The Party

For the party, we had hoped to spend much of the time outside. As it turned out, that Saturday ended up being pretty chilly, although the sun was shining, so we improvised and moved the festivities into our garage and throughout the house. We have an interesting garage though since it has wood paneling and vinyl flooring. It worked out and we were able to stay warm.

We didn't get too many pictures from the party so if you have any, send them on over! We managed to leave the camera on the counter and were both enjoying ourselves so much we forgot to take many pictures.

It was a great time!

The spread. My mom came up the day before to help with the food.

Rosemary tried to open gifts. She will probably be more into it next year. :-)

Her very own cake. Publix is awesome. If you order your cake through them, you get the individual cake for free. Isn't that great?!

Oooo...more cake!

This was delicious! Can I get cleaned up now??

Once she was done, she got a quick bath then rejoined the party. Overall, she was a pretty neat cake eater. Most of the mess went on the bib (and her face)!

Professional Pics

Here are a few of the professional one year pics.

It's fun to be ONE!

Rosemary is already one year old! What an absolutely wonderful year this has been. So many fun memories to look back on.



Rosemary's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year and Jonathan and I took the day off to celebrate. We went to the mall and Rosemary got to play in the Swamp play area. At first she was a bit timid, but then she was off...climbing up the stairs of the slide, climbing on the alligators, crawling under bridges...she had a blast. She had her one year pics taken (I'll post a few in a bit) and then we ate at Chick-fil-a, one of her favorites (I think).



We came back to the house so she could take a nap then headed to Butterfly Rainforest (yes, again). She has grown to be so much more interested . I can't wait to take her when she's walking!

The 12 month alligator pic.

Rosemary in her "It's fun to be One" hat. She's not a fan of anything on her head right now though. The hat lasted for a few minutes each time we put it on. And bows...goodness...she loves to pull them out and try to eat them. She'll keep them in for awhile if she doesn't realize that we put one in her hair. So essentially Jonathan distracts her while I clip it in.

At Butterfly Rainforest, Rosemary loved to watch the waterfalls.

Rosemary watched the water here for awhile. She also tried to toss the hat in for a bath.

The birthday cupcake. She's not quite sure what to make of it...

Mmm...this is good! (notice how much of the cake she's eaten compared to the icing?)

The night before her party, Rosemary opened gifts from us and from a few friends and family who couldn't be at the party . One of her gifts was a set of magnetic turtle bathtoys from Katie and Jimmy. As soon as we opened them, Rosemary put one of them in her mouth. It was hilarious. She would crawl around with it there and then would try to hold one other turtle in each of her hands. She's funny.

Sippy Cup?

When Rosemary wanted to play with my cup of sweet tea, I didn't think she would actually be able to get any up the straw. I was wrong. She's a fan of the sweet tea.

New Years Eve

My dad came up to celebrate New Years Eve with us this year. I think we managed to see the ball drop then we quickly headed off to bed. Rosemary slept through most of the merriment.

The family with our tree. (Not that you can see the tree...)

Jonathan with the food (and my dad in the living room). We had way too much food for three people!

Jonathan gave us our own personal fireworks display in the driveway.

More from Christmas Break

We had a few days at home to relax and work on the house over Christmas break. One day, we took a bike ride to McDonald's for lunch with Rosemary in her new bike trailer. I think it was the highlight of the break. She loved it! We just have to find a way to keep her little helmet on her head. :-)

From the first time she saw the trailer, she seemed to know it was something for her. While Jonathan was putting it together, she kept crawling all over it.

Rosemary is ready for her ride.

I wanted to make Rosemary's birthday invitations so we did a photo shoot in our back yard. Here are a few that I liked that I didn't have room for on the invite. Mmm...hibiscus!

So sweet.

It's GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!!

Wow! What a great day and year to be a Gator living in Gainesville!

Congratulations to the Florida Gators--2006 BCS National Football Champions. And for being the first school in NCAA history to hold both the basketball and football titles at the same time. Incredible.

GO GATORS!

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa P. and Dancing with the Stillers

On Christmas day, we celebrated with Jonathan's family in Clermont/Groveland.


Rosemary with Grandpa P. and a cow.
Before heading back home, we visited with Bennett and Sara. They had just gotten a dance game that has Christian music that we all played again and again. Who knew that Jonathan and Bennett were such good dancers?

First Christmas (at home)

We celebrated Christmas with just the three of us on the 23rd before heading down to spend time with Jonathan's family. She seemed to enjoy it, but she wanted to open daddy's presents even more than her own.

Pulling up

A few weeks ago, Rosemary was sick so I brought her home early from daycare. I laid her down in her crib and when I walked by again, she had pulled herself up all the way to her feet in her crib! We had lowered the mattress because we knew it was just a matter of time!

Pebbles

I put Rosemary's hair up like this one time when we were with my parents and my mom commented that when it's like that, she looks like Pebbles Flintstone. She kinda does. :-)
This was one of the last times Rosemary took a bath in her little plastic baby bath. Once she started pulling up to her knees, it was just a matter of time before she started trying it in the bathtub. Here she got up on her knees then started turning the hot water on! Since switching her to the big bathtub though, her enjoyment of bathtime has steadily decreased. I think we need to get her some bath toys for her birthday. Maybe they will help.

Butterfly Rainforest

Janice, Richard, Elizabeth and Ezekiel came to visit us early in December. We took them to the Butterfly Rainforest (where we take all of our visitors). It was cold out, but we still got to see a lot of butterflies. And they kept landing on Janice and Elizabeth!


Rosemary and Ezekiel are very close in age. Ezekiel is 2 and a half months older. We credit Ezekiel with teaching Rosemary how to pull up. She'd been trying to, but after his visit she mastered it.

I thought this pic of Elizabeth and Ezekiel was adorable. You can see their blog here. He is such a happy little boy!
This butterfly landed on Janice during the butterfly release. It stayed there all the way until the end. You can see Richard with Ezekiel on the other side of the bridge. The man on the far right of the picture was the one who released the butterflies. Essentially he just picked the up out of the mesh cage and threw them and off they went.
I think that Rosemary was trying to catch a butterfuly here. That or touch one of the flowers.

Ten months, new cousins, and an early Christmas

Rosemary is ten months old! Apparently, she's giving her alligator a tooth exam. Maybe she'll be a dentist. Not that she has any teeth herself though!

This is Rosemary's newest cousin. Sarah Grace. She was just a few days old in this picture.

We celebrated Christmas four times this year. The first time was with my mom and dad in Longwood. Rosemary donned her Santa suit for the first one. She did well with the presents this year and tried to help open them.

Thanksgiving Dinner

My mom and dad came to Gainesville to celebrate Thanksgiving with us this year. Mom and I cooked then we had our first Thanksgiving meal in our house. Rosemary loved the sweet potato casserole.

Up to 9 months

I'm going to try to catch up a bit with our blog over the week.

Below are a few pictures around when Rosemary was 9 months old.

Let me explain this one to you. Rosemary had been getting over a cold and we were playing with her in her room. The toy in front of her is in the shape of a fishbowl and it has little balls that roll around inside. She was taking them out then putting them back in. At one point, she leaned over to put her head in then came up with that look on her face!

This was one Sunday after church.

Rosemary's 9 month Gator pic. She's in her jammies and ready for bed. I think this was shortly after a bath, which explains the crazy hair! She's a happy girl.

A few more

I had tried adding this pictures when I uploaded the others but for some reason it didn't work.

I think this is my favorite one from that day.

Jonathan and Rosemary