The Farnsworth Family: Happy 1st Birthday Charlotte!

I am constantly amazed at how fast time flies by and life goes on despite everything. It seriously seems like yesterday we were bringing Charlotte home from the hospital and snuggling this newborn baby girl. Now she is one! A whole year has gone by and where did the time go? Can you believe Charlotte has gone from this 7 lbs 8 oz, 20 inch long little thing:

To this big girl of 23 lbs 9 oz (90%ile) and 30 inches tall (75%ile). Amazing! Seriously, what a difference a year makes. Look how much she has grown up:

Isn't she the cutest baby you have ever seen? Yes she is! We love having Charlotte in our family and she definitely keeps us on our toes with her spunky attitude.

Just look at that face!! I can't get enough of it! This little stinker has a mind of her own and loves doing things her way. She is so happy as long as everything is going the way she wants it but, heaven forbid, if something does not go her way or if she is bugged at all, she will definitely let you know about it. Charlotte also wants to do things on her own time. For example, taking these pictures was a challenge because she did not want to cooperate. "Oh Mom wants me to look at the camera? Nah I'm going to play with the grass instead. Oh Mom wants me to sit on this chair and get my picture taken? No I'm going to crawl away instead." Seriously it was a real struggle especially with the other three kids trying to distract her attention as well. Oh well I think I got some pretty cute ones and some that show her personality as well.

Charlotte was so funny as she was opening her presents. At first she had no idea what we were doing giving her this bundle of paper.

As you can see from this picture, she was like, "Huh?"

Then she was happy when she realized she was okay to rip the paper and see what was inside. Yeah, new birthday clothes!

Her favorite thing about her birthday was her balloons. Charlotte loved just holding them and yanking on them and bouncing them up and down. She had a blast just plying with the balloons.

I think this picture is super cute because the balloons are almost perfectly framed around her face and you can see that she is so happy.

For dinner we had one of her favorite foods, corn on the cob. Charlotte loves gnawing on the corn cobs and just goes to town eating them. Here she is also showing us how old she is by holding up one finger. What a little smarty.

And more present time after dinner:

Now that she understood the concept of opening presents, she just did it. Her brothers thought she was going a little bit too slowly though and decided to help her out a lot. Charlotte received a play necklace and bracelet, a doll, and new sippy cups. She also received her very own rocking chair made by Dad. I love how the rocking chair turned out. Russell did a great job on it. Charlotte loves to sit and rock in it. Charlotte's favorite gift though was a blue and pink sippy cup. She held on to that thing for the rest of the day. She held on to it while she opened other presents and she held onto it while she ate her birthday cake. She loved that thing.

Next it was time for cake:

I decided since it was just us, I was not going to make huge fancy cake. I just made Charlotte her own special cake and the rest of us cupcakes. Yes I know I spelled birthday wrong but it was too late to fix it. I am just going to blame it on chemo brain because I can. Otherwise I really like how the cake turned out and so did Charlotte. Just look at that smile:

Charlotte wanted to touch the candle flame so we had to sing "Happy Birthday" to her really quickly. Then Russell "helped" her blow out her first candle.

Let the cake smash begin!

Going, going, gone! Charlotte totally demolished that cake! I don't really know how much she actually ate because it was smashed and smeared everywhere. Her first few bites were kind of timid like she didn't know if it was okay but then she just went to town grabbing hand fulls and putting them in her mouth. Then she must had gotten full because she just started playing in the cake and getting it everywhere. As you can see she still has her new favorite thing, her blue and pink sippy cup!

We had a great birthday for Charlotte. We all had fun watching her play with her balloons, eat her cake, and just being with her today.

Charlotte is a crawling everywhere but she has not tried to walk yet. I know that will come with time and probably will happen pretty soon. Charlotte also thinks she is just like the other kids. She loves getting in the middle of everything they do. She loves to see what they are doing. She is also a little copier. Whenever we make some sounds she tries to mimic us. If we are laughing at a joke or something she just starts laughing too. She has a funny little laugh that kind of sounds like a villain's laugh. It is a "Ha Ha Ha" She also likes to make us laugh. She will do funny things just to get us to laugh at her. Then she just smiles and does her little evil laugh. Charlotte loves dogs and makes dog sounds anytime she sees a dog or even hears us talk about a dog. She likes to just stand at our fence and look a our neighbor's dogs and "woof" at them.

I am still her favorite though I think. She is definitely a mama's girl. I don't know what we (or I) would do without her. Her hugs and cuddles have really gotten me though some hard times this last year. Charlotte is definitely a special girl.