11 Months Old

All about my 11 month old:

* Sleeping:

- Bed time has been a dream! Even if she seems to be fairly awake, once she has her last bottle, I put her in her crib, cover her up & she turns over onto her tummy and goes right to sleep. She hasn't woken up in the middle of the night for weeks! 8:00 seems to be the perfect bed time for her to sleep in 'til 7am. Any earlier and she's up by 6:15 or 6:30.

- She's stopped napping most days at preschool. Apparently there's too much excitement going on & she just stands in her crib there & screams. But she doesn't get too grumpy, so I told her teacher not to bother with it. She usually falls asleep before we leave the parking lot at 1:45 or 2 and her afternoon naps have been between 1 1/2 to 3 hours. When she's with me all day, she naps just fine in the morning. I guess I'm boring.



* Eating:


- In about 3 weeks, we're probably going to start the process of weaning from the bottle. I know this will probably result in several nights of tears & difficult bed times, but I'm prepping myself. I'd like for her to be done before she starts back to school in Sept. but I'm not going to push it. Fortunately, I don't think she's as attached to the bottle as she could be. She doesn't carry it around with her or feed herself all day long like some kids. She is down to 3 a day. She still doesn't get the sippy cup, but she is getting there. I'm considering a cold turkey type thing but don't know if I'm strong enough.




- She's becoming more picky about what she eats. I'm trying to get away from baby food & we do just one jar a day at lunch, so I'm trying to be more creative. She usually gets in a few bites here & there before she lays her head down at her high chair or starts getting bored. Everything I've read says not to push a kid to eat-- if she gets hungry enough, she'll eat. So I only offer healthy things when she does eat & she will get the nutrition she needs somehow or another. Her favorite foods seem to be a cheese sandwich, yogurt, waffles, and dried fruit. Oh, and anything she finds laying on the floor. (Don't think I haven't considered feeding her off the floor just to get her to eat!)


* Fun Facts:

- She still does her army crawl to get around, but she also can cruise. She does several laps around the coffee table every day. She constantly wants to stand or have us help her "walk" around.







Here she's wearing what I call her "big girl" pajamas (pants & a shirt)-- I think they make her look so grown up!








- She giggles a lot more than she ever has! She has her temper-tantrum moments (and she's getting more & more stubborn), but for the most part she is a very happy girl. She still babbles constantly and amuses herself easily. She doesn't say any words that make sense, but I think she is beginning to understand a lot more. She can say "ma" and "ba" and even "za" but doesn't really associate them with anything. I'm still listening!


- Her favorite toys are currently balls (she loves to shake them and then throw them until they roll under the couch where we can't get them), cups (she pretends to drink) & spoons, and anything that makes music. She also loves her stacking cups and she loves to pull books off her shelves (they have to ALL be on the floor before she's satisfied). She also loves to put things on her head. Not sure why that's so funny, but whenever I put anything on my head & let it fall off, she cackles with laughter! I still don't know why I bother buying her new toys, because the best toys aren't really toys at all!


- Here is her other new favorite toy. Elizabeth got her this pushing/ riding toy. She doesn't really know how to do it herself yet, but she loved to be pushed around outside on it. She must have thought she was so big! Every time she saw the camera she stopped to cheese!









































- Her first birthday party is planned and if you're reading this, you're invited! Our house, Aug. 29th @ 4pm. Call & let me know you're coming! Does this look like the face of a kid who needs chocolate cake??

Kids Exchange

This weekend I discovered another reason to love living in a larger city: The Kids Exchange. It's an event they have at the fairgrounds 2 times a year, something like a large flea market. Moms can sell any and all used kids items. It's staffed entirely by volunteers and if you volunteer to work, or if you sell things, you can shop early, but it's open to the public Fri., Sat. & Sun. Everything is categorized so there was a HUGE section for toys (maybe 20 or 30 tables full-- a whole table for just Legos, a whole table for just Barbies, a whole table for just G.I. Joe, etc.), a section for strollers, a section for books, one for bottles, and of course CLOTHES. Each size had a row probably 50 ft. long (and that was just girls' stuff).

