Alia at 10 months and now 11 months!

I am such a happy mommy. I have such a beautiful little girl who makes me feel so wonderful. Alia is now 11 months which means her first birthday is right around the corner! I've already got an idea for a party theme and cake as well as her birthday outfit all picked out. Can you tell that I enjoy being the mother of a girl?

So at 11 months, Alia is busy busy busy. Alia loves to run along the furniture to get to whatever she wants. She is also quite the expert crawler. I am constantly hearing myself and others saying, "wow she is a fast crawler!" Alia loves chasing Nick, me, or anyone who will run away from her. She is also a big fan of peek-a-boo. Alia LOVES looking at books. She'll sit on my lap for as long as I will read to her. I have never seen her get bored of reading books before I do. And she will also sit and look at books on her own for forever! There was one day that she was in her room looking at her books and I came in and said to her, "will you be okay if I go take a shower?" She looked at me as I spoke, then looked at her book and then looked at me again and waved. It was as if she was saying, "go on, mom. I'll be fine." And she was! Alia now eats everything. And a lot of it! I'm not sure if she has a favorite food because she seems to enjoy anything I put in front of her. She also knows how to drink out of a sippie cup and a straw. Our favorite thing that Alia has been doing lately is this really funny smile. She squints her eyes and shows her teeth while pushing her bottom teeth to one side. We call it her gremlin smile. She's also really good at giving kisses. Yesterday while visiting teaching, Alia kept trying to give kisses to the 2 year old son of the woman I was visiting. I'm going to have to keep my eye on that girl. Alia says mamma and dadda and I'm pretty sure she knows what she's saying.

Now that our play is over, we've been able to get Alia back to a regular sleeping schedule and she seems to be enjoying going to bed at 8. She's also getting a lot more snuggly. Alia hasn't ever really enjoyed snuggling in my lap or arms unless I have something interesting for her to do, like read a book or watch a show. But now when she gets tired, she'll lay her head on my shoulder and sing a little bit. I love it so much! Whenever I am taking her to bed, as we are walking down the hall to her room she waves goodbye to daddy and starts to fuss a little because she knows where she's going. I call that walk, The Green Mile.

These were taken at about 10 1/2 months. So I'm counting them for for even though I did take 11 month pictures. They just didn't turn out as well.

I tried to post a video but I can't get it to load. Better luck next time, I hope!