Happy birthday, D'Laney!

1 year! She's such a big girl. Something about turning a year makes me think of her less as a baby and more as a toddler, and that kinda makes me sad. I can't believe how fast the first year flew by, but at the same time, I feel like we really took the time to enjoy each stage. Here's a little bit of the basics on where we started and where we are now:

• D'Laney Dale Holifield was born at 9:01 am, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo, TX. She weighed 9lbs 0.4 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. We had a c-section mostly due to her size, but she and I both had an adverse reaction to an induction medicine the night before. I had some great drugs, I didn't feel a thing, but I also don't remember a thing. I have flashes of memory from the delivery, but it's sketchy. We stayed in the hospital 4 days, then came home and it's been smooth sailing from there! She was quite a laid-back baby, never cried, didn't have to be held all the time, though she was, and was very go with the flow.

very first picture...the date on the camera was wrong



new little family...don't I look a little dazed?



This is probably my favorite picture ever.
These two are still crazy about each other.

• Today, at one year, she is 28 inches long and weighs 18.5 lbs, we think. Quite an improvement from last week, huh? She is walking most of the time now, very rarely does she crawl anymore. She has about 6 or 7 words in her vocabulary, but she really just says one...daddy. Over and over and over again. But it's not just babbling. She'll pick up an old snuff can and hand it to me and say, daddy? or the phone will ring and she'll get really excited thinking that it's him. She loves him so much, and he is such a great daddy. He had to spank her a couple days ago and it almost brought him to tears, but he did it and he'll do it again. D'Laney has begun singing. I'm not sure what it is, but she sings it all day long. We started singing the ABC's, and she'll sing along for a minute, but she loses interest pretty fast, it's a long song. Of course she's not really saying the abc's, it's more like just grunting, but she gets the infliction right. Her favorite, I think, is Old McDonald's farm, she'll sing the E-I-E-I-O part with me, and it sounds just exactly like it should. D'Laney has no patience to sit and read books, but she loves to carry them around, sit down and open a page or two, then close them and get back up with them. She has, however, developed some interest in cartoons, the ones with animals and bright colors. She has begun climbing on everything that she can, but because she's so small, she can't get up on much, thank goodness. Parents who just go on and on bragging on their kids have always bugged me, but I certainly understand the urge now. I do think that in most situations, that urge should be at least toned down some, but today's a special day, so forgive my bragging. Any other day, though, if I get to going on about D'Laney, just tell me to shut up. She might be the coolest, smartest, prettiest kid in the whole wide world, but she's certainly not the only one. OK, rambling over, now pictures!

Daddy getting sugars before he left for work.

I took this video when I got her from her crib this morning. There's nothing special about it, just a happy baby in the morning.