Happy Birthday Atticus!

Well, it's official -- Atticus is one year old! I can't believe it's gone by so fast and I know that's what everyone says, but it's really true. He says "Mama" and "Dada" and "no no" and crawls all over and walks all over (on his birthday really taking lots of steps without help) and yet I still expect him to be a little lap baby who needs to be held and nursed all the time. He's so sweet and snuggly still, regularly holding absolutely still for a back scratch an nuzzling his face into our chests as we put him down to bed. We had a little party for him at each grandma's house and then a little cupcake party with a few friends. He decided chocolate cake is a great face and body paint as well as a wonderfully squishy substance for molding.

Otherwise life continues to roll along as usual, only a severe longing for the end of this gray and smoggy winter to end growing more intense by the day. Emerson and Stella are thriving, learning and growing so fast that we can barely keep up. As I was reading to Stella last night, she turned pointed at the word orange, looked at me and said, "That's a bossy 'r' so it's going to say 'or'." Emerson's ability to sound out and write words is amazing, and we can't believe how clearly his penmanship has gotten. In the last couple of weeks we've had a few sunny days when they could play outside without coats and they've cherished every chance to soak up the sun. It makes a really beautiful picture, these curly-headed cuties stooping over to scratch in the dirt as the afternoon sun reflects off their faces. We are lucky.