Mariah's Birthday!

We celebrated Mariah's first birthday today. I can't believe it has been one year since she was born. So much has happened, yet it seems not long ago that she was a tiny new born. She has already taken a few first steps. Goodbye baby, hello toddler! Mariah is picking up new words almost every day. Starting with "uh-oh" and "bubble," she moved on to "Da-da" (why is he always first?), "Ma-ma", "duckie", "ball" and, of course, "Nana" (which usually means her favorite sister Anna, but also means the fruit when she's hungry).

Actually Mariah adores Anna. She speed-crawls around the house calling her name. In the mornings when she wakes up before Anna, she'll crawl over to Anna's door and push it open, waking up Anna Claire while happily chanting "Nana, Nana".

We had as much fun getting ready for Mariah's birthday celebration as having it. Anna Claire has figured out that birthdays are fun even if they're not hers. She helped me decorate Mariah's cake and make her birthday crown. Mariah absolutely loves duckies (we see them in the canal and the lake almost every day), so we made her a duckie cake. It was easy. I just created a little pond and added tiny rubber ducks, Swedish fish and gummy frogs. (I had to make the pond green, though, because I couldn't find blue food coloring here. Hey, most ponds have algae, anyway.) When Mariah saw it she screamed "duckie, duckie, duckie". Aaaaah! I love how babies are so easy to please.

Mom, inspecting her accomplishment, with Mariah thinking, "Quit taking my picture and just let me eat the thing!"

Mmmm, delicious! And this time I can make as much mess as I want!Time for presents: Hey, Nana, that's MY phone!There you go. Hello, how are you? Gotta go!I must say that Mariah's big birthday gift was a bit of a disappointment. Not for her, but for me. I bought a little toy lawnmower in the US (it doubled as a learning toy, so I needed it in English). Anyhow, I thought it would be like those cute popping vaccuum cleaners, and also could serve as a little walker for Mariah. Well, the handle doesn't stay up by itself, so it doesn't work like a walker. And the thing is soooooo loud (the part that doesn't turn off) that it will bother the neighbors below. What a waste!