Adriana Leigh Herman is ONE!

Dear Adriana,

When you were born, I wrote you a letter in your baby book.  In it, I said that I couldn't use the typical line, "I never knew I could love someone so much," because I always knew that I would love being a mother and I would love my baby just as much as I love you.  Over the past year, this has proven to be true time and time again.  I absolutely adore everything about you.  I love nothing more than spending time with you (and our other family members, like Daddy, your grandparents, Brandon, the boys, etc.).  I dread the times that I have to leave you, and can't wait until I can get back to you to see what fun things you have done while I was gone.

The amount of pride I have for you is astounding.  You are the sweetest little girl.  You love to give kisses and hugs.  You're particular (you will only kiss people on their right cheek, for the most part), but SO friendly.  As long as I let you know that you can trust the person, you're open to pretty much anyone, but sometimes you do have to warm up to new people a little bit.  I can tell that you love your family.  One of your favorite things to do is to look at pictures of your family members and close friends.  You point to certain people you want to look at, and you always let me know that you want to see your Poppy (you think this sounds like "puppy," and you pant when you want to see him).

Boy, you are SO SO SO smart!!  You love to look at books.  You've even started turning them the correct way to look at them.  Being a teacher, I know that this is the first step to reading, but I'm sure that's still a little way off.  You also learn new things pretty quickly.  Grandma watches you while I work, and she says that she loves to watch you explore new things.  She will show you something new, and after watching her work with it one time, you try (and usually succeed) to work with it on your own.  Sometimes this is challenging because you figure out how to get past our babyproofing.

You know what a puppy says (pant-pant-pant), what a cow says ("mmmmmmm"), what an elephant says (this one is your favorite...you put your arm in the air and squeal), and are starting to know what a horsey says ("nay-nay-nay").  You just learned horsey because you just love your new rocking horse that "Uncle" Jeff got you.  You also know how to let us know that you want to see and/or smell flowers (sniff-sniff-sniff).  You know where your mouth is consistently.  You know where my nose is most of the time.  You know how to tell me when you want more, and when you want to eat (you do the "eat" sign to my mouth instead of yours).  You tell me you want other things by pointing, and you only whine when you get really tired (we're still working on that).  You raise your hands to ask where things are, and you wave bye-bye.  You have picked up each of these things in a very short amount of time.  You learned most of them just a day or two after they were introduced to you.

 You have a magnetic personality.  You love to go out in public and see other people.  Daddy and I are always amazed at how people are drawn to you.  We can't go anywhere without hearing someone tell us how cute you are!  You love to interact with other people, and you are a master at drawing new people into your world.

You are also very talented.  You took your first steps when you were only 9 1/2 months old, and you were walking completely on your own at 10 1/2 months.  You also love to dance, "sing," and clap along to music.  You love musical DVDs, CDs, and toys.

You are an absolute joy to be around.  I wish that I could spend every second of every day with you.  I know future years will go by just as quickly as this year has, and there will be a time when you don't want to be around your mom as much, so I want to spend as much time with you now as I possibly can.

My hope for your future is that you always have the amount of self-confidence that you have right now.  I don't want you to be conceited, and I don't want you to think that you can do no wrong, but I hope that you always know what a wonderful person you are.  I see girls every day who are so unsure of themselves, and I hope that you always feel as good about yourself as you do now.  I also hope that you know that a big reason you are so wonderful is because of your inner beauty.  Yes, you are adorable, but as I said before, it is your personality that draws people in.  It is your loving nature and kind heart that makes you so wonderful.  I hope, more than anything else, that you remain loving and kind to others forever.

I feel like I am the luckiest person alive because I get to be your mommy.  I thank God every day that I have such a wonderful little girl, and I hope that you feel just as lucky to be my little girl.

I love you, Adriana Leigh Herman.

Love,
Mommy

Measure Up Monday - 51 Weeks

This is it.  The last weekly post.  I'm still planning to do a monthly picture, but Adriana doesn't seem to change much from week to week anymore, so I won't be making her pose with Elmo as frequently anymore.

Adriana has completely recovered from her her Roseola, and she was back to her happy self this week.  She was a little more melancholy today because her favorite thing is being taken away from her.  She is no longer allowed to nurse during the day.  She's become a bit too dependent, and isn't doing well with naps for Grandma when Mommy is gone.  Plus, she's getting to be a big girl.  As a wise person told me, if she drank from a bottle, I would take that away at one year, so I need to take away nursing.  Big girls drink from cups.  She's sad about it, but as long as she keeps her mind off of it, she's fine.  We'll cut out bedtime nursing soon, but for now, we're taking it one step at a time.

Here's the serious face she had for most of today:

 But she was still our happy girl when she didn't focus on nursing being taken away: