Do you see a theme in these pictures? It's love to the Dahlia'th degree!!!

Dahlia likes to eat sand. She'll lick her little fingers, get them nice and wet and stick them straight into the sandbox. What comes out is pure, unadulterated sand covering fully her tiny little fingers. Then straight into the mouth to sample her delicious score. Yum. She does the same with dirt. With rocks and bark, she's a bit more selective (and devious). She'll pick up a rock or a bark chip and reach out her hand innocently, as if to say, "Look, mom, look at this wonderful treasure of the natural world I have discovered." She'll hold it, and turn around, continuing to look around for other delights when all of the sudden, and seemingly from out of nowhere, there is a noticeable bulge on one side of her cheek. I approach cautiously, because I don't want her to choke. She sees me coming and bolts in the other direction with the most devilish grin on her face. Then, she makes me dig, DIG in there while she wiggles and squirms for her dear freedom. Alas, the rock or bark is extracted. Always much bigger than I had imagined. She's a real stinky booger like that. That's just who she is.

Dahlia is officially one! She proved to be alot like her mommy and brother (and dad, too, for that matter), a natural fan of the chocolate! Look at that girl go!

On Dahlia's birthday, we had a fun party! All of her friends (well, most of them) came to enjoy the "buggy" themed extravaganza! We had ants on a log, butterflies, and weird fig and apple bugs, which looked really strange and I'm surprised everyone had eaten them at all! All of the kids got bug kits complete with bugs, a bug catcher, and tweezers, just in case the bugs were too gross to pick up. The day was nice and everyone played outside with bubbles and sidewalk chalk and in the sand box. Dahlia had a bunch of balloons, and two special balloons: a butterfly and a ladybug. It was really a wonderful party and just great fun. Elias was found, at one point before the candles had been blown out, hovering over the cake, picking off chunks of chocolate for himself! :-) I just can't believe she's already one. The year went by so quickly, it has been a blur...