Even though Aubrina's walking now, she still practices while holding on to things. The other night she decided to take her shopping cart for a spin, and maneuvered like a pro! I caught part of it on my iphone. I'll post more pics of her walking by herself soon.

For months we'd been looking forward to celebrating Aubrina's first birthday with a big old party. But the plans quickly changed when Aubrina caught a stomach bug the day before her birthday (which was on October 11), and we had to cancel her party.

We ended up postponing the party for 2 weeks, and instead of having it at the park, we had it at our house. It was great to see lots of family and friends and have all their kids come over to play!

From Aubrina's First Birthday

From Aubrina's First Birthday

We kept the same catering order for 75 people, although we knew that only about 50 people would show up for the new party (and actually only about 40 people ended up coming). We had TONS of Mexican food leftover and gave it away to some of our guests and packed up the rest in the freezer. Yum!

From Aubrina's First Birthday

Aubrina loved eating the frosting on her cake (she wasn't too interested in the cake itself) and opening her presents. Her favorite gifts were the bottle from a baby doll (she's still getting used to the actual baby doll, but she looooves the bottle!) and a gum ball machine that lights up and plays music (The 'gum balls' are 2.5 in colorful balls, so there's no choking hazard).

From Aubrina's First Birthday

From Aubrina's First Birthday

Thanks to everyone who could make it to the party on short notice and help make her birthday special!!

On Friday night Aubrina started walking! She's been cruising around the furniture and walking with help for months now... since she was about 9 months old. I figured that she was just trying to gain confidence and practice, and that she would walk when she was ready.

Sure enough, Friday night after we'd finished dinner, we were playing in the living room and she just got up and walked from the coffee table to the TV. When she got there I started clapping and getting excited, but she looked at me like "What's the big deal, Mom?" I had a feeling she would start walking one day without noticing what she was doing, and that's exactly what she did!

This year for Halloween Aubrina was a giraffe. I let her pick out the costume herself, and she made a cute choice! She looked so cute in her costume, and even looked like a giraffe since she's still crawling. It cracked me up!

From Halloween 2009

From Halloween 2009

We went to the Halloween party at Google and saw Zoe, a friend from Aubrina's school who was dressed up like a duck. The girls didn't know what to make of seeing each other in these crazy get-ups and just stared at each other for awhile.

From Halloween 2009

On Halloween night Mark took Aubrina trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. She was comfy & cozy in her stroller, and of course had no idea what was going on. :) But she got lots of good candy!

From Halloween 2009