she was too sick for her one-year well visit, but we know she's a cutie! Here she is in her $5 ride at the mall...loving every minute of it.

It's been a busy year for us, but a good year and we are so happy to have her in our family. Those of you who are around here know she has quite a little personality. She is very expressive and lets you know loud and clear what she wants, often times just with her face (I'm sure you can guess what happened to this crown right after the picture was taken).

She has been busy adding vocab (and nodding) to her expressions and can say: dada, momma, bye-bye, hi, water, cracker, banana, cheese, hot, dog, go, outside, up, down, sock, and book (my personal favorite). Reading is by far her favorite pasttime, but I think dancing to the ringtones on my phone is a close second. She loves music so much that she even dances to the songs that we sing for her and has recently added headbanging to her repetoire of moves!

She is still working on the walking thing, but is getting braver and braver and now takes up to five or so steps at a time. Here she is blowing out her candles, well, Jadyn blowing out her candles is more like it!

I made carrot cake cupcakes for Adelyn since that is the Baria family favorite and I figured I should indoctrinate her early on. Sadly, I think she would have been a lot happier with the traditional chocolate, as she didn't even finish one little cupcake!!

She is indeed a big fan of chocolate, but her favorite food is definitely bananas. She isn't digging cow's milk so far and last night we discovered she has a love of tofu, so maybe she IS half Chinese after all! Pretty much she just loves whatever we are eating, and wants to be just like us--she even cried and cried to have her own chopsticks to eat. She is also still working on the teeth though and finally almost has four.

Thanks to all those who helped us celebrate...including those who helped us celebrate from a distance. And thanks to all who have helped us out along the adventures...with advice, babysitting, friendship, support, praising her genius and cuteness...it all contributes to our happy standard of living. :)

It [was] the Holiday Season

In case anyone is still interested in Christmas news, since I've yet to blog ours, here you go. Obviously we were pretty excited because this was Adelyn's first Christmas and she was actually old enough to enjoy it, unlike what her first Christmas would have been if she had come on her due date last year.

It wasn't the most relaxing Christmas...Aaron's brother flew into town from Utah on Christmas Eve so we came up with a bit of a crazy schedule between families that involved a lot of driving and a lot of fun.

Christmas Eve we had an early dinner with my parents (who were nice enough to accomdate our crazy plan), during which Jenn showcased her yet again triumphant wrapping. This year instead of tags she used our pictures to identify what was for who, and instead of traditional ribbon, red feather boas...what will she come up with next!



Then we headed straight to the airport to get Seth and then headed to spend the night at Aaron's sister Hillary and her husband Dan's new house. We had too many munchies and too many laughs and stayed up too late to even remember it all. With no little kids around, we slept in and opened gifts at our leisure. Here is Adelyn Christmas morning getting ready for the excitement.



Then we had a yummy yummy brunch, more good times, and headed back down to my parents to open gifts and have Christmas dinner and play more games with them. Every year I am always touched by everyone's generosity and kindness. I love my family and I love my in-laws. And in a random side note, I love our church ward too...I coordinated our Adopt-A-Family this year and was seriously amazed...our living room and dining room were filled with gifts that people had gotten for those in need this year.

I love the Christmas season...and know that the "Spirt of Christmas" that people attribute to the immense love and giving that always happens this time of year is because of Christ and the love that He has for each of us (whether others around attribute that to Him or not). I hope as Christians we can work hard for our nation to hold on to that.

When you see a little face like that how can you not feel the love God has for all of us?!?! Love you!