Neily's first year

Miss Neily Jane arrived at 10:26 am on February 27th, 2003. She arrived in her own way, her own time. We would come to realize later that this was how she was always going to be! Independent and her way or the highway. ;) She was the BEST newborn and baby. All of our friends struggled with fitting their newborns into their lives, we didn't. She was a great eater, great sleeper, and almost always happy. The only thing she did early on to make us crazy was show off her fabulous puking skills- is something wrong with her? Yes? No? We don't know. She was quite a little chub, so likely NO!





Neily had tons of admirers waiting to hold her and snuggle her. The line was always very long. :)



At around 7 months, she picked up this habit that we all affectionately called "Piggy Face". She must have known it made everyone laugh, because she would whip it out whenever you glanced her direction. No matter what you said to her, she would answer with that face. Eventually people started addressing her by saying, "What does a piggy say?" and she would answer with that and loved that everyone laughed at her. She was an early crawler but never got into anything serious. She was just happy to be moving around and checking things out.

Happy Halloween! Neily was Dorothy. Started out that way because there was no other option- as a first time mom, I had no idea that you had to shop for Halloween costumes in September or they'd be sold out! Now I know. ;) Ended up being my favorite costume of hers ever.




Third or fourth attempt at a Christmas picture of our family. We ended up not even bothering to send one out, now that I look back, I really love this picture and wonder why I didn't just use it!

First steps at 9 1/2 months old! She walked between Aunt Icky and Daddy for ages, sooo proud of herself! Again, like crawling, she was just so happy to walk that she spent most of her time walking and giggling, not really getting into anything. It became very clear as the years went on that Neily was hiding her evil little twin from us for her first few years. ;)