The Martin Family Blog: Happy Birthday, Anna Frances Martin!

Oh may His light fill all you are

And the jewel of wisdom crown your heart;

This is my prayer for you.

Hold my hand;

I'll teach you the Way to go.

Through the joys, through the tears,

The journey of these years,

May you trust Him ‘til the end.

May you trust Him in the end. *

Anna Frances,

you daily brighten us with your smiles,

warm us with your snuggles

wow us (and keep us on our toes) with your exploits,

and melt our hearts with your joy and affection.

Your name means grace, favor from God.

Your life is a mark of His grace toward us.

At one year:

You love playing in the grass and splashing in the water.

You love speed and flying and spinning.

You love animal toys and legos and paper.

You eat everything, and lots of it.

You LOVE your brother, and Mama and Dada. You're a family girl.

You say Mama (first time on Mother's Day--thanks for that!) and Dada, and some variations of a few other words. You are starting to understand a lot!

You wave and high-five and sign "all done" and clap for yourself.

You stand up by yourself and balance for a while. You've taken a few steps, but still prefer your speedy crawl.

You climb up everything. You are up the stairs in a flash if we forget to block them. One of your latest tricks is using the kid-sized chair to climb up on top of the drawing table. I often find you on boxes, or using boxes to get up on higher things. A couple times now I've walked in to find you casually leafing through books up on the sofa.

Your hair is wispy and so blond, long over your eyes if not pulled back. Your eyes are a beautiful blue.

You are still pretty attached to Mama, and don't care to be left. We're working on that. As long as I stay where you left me, you are a bold little explorer who comes back periodically to check in with a snuggle.

And now that Peter has a big boy bed, we can't keep you out of it.