Hannah is ONE!

Yes, as of August 23rd, Hannah is one-year-old! It is amazing to look back and think of all that has happened in the year since Hannah joined our family. I won't give the whole recap, but a year ago we were still in the States....

Our happy girl on her first birthday

Hannah has obviously grown and changed tremendously in the past year, although she is still our little pixie baby at the 3rd percentile for weight and 5th percentile for height. I imagine doctors in the States would be concerned about that, but our doctor here didn't seem too concerned. Hannah seems to be very healthy overall with a good appetite, etc., but is just petite.

Playing with birthday balloons

She seems to be growing out of her clinginess to some degree. She still prefers Mommy to be nearby, but she no longer gets upset when someone at church steals her away (usually).

Hannah recently discovered the joy of being chased. She can't quite run yet, but she scurries along as fast as her little legs will take her (it almost looks like she's marching!), giggling and squealing. It's quite cute. =)On the run

Hannah has been broadening her vocabulary a bit in recent weeks. She will say "please," and "hot," and tries hard to imitate much of what she hears her siblings say.

Hannah with her favorite book - ha!

Hannah has really taken to books recently, although there are times when she's not sure if they are for eating or for reading. Rebekah and Daniel are very faithful about helping me make sure she only gets ahold of her board books and not the books with regular pages, but she has a strong preference toward regular books. After all, that's what everyone else is reading; surely they must be better! (And the pages make a cooler sound when you turn them!)
Hannah likes to get in on family story time too, but doesn't always stick around very long - just wants to make sure she hasn't been forgotten!

She currently has 6 teeth, with two more just about to break through. I can tell they are hurting her because she will randomly try to take a bite out of my shoulder! She is eating mostly whatever we eat now, and has recently decided that baby food is for the birds. Can't say that I blame her...."Please" in sign language

Playing hide and seek

She is a mischevious little imp, as you can probably see from the pictures, but we love her and are very thankful for the year the Lord has given us with her so far.

As you can see from her face, she wasn't thrilled about not being allowed to touch her cupcake right away. See her making the sign for "please"?

She perked up when everyone started singing for her, and then got really excited when it was time to blow out the candle. You can see the video here. It took several attempts by all three kids, but they finally got the thing blown out!

And of course the best part was eating. =) All of the adults found her method rather amusing, although her siblings got a bit impatient waiting for her to finish. We usually feed her (instead of allowing her to do it herself), so we hadn't realized what a dainty little eater she is!