Noemi Turns Toddler

How old is Noemi???

Noemi's first birthday was on Saturday. I can’t even believe it. She is like a three-month-old in my mind since we have only known her since August. We had a fun-filled day planned for our new toddler, but it got cut short when we woke up to our oil furnace having gone awry in the night and there was black soot everywhere in our home. Ugh! The kicker is that I had just cleaned the house from top to bottom (I hate cleaning) in preparation for her birthday party the next day and my shoulder had been dislocating like a hiccup, so gimpy me needed to try to clean with my Storm Trooper brace on. Lovely. We spent much of the day trying to get the soot off of the major surfaces so that the house was kid safe and clean enough to have our family descend on our home.

We didn’t let the day pass without taking Sosi to a funky little petting zoo in the heart of Lancaster County farmland—too funny. She got a total kick out of the donkeys, goats, llamas and even the hairy pig. We didn’t anticipate how cold it would be, so we spent some of the time allowing the goats to entertain us from the comfort of our car. It didn’t matter to Noemi—she had a ball either way…and we had a ball watching her ooooh and aaaaah over every oinking, quaking and bleeting thing. Love my girl.

Noemi was baptized at church on Sunday morning—I’ll post more on that later, but it was definitely a special morning for us. Noemi did great at her birthday party later that afternoon. She hung like a champ with all of her cousins, un-phased for the first time by the chaos. It’s been great to watch her become increasingly comfortable running with the big dogs and joining in on the fun of other children. She is growing in so many ways.

She also enjoyed chowing on cake for the first time--thanks to my cousin Alisa for her adorable monkey and heart cake baking talents!

The highlight of the party? The dog piñata that she picked out. I don’t think she understood that her beloved paper mache doggie would be beaten with a bat by her eager cousins. Happy birthday, baby!