Here's the birthday girl happily eating Alina's Pringles (which she was kind enough to share) on the morning of her birthday. She'd politely stick her chubby, little hand inside ...
... and unpolitely pull out a stack of chips (such a little pig!):
Alina helping make the gelatin:
The party was great! Several friends came over, it didn't rain (it'd been raining the whole week), the food came out O.K., and Laura was happy and well behaved (progress, ha!).
It's hard to believe that she's already one! All of a sudden she's not our little baby anymore. It's like she knows that she's bigger now and she just changed.
She's super tuned in to everything that goes on around her, thinks she knows everything, tries to do everything and communicate even though she doesn't say absolutely anything yet (not even "mama" or "dada"!! ... so frustrating).
She's a nut and a rascal, the grumpiest baby around and yet she makes the funniest faces. I don't know what we did wrong! She does not resemble an angel at all (or anything close to one), but we're pretty sure she came from Heaven 'cause she brings just so much joy (and sleepless nights) to our lives, and, as Alina would say, "We couldn't live without her!".
So anyway, here are several thousand party pics.
Once most everything was ready:
Happy people (Marina, Gabriel, and Márcia):
A family shot before people start devouring the food:
And another one ...
She recently started walking a bit (finally!):
With grandma:
Three piggies munching away:
All the relatives present, hehe (Dad, Rafa, Marina, Ana, Mom):
Junk-food time!
Mom and Dinha:
"I'm a little monkey!"
Alina blowing out the candle for Laura:
You know how most babies will stick their hand[s] in the cake the second they're allowed to? Well, not Laura. True to her nature of being different, she went straight for the candle and was in the process of tasting, not even the part that was on the cake, but the wick (well, what was left of it)! Now how wicked is that?!?
So no, we don't have any of those cute 1st-birthday-photos of a cake-covered face, gooey hands and hair ... not to mention a smashed cake ... sigh.
She looooved the balloons:
Stretching out at the end of her busy day:
So as wise Shakespeare said, "all's well that ends well", and thus ended the first year of our monkey's life ... and what a wonderful year it was!
One thing I love about having children is that you see progress, growth, and change every day. One day you're holding a squishy, slimy thing, and the next you're holding (or no longer holding) a talking, walking, accident-waiting-to-happen! Quite exciting!
Babe arrived home on Wednesday. He ended up staying in Rio an extra day to wrap things up. Gosh, I missed him too much. It's great to have you back home, Love!
Laura didn't recognize him at first, and only today she started warming up to him. Speaking of the monkey, we're having her party a day earlier because my siblings will be traveling on Sunday and they so don't want to miss out on the food, haha.
Don't know why, but I feel like writing something deep about ... life, my life. Where the road we call Life has taken me, where it will yet take me. Yet, no matter how long I sit here, nothing comes out.
I can't write. I can't express everything that I'd like to, that is, not in a coherent manner. I do believe I'd give anything to be a great writer. You know, the kind of person that most everything they write moves you in some way, is intelligent, and expresses their innermost thoughts in a way you could only dream of expressing ... sigh.
Some people try too hard to write like that and it just sounds bad. Whereas with others, the talented few, it just flows. Or at least when you read it it flows, heh. Oh well, it's no use lamenting over a gift I'll never have.
On a happier note, I just received a letter from a very dear friend who rarely writes, but when he does, it just warms my heart. So tweet. I really don't feel like I'm anything great or special, but every now and then someone manages to get through all my negativity and shows me how I actually helped them in some way. Don't ask me how that was possible.
I do feel totally blessed to have such close friends who actually love me the way I am even after having known me for 10 years or more! A few have known me almost my whole life, yikes! I couldn't have asked for dearer, truer friends than the ones I have. I love each one with my whole heart!
Shhh, don't ask how that works.
True to her nature, Laura didn't give up her esteemed job of being an alarm clock. Although she did wake up a bit later than usual, thanks to her having woken up at 5 and only fallen back alseep more than an hour later.
Oh well, it was the start of our last "family day" by ourselves and it was a gorgeous and HOT day.
While getting ready for our day, Alina, excited about God-knows-what, happily exclaimed: "Oh, Bobby (that's what she calls me), we're going to do so many fun things today! You have to take pictures of me and Laura doing fun things, and film us, and then you can put it on our blogbook." She got mixed up with a blog and Facebook, though it's not like she knows what the latter is, haha.
It took me a short while to figure out which one she was referring to, lol. The things kids pick up that we don't even notice!
So anyway, naturally I filmed her doing one of the many fun things she did today which I'll post later because my connection is ultra slow right now. The video is of her swimming in the rain, which was a first. It didn't rain for long, just a short spring shower, but she sure enjoyed it.
She did some really useful things today like romp on my bed and wrap herself and Laura up in a sheet while I deep-cleaned our room and bathroom.
She also scrubbed 3 pairs of shoes. Well, truth be told, I ended up scrubbing them because she insisted that she was doing a great job with a sponge. After a whole half a minute of "sponging" her shoes she declared that her arms were sooooo tired and thus she couldn't finish cleaning them.
Um, she pigged out on apple crumble, had strawberry and grape juice (her favorites), watched "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (super good lessons), put away her laundry ... yep, she sure had a fun day.
I had an exhausting one. Sem comentários.
I started having a "literature appreciation" night with the teens (again) and we're working through James F. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales series. We're on the third book (following the fictitious chronological dates) and just got to an exciting part, which will have to wait until next week because my voice is hoarse and it's late.
I quite enjoy JFC's style of writing, which is very descriptive, even though it takes longer to finish a story and wears out my vocal chords.
Our next reading project will probably be Emily Brönte's "Wuthering Heights", though it's one of my least favorite Brönte novels. I guess we'll see what the majority wants.
