Sweet little Avery,

I’ll never forget waking up on New Year’s Eve 2012 at 5am with the first contractions that would bring you into this world.

The night before, I’d been crying to daddy about how I didn’t want to be pregnant another second.  He consoled me with a giant frozen yogurt from TCBY and I sat on the couch eating it and hoping that you would come soon.

Sure enough, you came right on time.

Your due date!

Who does that?!

You do, apparently :)

Perfectly timed and a perfect blessing to our family.

One that I don’t take for granted.

As I’ve written before, we made it to the hospital a mere 47 minutes before you were born.  I wanted to labor at home for as long as possible, and unknowingly I cut it a little closer than I meant to!

Just this morning daddy and I were laughing about how I was in the basement packing my hospital bag while I was doubled over in pain from transition labor.

You’ll come to know that your mama is kind of a nut sometimes :)

You came into the world like a cannonball after a giant push that left your face and eyes bruised and puffy.  I’ll never forget seeing your sweet little face and thinking you looked like you’d just been in a boxing match.

You were a very good baby who was happy as a clam as long as you weren’t hungry or tired.  Dirty diapers didn’t bother you (and still don’t!) and once we all got into a rhythm and survived potty training your sister while you were still breast-feeding, everything was good :)

A year later you are still a pleasure.  You’ve been hit hard this holiday season with a yucky cold, a nasty case of measles/roseola but you continue to be a delight to our family.

You went from one-armed army crawling around the house to crawling on all fours and cruising on furniture.  You’ve taken a few steps, but don’t trust walking yet.

You just graduated from formula, you eat just about anything we give you and you have 4 of the biggest, most adorable teeth ever.  I joke that you got my giant teeth and daddy’s tiny mouth.

Sorry about that :)

Words include: mama, dada, stop, and no.

Occasionally you have these genius moments where you say things that sound like “I do” in response to a question or “Snow White” after Grace insists that we call her that.

You’ve even learned how to say “two” after we say “one”.

You’re such a precious girl and I could fill a whole book with everything that is special about you.

I pray often that you grow into a woman who loves and fears God and who loves others with fierce generosity.

We love you so very much and have been honored to watch you grow up over the past year.  Here are about a hundred pictures we’ve captured this year.

Happy birthday A-Tune :)