One year old tomorrow!

It's been a busy month! Netsanet is growing like crazy and reaching all kinds of new development milestones. She's said her first two words ("Duck" followed shortly by "Dad"). She can push herself up to sitting from lying down, she is crawling on her hands and knees, she can pull herself up to her knees and almost her feet, and she wants to walk all the time (this morning she took steps by herself with me only holding lightly on to her pj's). Lots of development for such a short time!

There have been a lot of events in this little girl's life, too. We had friends from eastern WA come to stay with us (the adoption buddies we visited in May), which was a lot of fun. The kids were very excited to eat Ethiopian food and go to the Ethiopian grocery nearby. It was great to have them here and see how much they've grown and changed so quickly!

Netsanet had a professional photo shoot, along with several other families from WACAP. The photographers loved her and took pictures for about 45 minutes. She did some naked baby butt pictures in addition to the regular pictures and of course peed on their backdrop, but they still thought she was cute (who wouldn't?). We should get the photos in about a week - I'm very excited to see them!

This past weekend we had her first birthday party, although she doesn't officially turn 1 until tomorrow. It was a good party, with about 35 people present. Net wasn't feeling too well but she was still active and outgoing. The adults finished up the party around 10pm after the little ones went to bed. We lucked out with weather, since it's been an odd an monsoon-like August here. Saturday was clear and warm, and the rain held off for us until Sunday.

I can't believe my leave is already half over - it's gone so quickly! Hopefully the next weeks will go more slowly, although I doubt it :)