Joanna's 1st Birthday Party

Joanna had her first birthday party, although she slept through part of it!
She went down for her afternoon nap just a few minutes before her guests arrived.
We all visited and ate lunch before the birthday girl woke up and joined us.
She was very happy to see everyone.

For another first, Joanna's new buddy Kadan puckered up and gave her several smooches right when they first met. It was so cute. We were surprised to see that he did it the first time and we asked him to do it again to get a picture. It was hilarious because he just kept giving her little baby sugars.

Here is a video of our singing "Happy Birthday" to Joanna.





Later, we sat down and opened some presents. Of course, Joanna enjoyed playing with the paper and the boxes, but she got pretty excited about some of the toys too!

A special thank-you to everyone who attended and made this first birthday very special!
We are so blessed to have a great extended family and wonderful friends.

Joanna Started Crawling

Joanna started crawling a few crawl-strides at a time around June 18,
2008. On June 21, she broke out in a full crawl on the tile floor of our
vacation apartment. It seemed natural for her and within the week she was
pulling up to standing on things and beginning to cruise. She even crawled
up the whole flight of stairs, with Jason attending to her.

Joanna Clapped

Monday, Joanna clapped for the first time!
We were next door and I was holding her facing away from me. She started putting her hands together over and over.

Rubber Duck With Water Scared Joanna

I gave Joanna a bath last night and I think I may have made her afraid of
her rubber duck. I put the duck under water and let it get water pulled up
inside the squeaker. Then I pulled the duck out of the water and squished
the water out of it. I think it freaked her out and she started squalling.
I reassured her, but didn't get too excited myself. I showed her that the
wash cloth did the same thing and then repeated the trick with the ducky.
She wouldn't grab the duck after that, but she wasn't crying anymore
either. On that note, I ended bath time with a warm towel and letting
Joanna smile at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Buddy came to visit

Audry stopped by and spent the night Thursday on her way to visit Oklahoma with her two children, William Douglas and Adele Jolee (a.k.a. blueberry). We had such a nice visit. I enjoyed seeing Will again and meeting blueberry for the first time.

Chicken Curry

Too much curry is not a good thing. We made some at home according to an "Easy Chicken Curry" recipe we had saved. We evidently liked it before. This time the curry must have been more powerful. Jason fixed it by adding a pat of butter. Go figure.

Joanna was sleeping when I got home from work.

This one was unusual. I got home from work and Joanna was taking a nap. Sheryl practically sent me home to put up my feet. I did the dishes from the night before and got dinner started. Jason had just done a great job cleaning the kitchen so, I kind of felt bad not to.