11 Months!

Julia is 11 months old!

It's hard to believe that we are living out the last couple of weeks of Julia's "baby-hood" and soon to be trading it all in for "toddler-hood." She is 11 months old and certainly ready to conquer the world! This year flew by, what will next year be like?

Julia's desire "to know" just keeps growing and growing. She is intrigued by everything, even the vacuum cleaners that once made her jump are now interesting to her and she loves coming over to touch them as I'm cleaning. I used to try and save all vacuuming for the weekends (when Andy is here to help watch Julia), but with the increase in finger foods flying off of the high chair, I'm learning that it's best to try and clean up after every meal. About those flying finger foods..... this may be one of the new discoveries she enjoys the most (the only other family member to enjoy it more would be Delaney - Mommy definitely would prefer the food stay on the tray/in Julia's tummy and off of the floor/in Delaney's tummy!) I suppose, at least she enjoys eating - regardless of how much actually makes it to her stomach. She is now eating meat (when she decides that she feels like it) and had the special treat of tasting "Grandma's" homemade manicotti for the first time this month...... like most foods, it took her a couple of times of being exposed to it before she liked it, but she is a HUGE fan now.

Julia has also discovered the magic of clapping...

She loves our shortened version of "patty-cake" sung in an extremely goofy voice). She also is quite infatuated with opening and closing the cabinets. If there is one cabinet in the house left without a child safety lock, she'll find it.

This is the very moment that she realized there are actual "THINGS" hiding behind those doors, just calling her name to play...

Recently, she learned that not only can those cabinet doors open and close, but once open, they make great hiding spots. Yup, she learned how to climb inside and stand up in one of said cabinets which is full of tupperware and purposely left without a child lock just for her to play in (this is a bonus for me too, because it provides for endless entertainment right within my sight to preoccupy Julia (usually) while I'm making meals in the kitchen).

Her speech is improving and growing and she's making many more sounds, though still none that we can really match to exact words, with the exception of "hi"... which sounds more like "eh" (see video below)

and she's working on "baby"... but that usually just sounds like "ba" - though she can't officially say much, you can tell that she now understands a bunch more of what we say to her and that is enough to already make communicating to her more fun! One of her newest tricks in making sounds is to hang her mouth open wide and hum a noise for us to repetitively cup our hand over (the classic "Indian" call) - she thinks it's pretty funny. And, she's become a HUGE "nose-scruncher."

You can also see this in some of her 10 month pictures posted here on the blog. Perhaps this isn't the best habit for us to encourage, but we can't help making her do it, because it's really so very cute. She also sort of breathes real heavily through her nose while she does it (kind of like she's smelling something) - it's pretty entertaining to watch. We're also noticing that she's starting to bark like a dog (haha..... think I need to worry?) There is an outdoor dog that lives in the neighborhood behind us and it tends to bark all day and all night long (right outside Juila's window). My guess is that she's imitating this dog. However, Delaney doesn't help that cause either. When Delaney barks, Julia likes to quickly respond with a "bark" of her own and then quickly chase Delaney to the window to see what *they* are barking at.

Best Friends.

The LARGEST accomplishment this month is Julia discovering how to walk!

Right now "walking" consists of sporadic groups of steps here and there, followed by an extremely fast crawl, but she is certainly on her way! Each day, she seems to add one more step onto her record from the day before and currently (at a handful of days past her 11 month birthday) her record is 7 steps! And, she basically is running along the furniture when she can use it for balance. It's near impossible right now for me to capture it on video because I never know when she's going to do it, but I'm working on it! Here's one attempt at a video (of course she walked, and then didn't want to do it again for the camera... but it's still a video to share!)

In addition to walking, she is becoming more and more comfortable with standing on her own.

(Here she is gawking at the UPS man while we were outside. I guess Mommy needs to teach her how to inconspicuously sneak a peek at someone!)

We're looking forward to what the last month as a "baby" brings as we get ready to celebrate Julia's first birthday soon!

Some photos from the past month...

I love these pajamas on her!

This should have been included in our halloween pictures!

About to take Delaney for a walk!


VERY interested in "helping" Daddy work at home.


Learning all about the amazing calculator...



Happy Birthday, Daddy! (11/14/10)

What our family room looks like on any typical day when Julia is awake.



Breaking from play for a drink of water!
Putting on a concert with her pretend microphone...
Admiring her Coach purse...

Trying on Mommy's winter wear




Julia's first Thanksgiving!

"Papa Lou" came to visit and we all enjoyed his company(...and his cooking!)
Our two little butterballs...
"C'mon guys, let's eat!"

Julia's Thasnkgiving meal wasn't as much of a hit with her as I had hoped. Her dinner ended up consisting of yogurt and yogurt melts with puffs. Whatever works!
The thing I enjoyed most out of having my father come and visit was getting to witness him interact (in his goofy and crazy way) with his first grandchild. I've grown up always experiencing him acting silly with us, and also with our younger cousins/nieces/nephews, but it definitely filled a missing void to get to see him being silly this way with Julia and making her laugh.




Takin' a few steps to Mommy!
HAPPY FIRST THANKSGIVING TO ME!

The second best thing to any Thanksgiving meal are the meals of leftovers that you're able to enjoy (without all of the hard work of cooking all day!) for a few days after the big day....

Dad and Andy feasting on leftover stuffed artichokes (..a family favorite tradition). Andy was a huge fan.

My boys!

Papa Lou bought Julia her first pair of crocs! (and, they surprisingly fit her really well!)

A shot of her top teeth that you can never quite see in pictures. She has 3 top ones, and the 4th has been sitting there just beneath the gum for the last 1.5 months. It's about to poke through any day now.

In addition to having my Dad visit with us, we were also lucky to have our dear friends, Mr. & Mrs. Jones, from back home in NY pay us a short visit while they were in Austin visiting their son and future daughter-in-law. It was nice to have the extra company and help!

Just after bath time!
Julia helping me address her birthday party invites
...her idea of helping was doing laps around the table...

I'm adding this video "just because"...... it's Julia trying on her new hat (for her to wear up in NY!) and watching one of her favorite Sesame Street videos...