Janen is ONE YEAR Old Today!!

It just blows my mind that it's been an entire year since Janen came into this world all chunky and cute. She is the most amazing little girl and it's so much fun to see her grow, develop, and become her own little person full of personality. Janen we love you! Let's take a look at how much you've grown.

 Enjoying a piece of birthday cake.

 And here are a few more pictures to illustrate Janen's ever growing personality.

 Doesn't she make the best silly faces?

 Janen's favorite place to be is outside, but she doesn't get to go out too often because it's just too cold!

 She was getting a kick out of her shadow.

 One of Janen's Birthday toys to help her develop her fine motor skills.

 And another birthday gift, a pillow pet. She LOVES this thing and has lots of fun wrestling it to death with hugs and kisses. It's hilarious!

 Recently she made the connection that keys open doors, so when she gets a hold of my keys, she crawls to the door and tries to use the keys to open it. This girl loves to be outside of the house. I don't blame her!

 Some moral support for Daddy while he was playing HALO

 Janen has become such a cuddle bug lately. We love it! (most of the time) and she loves to dance. This was her dancing with her daddy. We'll put on music or sing to her while we dance and she'll say "Da" for Dance.

 One day I opened up the ottoman chest to let her grab some toys and books out of it, turned around for a minute and then turned back around and she was inside the box. I don't know how she did it, but I was super impressed. She can't even walk more than a few steps at a time.

Books. Janen loves them and I'm glad. Cause I love books too!

 Janen has not quite gotten the hang of walking and doesn't like to be pushed. If we try to get her to walk, she doesn't do very well, but if we leave her alone to play she will randomly just get up and walk 5 or 6 steps on her own. This is a girl that definitely wants to go at her own pace and not be pushed. Her biggest problem is that she loves to go on her tiptoes all the time and loses her balance. I want to believe that because of that, she has an innate desire to be a dancer. Maybe? She is picking up on sign language better now and uses it more often, which is nice. She loves to discover whatever she can get her hands on and we try to help her explore as often as possible. There was a stage where she wanted to play independently, but she has been more needy lately which I love at times and hate at others because of how much I have to get done. But there are two new teeth coming in so that explains it. All in all, it's hard for me to believe that Janen is entering the toddler stage and will be learning a ton of words over the next year. If she hears a familiar word (one that we use often with her) that starts with a B, D, M, or S, she will sound out the phonemes of those letters. When we say, "tickle, tickle" she can sound out the "ka" sound. I am so excited to one day have conversations with her. Being a mom rocks!