11 Months....One more month until we celebrate one year!

               Yikes! Alethea is officially 1 month away from the completion of her first year on earth.  I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by.  We have had so much fun getting to know this sweet little girl and we look forward to many more years of fun.  She is growing so quickly.  Her stats at the end of this month are 30.5 inches tall and she weighs 20lbs. 9.6oz according to our home measurements.  She has officially grown 10 inches exactly and almost 13lbs since her birth. J  She is developing more and more of personality each day and brings joy to our lives in ways I don’t think we ever could have imagined.

Kicking back and showing off her foot

Leaning forward and being a goof

                A big change this month is that she got tooth number 2.  So far she is taking it very slow in the teething department, but no complaints so far.  She has had no issues from teething other than a little bit of crying in her sleep and we are praying that continues.  She has also really taken off with her walking.  It’s crazy because she is already trotting around and almost to the point of a full run sometimes.  She loves to run around and play outside and I am so thankful for the beautiful SC weather that we can play outside in January.  We also play the game with her where we chase her and say “I’m gonna get you!” and she giggles of a storm, runs away and often stumbles because she is laughing so much.  Love it!

mid- run action pose

always with a leaf in her hand

love this pose :-)

Out for a walk with Daddy

                I think we are getting a bit spoiled with her schedule lately.  She has been on basically the same eating and sleeping schedule for the past 5 months and I am just waiting for her to throw us for a loop and change it.  She still nurses 4 times a day (no weaning yet) and she eats three meals of people food a day (occasionally a pureed veggie or two).  Her naps are still one in the morning and one in the afternoon ranging from 30min. to an hour or so.  And thankfully her night time sleep has continued to be from about 8pm until 7 or 7:30am every day.  What a blessing!

Walking around with her book

:-)

                Alethea has always been a great eater and thankfully that has been another skill that has continued.  This month marked lots of fun eating experiences since we were on the road for 2 weeks.  She tried pizza, ham, homemade mac n’ cheese, homemade veggie pasta, oranges, olive garden breadsticks, rolls from Texas roadhouse and loved them all.  Her willingness to try most anything really made it easy on us for travels.  She also tried lemon and lime for the first time and though she made funny faces every time she kept coming back for more.  I think we might have had a bit too much fun with that while we were out to eat. J

                Some fun skills we have seen emerge this month are that she waves and says bye bye (bah bah) even if sometimes it is still in reverse direction), she has finally grasped the sign for “more”, and she says “da da” for Daddy.  She has been saying the sound “da da” for a while now, but recently it has been very evident that it is directed at her Daddy.  It is so sweet to hear her squeal it when he walks in the room.  She loves him so much!  I also love it when she gives hi fives!  She is also beginning to grasp the concept of sharing even if once she shares it she often wants it right back. J She loves to put toys in and out of bowls, cups, etc and feed you her toys/food.  I am also impressed to see her mimicking me stacking blocks and she does quite a wonderful job doing so.  Another skill I love is that she is now able to take magnets of the fridge as well as put them back on. (Now to get her to put them back on a bit more often.)  She loves to climb in and on everything these days.  Her favorite place to climb in is her toy bins or the laundry basket and she just sits and plays there for a while. She also loves to climb up on her stool and gets so proud of herself when she does it.  One last skill to mention that definitely keeps me on my toes is that she loves to hide her toys. She puts them in the cabinets, in my purse, in the trash, and in every corner of the house she can find.

She also likes to eat magnets :-)

Cheesing it with Daddy while he unloads the dishwasher

(disclaimer: we don't normally let her do this)

She loves her new dino toy

Gotta use the tongue to climb properly

such a goof!

"AHHHHH"

Playing with her big blue ball  :-)

                One first I am not so excited about is that the end of this month marked her first ear infection.  We took her to the doctor thinking it was actually going to be pink eye because of all her eye mucus, but it turned out she had an ear infection.  Thankfully we were able to get her some meds and that seemed to knock it out pretty quickly.  And thankfully for her she got to take the penicillin version of the meds and isn’t allergic to it like her mommy.  Hoping for no more sicknesses for a while, though she is a trooper and other than the physical symptoms, you would never know she is sick.

                A last, and very important first to mention, is that she flew up to NY to visit Ben’s family for the first time and to celebrate her first Christmas.  She got to meet lots of new people and spend a ton of time at her Grandma and Boppa’s as well as her Grandpa’s house.   She also got to meet a ton of Ben’s friends and family and did so well around all the new people.  She even did well with her Aunt Rachel’s huge shepherd/rotty mix dog who was easily 5 times her size.  Plus, while we were in Syracuse she got to experience her first snow and she had a blast playing in it.   I was impressed with how well she got around in it especially since she had only been walking for a little over week by that point.

She did so well with Franky

and loved his cage

Snuggles with Grandpa

and Aunt Rachel

One of our few family photos from this month

Playing with EmmaLee

Playing with Grandma and Boppa

Playing in the snow for the first time

I was so amazed with how well she did with all the traveling.  Ben’s mom and dad live about an hour apart from each other and she die awesome on the trips to and from their houses.  And the big amazing thing is how well she did on our flights.  On the flights there she slept one leg and ate/played the second leg.  Then on the way home we were delayed an hour while already on the plane and then she ended up spending 2 hours and 5 minutes total on the plane and did great.  Then as a result we were delayed in Washington Dulles for 4 hours because we missed the second leg of our flight an d she did amazing.  She took her nap while we walked around the terminal and she had a blast running all around the terminal.

Our great little car traveler

On the moving sidewalk with Daddy :-)

                As usual, I could go on and on about how much we love about Alethea and what a wonderful blessing she has been to us.  However, I think I am going to stick with these many skills and experiences I have already mentioned.   So much to share!  What a fun 11 months it has been!