11 AND 12 months

 at 10 months she started playing "phone" with me, but at 11 months she started talking on it ALL THE TIME. out loud.

these are from her 11 month photo shoot I did in St. Louis. I loved the retro red chair my grandma had in the basement. It went so well with the little bow tie shirt I made her.

I seriously still love this Peruvian hat on her. she rips it off seconds after, but its always fun to get a few shots of her in it (11 months)

of course she always has her favorite food: cheerios, stick somewhere on her body, but this was my favorite. It was stuck perpendicular to her bum which was too funny.

 

she enjoys a good read. and a good take-all-the-books-out-of-the-bins... (11 months)

she LOVEs to put on MY headbands, maybe more than the ones I attempt to put on her (which is why she is never wearing any headbands or clips. they get ripped out seconds later). and she loves uncle matthew of course. (11 months)

oh man. this girl became OBSESSED with using her own utensils this month (12 mos.) Its a messy endeavor, but important I gather if she is to be a mannered member of society one day.

while we were in St.Louis (11 mos) Olivia started playing with the letter magnets my grandma had. She would be entertained by them forever! So my mom got her some for her b-day. They are a nice new addition to my fridge and floor.

Are you waiting for the iconic "baby's first birthday, eating cake" shot?? you won't find one here. She had balloons strapped to her chair that she wanted to play with instead of eating cake, but I tried to get her to eat the cake anyway and she got mad so she started throwing it on the floor. notice that weird shape near her right hand? that's cake. and of course she wouldn't eat the strawberries, cause they're slimy. (she did eventually eat her cake, but not until she had forgotten about the balloons, the attention was no longer on her. and the camera wasn't out.)
I wrote this list before I left for Europe and it was a mix of 11 months and 12 months, and now I don't know when she started doing which things! so uh, sorry olivia, but your future siblings will probably be jealous I wrote down THIS many things in the first place...!

-whenever she sees a headband or hairclip she tries to put it in her hair.
-plays very well by herself, and sometimes she gets so into playing that she doesn't notice she's actually not in the same room as me... (which she normally prefers)

-gets giddy when she touches her blanket. And if it is near her when she is playing (though this is rare since I try to not have it leave the crib), she will go over to it, smile and giggle, then lie her head down on it. Then get right back to playing.

-kisses her dolls faces
-puts lids on tupperware
-plugs and unplugs the bath (it comes all the way out)
-grabs my cheeks and pulls me in
-says "ME ME ME ME!" when she wants the food I have in my hands.
-puts things inside of other things, not just taking it all OUT now.

has started actually "talking' on her phone now. everything is a phone. "..ledoledaleda..." "gooda gooda"
and the best part is when she is multi-tasking while talking on the phone: she will wedge the block/calculator between her ear and her shoulder and hold it there while playing with her toys and talking on it. HILARIOUS!!!!

throws everything on the floor when eating

gives flirty eyes to strangers (she makes everyone happy around her with her smiles and playfulness).

slept on top of me one morning... I was reading to her and she was playing nearby. she came up to me laid her entire body on me and fell asleep. it was so cute I could barely stand it! esp. since she rarely stops for long enough to give me this much affection!

likes to sleep on top of her blanket, which is bunched up under her stomach, so its like she is sleeping on a little hill

plays this game with me where she puts something in her mouth (a block), come to me I open my mouth and then we both have our mouths on the object and we laugh a lot. Sometimes we take turns having it in our mouths which is funny too. At least to us.

another game we play is I'm trying to get away!! come and catch me! where I try crawling in front of her and she tries to catch me... or on the bed where she tries to crawl away and I scoop her up and flop her onto a pillow on her back. She laughs and laughs and loves that game.

or we "play" little people. she hands me a little people character, and I make them talk. then I give it to her. She hands me another and watches me make them interact. and if I make them kiss her, she smiles at them as if its real.

is so loud and so active, that while at church, its become mostly an "in the halls" sort of affair. she speed crawls all over the place.

food: loves hamburgers
mixed veggies always (ESP. PEAS she will eat these morning, noon, and night if I let her).
fruit: likes to squish with her fingers but will only eat on random occasions, but always in a smoothie (mostly spinach smoothies or fruit blended with her milk)
pasta
bananas finally, but only in the peel, not if I chop them up and put them on her plate. ew. she hates the texture and won't even pick them up.

-she loves climbing up things, its scary!
-she turned 1 while we were in Croatia (on our cruise)
-at my grandma's she LOVED taking the letter magnets off the fridge and dropping them down the floor vent.
-how could I forget to write that my little dancer girl was a serious DANCING QUEEN these two months? she got the attention of an entire boat of cruise-ers going to the Croatian coast with her awesome dance moves! they were craccccking up. she's the life of the part-ay.

I cannot for the life of me believe that I have a one year old child. cannot cannot. It has been the fastest year of my life. This little girl is so fun and funny and I can't wait to see what this next year brings!