It's been a year!!!

Happy WHOLE-HEART birthday to me!!!!  

Can you believe it, blog friends?!?!  February 9, 2009 was my heart surgery - and now look at me!  A beautiful (CHUBBY!) princess - with my scar barely visible!  My mom and dad took me to get these beautiful pictures taken to celebrate how far I've come in a year.  AND, would you believe that my whole-heart birthday falls on the SAME week as Congenital Heart Defect Awareness week AND Valentine's Day.  What's more fitting than that??  So obviously Valentine's Day is our new favorite holiday in my house... and this will be my "first" Valentine's Day... since I was tubed and sedated last year...

Remember this?  This was me the night before surgery.  Blue, pale and skinny - with my feeding tube.  Yikes!  That was no fun...

HI EVERYONE!!  This is much better.

I don't know if you heard, but having your belly flop over your diaper is actually cool... in the "under 2" crowd.

January 10th was my dad's 30th birthday!   Whoo hoo for cake!

Those parents of mine!  It was ice cream cake!  No one told me...

WHOA!  That's cold....

Do you like my ice cream moustache?  Man, ice cream is GOOD stuff.  Dad should have a birthday more often.

Also in January (actually, on my Dad's birthday!) my friend Tucker got baptized.  Afterward, we went to his house with his cousins to celebrate.  Here's Ella and me clapping for him. 

Then Ella left and gave us a little privacy... and I did something NO ONE had ever seen me do before....  and no one can believe I did even now!  I went in for a big, wet one!  As you can see from the look on his face, Tucker was PSYCHED about his first smooch from a cute girl...

Yup.  That's right.  Photos don't lie.  I am SO ready for Valentine's Day!

Another big fashion update:  I'm getting glasses!!  I'm very far-sighted and I cross my left eye as I try to focus on things - so the doctor said it's time to try some glasses.  After looking everywhere for frames that fit my face - we finally found some that don't look like swim goggles.  These, obviously, are just the test pair - once I get my lenses in them - there will NOT be writing on them. 

Oh, this is a fun game.  You put them on, I take them off.

And I take them off and eat them...

And my dad tries to pin me down but I still take them off...

And my dad really pins me down and I get IRRITATED...  good luck with this venture, Mom and Dad!  They are really enjoying this time while my glasses are getting made... and we're not battling over keeping my glasses on.

So then, just what we did NOT need... MORE SNOW in Virginia!  28 inches of it!  This is just plain crazy.  Mom has already had 6 snow days - 2 more are already planned... and there are so many neighborhoods that haven't been plowed yet.

Seriously?  More of you guys dumping me in a snow bank to take pictures??

Now THIS is a HUGE upside to snow!  I went sledding for the first time!

Wow - my snowsuit makes my eyes look great!  (And in this picture, you can almost see my new top tooth!)

This is going to be great!

I'm pretty sure Dad is more excited than I am...

My dad claimed that I "LOVED" sledding down hills... so I made this picture extra big.  The look on my face: does that say LOVES to you?!?

This kind of sledding is much more my style!  It's a good thing I like it so much - because the roads are not clear yet from Saturday's storm - and there's another big one on its way tomorrow.  Sledding may be the only mode of transportation for quite a while!

So, on my one year Whole-Heart birthday - my family would like to say THANK YOU to all our friends and family.  We couldn't have made it through this year without your prayers, support, love and friendship.  We are VERY, VERY grateful!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!