We have a walker!

Hello all and Happy 11 Month Birthday to Olivia! I can't believe she'll be 1 in less than a month!!! Wow! Well, Thursday was her actual 11 month birthday and on that day we deemed her an OFFICIAL WALKER!! She now prefers to walk than crawl. And she is practicing ALL of the time. Here is a picture of her walking over to me and a couple videos (in order of development) from the last couple of days. Look at her go!




This first video is from Friday afternoon (after swim class)

This video is from Saturday Morning.

Aside from walking, she has become an expert climber. She has been climbing on her toys and standing on her little cars for some time now, but she has some new tricks. I blame swim class. So at swim class, we are learning to swim to the edge of the pool, monkey-monkey down the edge of the pool and then climb out. All good survival skills for being around the pool and I'm glad she's getting the hang of all of that. However, after repeatedly teaching her how to get her knees up on the edge of the pool, then climb out - she has now realized that she can apply her new skills to other things . . . like the couch. Now I'm not just talking about climbing onto the couch, no no, she has figured out how to climb OVER the couch! Well, I guess our little gate setup isn't going to do much good anymore.

Here's a video of the little escape artist in action:

Here's just another funny video of her doing another one of her tricks. You know how you can make "indian" sounds (like cowboys and idians) by patting your hand over your mouth, well she has figured that out. When she was real little and got upset, I used to pat my hand over her mouth to make that sound and help her stop crying and make her laugh. She always thought it was funny. Now she does that to herself and even tries to do it to us sometimes. It is pretty cute.

And, of course, here are some pictures of the little one exploring the house. She had a good time playing under the kitchen table.

What a face!!!

And here's a picture of her all pooped out after her swim class on Friday. Isn't she sweet?

Well, I actually got to spend a quiet night alone (no husband and no baby) on Saturday night! Grant took Olivia with him to Lenoir to hang out with his parents. He wanted to go fishing with his dad and his mom REALLY wanted to see Olivia. (And I had a TON of stuff to get done) So it worked out well for all of us. Unfortunately, the car ride there was rough for them - Olivia does not enjoy being strapped into the car seat anymore and screamed for a good portion of the ride. But . . . I hear that she slept pretty well over night there and was pretty well behaved the rest of the time. They got back late last night (so she would sleep better in the car) and I got to kiss my baby goodnight! This was the first night that I haven't seen her and I missed her - but I got TONS of stuff accomplished! I cleaned the entire house (even mopped and dusted AND did the bathrooms!). And I got to go hang out with my girlfriends on Sunday afternoon for our monthly craft get-together.

I am currently working on making her a teddy bear from scratch for her 1st birthday. That way it will be something that she can have forever. I am making it out of a mohair fabric and it is turning out really cute. I worked on it a bunch yesterday at my craft get-together and have now finished sewing all the pieces (ears, head, arms, legs and body), now I just have to stuff them and sew them together. Then I'll have to put the eyes and nose on there. Here's a picture of the bear pattern I am using. Now I am not going to shave down the nose like this one or use a necklace (but maybe the bows, though). I hope it comes out good - I've never done this before! :)

Well, that's about all for now. I'll keep you guys updated on her new skills and walking development. We have no swim class this week for the holiday weekend - our last class is on the 29th and Grant is going to try to come - so we may have some more swimming pictures coming. We're going over to Wilmington for a night this coming weekend so Olivia can explore the beach a little and we're going to take her to the NC Aquarium. That should be a fun little trip for us. I'll post some pictures when we get back! Until next time, take care!