She's One and Daddy's a Doctor!

Elizabeth is one year old. She turned one last Friday, April 13. Danny successfully defended his dissertation on March 2. His advisor told him that it was the best dissertation he had ever supervised. I'm so proud of him. We are looking forward to Danny's graduation on May 12. He's worked so hard and really achieved something amazing and significant. On the night of his defense, and after the grueling annual International Food Festival, Tom and Charlotte and Tammy and Clay came over to congratulate Danny and just celebrate with him. It was really special. I can't believe that Elizabeth is one. She is such a doll. She's walking now. She went from crawling, really fast, to taking a few tentative steps a few weeks ago, to walking 5 or 6 or 7 steps, to just walking across the room. Now she's practically running around. She walks really fast, and it's kind of scary because she walks around with her hands waving around in the air, and half the time she's holding on to something. This week it has been the ADORABLE wooden utensils that Patsy gave her with her name engraved in them. They are awesome, and she loves them, but she's turning them into weapons. She seems to be taking a break from her paper fascination. She's really into clothes now. I put a basket of outgrown clothes in the living room and she just sits there and stands there and takes them out and plays with them forever. It's funny! It's definitely better than playing in the bathroom/toilet, her second favorite place to play. And it's easier to pick up and a little safer than her other hobby, taking all of the tupperware lids out of the drawer in the kitchen.

The birthday party was a success. It was really crowded -- more than 20 people, but it was fun. Alot of Danny's family came, Tricia, Roy, Brittany, James and Anita, Grandmother, Elaine, Tracy and her boys, Eric, Jennifer, Logan and Lauren, and my parents were there. Tony and Dee came with their little girl, Kayleigh who turned one in January and that was fun. Of course Jim and Patsy came. Elizabeth loves Patsy so much. She is so wonderful with her. She has been such a blessing as Elizabeth's babysitter this semester. Lanny and Debbie came, and for moral support my friends%2