Macie's First Birthday

Here is a belated post on Macie's birthday

 Macie needed a little help opening presents.  But she got the hang of it after a while.

 Macie with some of her friends.  This is McKayla (cousin), Savannah (friend), Macie, and Carly (friend).

 Macie's Aunt Aleta made an awesome cake in the shape of a mouse and some cheese. It was awesome!

Macie took some time to warm up to the idea of eating a big piece of cake all by herself.  After about 15 minutes she realized she could do whatever she wanted with the cake.  I'm not sure why the video sound doesn't work, but the visual is the most important part, anyway.

I can't believe Macie is a year old all ready. We all flew to Utah so that she could have a birthday party with family. I feel like your family are the only people who care as much as you do to watch your baby try to eat cake and try to open presents. In our case it was both our families and Skyler and Shannah, they are living in Utah for a year and we are always excited to find the four (and now six) of us in the same state. Ben's best friends came with their families too and it was so good to see them. Macie loved having little friends and cousins to play with. That was really the best birthday thing for her, the rest of the party was for our benefit. Her Aunt Aleta made her birthday cakes, yes I did say CAKES. There was one cake just for Macie in the shape of a mouse. One for everyone else with little mice on it and one gluten-free one that was the big wheel of cheese. It was so cute. Poor Macie had never had so much sugar. She kept taking bites of cake and shaking in surprise at how sweet it was. She got so many cute presents. This one from her Grandma Harris has saved my aching back many times. Now she can hold on to something other than my hand. She also got clothes and they were too big for her, we came home and two weeks later they fit. Remember my teeny tiny baby who couldn't fit into any clothes for her age and was just delicate? She is gone, all that food we have had to overfeed her for the last year has finally caught up. She has chins and a belly that goes to her knees when she sits and thunder thighs. For the first time I am telling her NOT to eat food. She can eat more than Ben and I combined if we let her. She is still not walking on her own unless you trick her into doing it. We do have proof that she can do it, she just usually "needs" your finger to walk and run all around. Really though she does have more ambition than balance. She has always just had those legs going and she is not patient enough to slow down and learn the balance needed to let go. I think once the balance has caught up with the speed she will be off. For Macie it's all about speed. She runs around all over pulling me along behind her. She walks all over the city. There are some days where she gets over a mile in on her own feet, just in outdoor walking.