1 is the Happiest Number

Happy All Hallows Eve Eve all.  And more importantly happy first birthday to our beautiful baby girl Annabelle!!

Annabelle, you have been an amazing baby, bringing so much joy and additional love into our home.  Lukas is over the moon about his little sister, and your whole family loves you to the stars, and back!

Readers, as you can probably tell from the photo above we had her birthday party this past weekend. We celebrated with a couple dozen of her closest friends and family in attendance to lovingly mark the passing of the first year of her life and for Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I the enormous accomplishment of keeping her safe, healthy, and well loved throughout her 4th, 5th, 6th, and even 7th trimesters.

We celebrated with a hearty brunch, cupcakes and party hats for the kids, and mimosas and party hats for the adults.  It was a silly hat party as you can tell by the photo below.  Of course I would be a joker.

Maybe it has to do with our level of experience as parents, or perhaps the lack of time to stress over every little detail of raising her with another child in the household, but as rough as it has been at times, this year seems to have gone by much faster than it did with Lukas.   As a bonus, and a testament to how long I have been blogging here, you can see his 1st birthday post here.

It is so amazing how much a child grows, develops, learns, and bonds in the first year.  With that we feel so lucky that we were able to adopt Annabelle from birth.  

I would have never thought it a year ago, but it seems so odd now to write, or to even mention that our daughter is adopted.  She is such and integral part of all our lives, and fits so perfectly into our family that if we didn't mention it no one would know.  In fact, just the other day a woman we met in the neighborhood told Mrs. LIAYF and I that Annabelle was a perfect mix of the two of us. "Thank you" was our only response.

We love our weekend mornings together

And thank you too Annabelle.  We love you very very much, and are looking forward to all the laughs, tears, and triumphs the next year has in store for us. ~ Dad, Mom, and Lukas