Brett kept Leah & I spent almost 4 hrs. (about 45 min. of which was spent waiting in line-- the place was packed!) but ended up with probably an entire fall wardrobe for her. I got 23 items (probably half of which were clothes) for $60 total. I also got a couple toys (including a tea set, some Barbies for when she gets older, and some smaller things), a pair of shoes, some tights, videos, and a decent winter jacket. Hardly anything I found was more than $4, but everything was fairly decent quality. I was so excited to be able to find such great bargains! I definately plan to go again in January!

Dancing Queen

This is the happiest baby ever!

This is how she dances. She seeks out any and all toys that play music and pushes the buttons to make music as often as possible. Then begins flapping her arms like this.

A Playdate, A Mohawk, and a Big Mess

Since I hadn't updated in a little while, I thought I'd post a few pictures of what we've been up to lately:

This was actually back in June, but I wanted to include it anyway. Leah had a playdate with an old friend of mine from my former job. Emily was born in December '08, so she's about 4 months younger than Leah. As you can see, they thoroughly enjoyed each other's company in the play area at the mall. (Actually, Leah kept taking her toys, but Emily was such an agreeable baby she didn't even care.)

She has a lot more hair than we thought! It's starting to curl at the ends.

She has new teeth on the top! In fact, I took her to the dr. one day last week because she kept rubbing her ears & was fussier than usual, so I thought she had an ear infection. Turns out it was 2 new teeth coming in. (And the dr. gets $100 to tell me that!) So she'll have 6 on top. Her new favorite thing is to grind them together. It makes a wonderful sound. (I'm kidding-- it's really annoying.)

She is getting into so much more lately. She's figured out how to open cabinet doors. She climbs on everything! And one of her favorite games is to pull all the toys out of her toy box. Then she looks around like, "Ok, now what do I do?" We're working on learning how to put the toys back in the box.

She managed to work her arm out of her pajamas on her own. She hates getting dressed so I let her crawl around like that for awhile. Toga party, anyone?

4th of July & Beach Weekend

Once upon a time....

There was a little girl named Leah.

Leah went with her Mommy & Daddy to visit her Grandma & Grandpa. They live at the beach. It was her first time to see the beach (not counting the time she was 3 months old & slept the whole time while bundled in 2 blankets) and Leah was very excited.

She decided she liked to play in the sand & that it felt good to put sand all over her legs.

At first she really liked the waves, opening her mouth in curiousity. But when the waves started getting close to her & trying to get her, she didn't like them so much anymore....

So she hung out on a blanket on the sand with her cool daddy.

The next day was the 4th of July. Leah got to spend time hanging out on Grandma & Grandpa's front deck. The sun was shining & the weather was beautiful!

She got to enjoy her first piece of watermelon. Yummy!

She was so excited to find out later that she could stay up to watch the fireworks. And stay up she did. She was really interested in the fireworks. She really wanted to see them, but she was a very tired little girl and really doesn't like to sit still much. Still, she saw the whole fireworks show over top of the ocean & then she fell right to sleep in her chariot on the way back home.

The next day she got to make some new friends at Grandma & Grandpa's church, and then have lunch with Grandma, Grandpa, Mommy, Daddy & Mommy's Uncle Dave, Aunt Barb, and cousins Daniel & Kennedy. She had a good time, but she really was tired again. It had been such a long weekend with so much excitement and she knew she still had a 4-hour drive back to her real home in Raleigh. On that trip, she made a huge mess in her diaper and Mommy & Daddy had a lot of cleaning up to do! She was a happy baby after that and played in her car seat the whole trip. And when she got home, boy was she exhausted! She sure did enjoy the 4th of July!

The End!