11 Unbelievable Months!

She's just not a baby anymore. This past month has felt like every day brought a new change in this little girl. From what and how she eats, to "words" and sounds, to her little personality blossoming right before our eyes.  I know she will constantly be growing up and changing all the time, but she will never change as quickly as she has over these past 11 months. It feels like the best and fastest year of our lives and looking back I cherish it more and more.  I don't know if I never noticed it before, but there are lots of commercials that try to show kids growing up in a glimpse. There was a Carter's one a while back and I just saw a Verizon one. When I see those I get choked up every time because of the growth I have seen already in Noelle and mostly because I think ahead to when she's all grown up and how I will still see the little baby in my arms, finally asleep after resisting her nap for the last 20 minutes.  Time passes so differently once you become a parent!

Enough sappiness for one post - let's get down to the fun updates!!

Favorite Food: Anything that ISN'T baby food. Around the third week of April, Noelle decided she was too grown up for baby food. She wants whatever I am eating - which is great and convenient most of the time. Except when I want to eat what I am eating :)

Favorite Toy: A new appreciation for bouncy balls has come to pass. She likes bouncing them herself or watching others bounce them. My mom had her hysterical bouncing balls while she visited this month.


New Tricks: Clapping! And dancing!!  I actually watched her figure out how to clap, it was fantastic! I had been showing her and practicing with her for months now, and then one morning she just got it!  And the dancing is ridiculous. She will go to her toys that play music and push the button and then wiggle back and forth to the song. One day this week we were running errands and the music was playing at a good volume level in the store. She was sitting in the cart just dancing away. However, I was not pleased at how much she seemed to be enjoying the very twangy country song that was playing... Oh well!

Milestones: Trying to talk...in March she started pointing to some decorative birds in our house and saying "birrrrr!"  I thought she was really smart...until she started pointing at almost ANYTHING and saying "birrrr! birrrr!". Either way, it's pretty cute. She is also very good at saying "uh-oh" when we get her started.

Surprises: She's not walking yet...which is totally fine. We just thought she was going to be an early walker with how much she loved us holding her hands early on, but it looks like she is going to be average in her timing.

Noises: She doesn't have any new noises per say, but she is very LOUD now. She just will go on rants of being really loud. Especially right after waking up in the morning. She just goes on a talking rampage, which is funny and not funny all at the same time because we are not quite as chipper as she is at 6/7 AM in the morning.  She will also suddenly squeal or jabber while we walk around the grocery store sometimes. She's just so cute, no matter what her noise level.

One more month...unbelievable...

Appropriately enough, we could only get her to sit still happily with a cracker.

Oh - I didn't mean to be rude, do you want some?

No? Well, more for me!

*Claps* Yay, almost one whole year!