Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl

Today is Emi's first birthday. It doesn't seem possible, and yet, it does. She has grown and changed so much in the three short months since we've been a family. There is no doubt in my mind that WE belong to HER. While she is ours, in every sense of the word, I love that she feels the same way. I can't explain how I know this, I just do. She is walking now. She loves to walk over to where I am sitting and hug my leg, and lay her head against my knee. Sounds corny, but gosh, it chokes me up every time.

As I said, Emi is walking. Basically it blossomed this past week. She had been taking steps on and off for the last few weeks. Cruising on furniture, and accidentally taking unassisted steps from one piece of furniture to another without realizing it. If we tried to get her to walk to us, she'd just just sit down and crawl to us. Now, she walks everywhere. Not necessarily very stable, pretty wobbly actually, but loving it so much. We get a kick out of watching her. She is so tickled that she is walking. Her entire face lights up and looks to see if we are watching. Poor Max, he better get ready to run!

We attended a local Chinese New Years party last night. It's a group of folks that I have (newly) found, who have welcomed us with open arms. It's so nice to see such a large group of families who have children from China here. Emi, of course, had the time of her life. After she got over being shy (3.2 seconds) she walked all over the room, even walking "to" people she didn't know. Just, I think, for the sake of walking. She wouldn't go to someone if they held their hands out for me to hand her to them, but if they got down on her level and she could walk to them ... there she went! At dinner, she had noodles (no surprises there) and tofu (MY daughter??). In fact, she completely chowed on the tofu, so I need to find some (easy) recipes. They also had Chinese girls dancing for us, which Emi adored! But really, her favorite thing to do all evening was to see all the other children and walk all over the huge room. She was one pooped little girl when we finally left.

Here are some pictures of last night of her walking. No birthday pic's yet, we haven't really done anything yet. Will have to wait until tomorrow (or Monday, knowing me!).

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl. We love you.