Time Flies When She is Walking

So much has been has been going on in our little Layla's life and time seems to slip away so quickly. Now that Layla has been walking exclusively for the past couple months (except for those moments when she is really tired and will bring back the crawl) we have been having so much fun.  I love that I can take her places and she can walk around instead of me having to hold her all the time or have her confined to the stroller.  She is loving the freedom and especially loves wandering around outside.  I can hardly remember what it was like when she was just crawling.  She just started this new thing that we call her funny walk, and it is hilarious. 

Layla's Funny Walk

Besides all the walking, she is starting to say words or portions of words besides mama and dada, and her repertoire of impersonations is expanding all the time.  She can now say her name, and the words more, bath, water (wawa), night night (nigh nigh), ball, baby, bye bye, and hi.  She pretty much impersonates anything she hears like the whale sound her computer makes, sirens, cars, airplanes, the vacuum and hair dryer and she has most of the animal sounds down like the snake, duck, monkey, sheep, cat, dog, and fish, among others, but I think my favorite is her jazz music.  She sounds just like Miles Davis.  =)

We have achieved success in the eating department too!  She acutally will eat some non pureed foods now.  So far she has warmed to eating freeze dried veggie sticks, puffed cereal bits, graham crackers, banana, oatmeal cookie, and rice, with the occasional bit of bread.  It isn't a lot, but at least she is eating real food finally!

Layla eating a veggie stick

I've been trying to expand my creativity and work more on my photography.  I recently started this "Photo a Day" challenge that I came across.  You don't win anything it is just something fun to participate in if one feels so inclined, so I started in March.  I don't have Layla in every shot, but I do put her in a few of them, since she is such a great model.  I've posted some here, but if you want to see the rest and continue to follow them for as long as I continue to do them, then check out the photo a day window on my photography blog HERE.

My Monkey is One Year Old!!!

I can't believe my baby girl is a year old already. It seems like just yesterday when I was rushing into the mancave with the stick that had two pink lines across it to tell Pete the amazing news.  It really just goes by so fast.  She is changing and learning more every day.  She is mastering walking and loves it!  She also loves to impersonate things.  She can do the cat, dog, whale, sheep, monkey, and she just learned duck on her birthday when we went to the park to feed the ducks.  She is really good at that one.  Sounds exactly like them. 

She also just learned what we call her jazz music sound.  She basically sounds like a trumpet, very Miles Davis like.  =) She also impersonates sounds she hears in songs or when she hears sirens go by.  She loves her sounds, not so much on the words yet, though.  She has "dada" down like nobody's business, and she is great with "mama" when she decides she wants to say it for me, which definitely isn't as often as I would like.  I was hoping she would be a talker like I was, but so far, not so much. 

She definitely is a whiner though.  For such an adorable little munchkin, man can she make some awful sounds.  She is rather demanding, and since she can't yet use her words to voice her needs, it is comes out as an awful whine.  Sometimes her whole body shakes she is so frustrated.  I guess she can't be all perfect, as much as I might think she is.

We took some shots on her birthday for her 12 month.  We had some good times with the birthday balloons and ribbon. This will be the last of the regular monthly photos I will be taking, but definitely not the last of the photos!!!  She is too cute not to capture all the time. 

Love that face!!!

Somebody is Walking!!!

Layla has been so close to walking for the last month or so that we knew her first steps weren't far off.  So on New Year's Day, Pete brings her into the family room and says, "Show Mommy what you just did.", and she took three steps all by herself!  So exciting.  I was especially excited that she took her first steps for Pete, since he was so worried that she was going to take them while we were gone in Vancouver for Christmas.  Since that day she has been really cautious about taking more, usually wanting to hold our finger or onto something.  But the last couple days she has been standing up and taking a few steps constantly.  I am guessing that by her birthday, she will have it down pretty well.

Here is a video I took of her just yesterday. So cute.

As probably most babies do, Layla loves cell phones.  So Grandma and Grandpa got her one and she is so cute with it.  She will hold it to her ear and talk on it to her daddy.  So cute.

11 Months Old!!!

Only one more month until her first birthday!  That is really hard for me to wrap my head around.  It is going to fast.  I love every new step, but I do miss some of the old steps too. 

She is starting to get her fifth tooth now.  It is coming in on the upper left.  We have been pretty lucky so far with the teething thing.  She doesn't excessivly drool and doesn't seem to be overly fussy compared to other times.  She might have moments, but that could be from anything.  She is my daughter after all, and we all know I have my moments!  =) 

She took her first steps on New Years Day.  She is very cautious about walking though.  Feels much better when she is holding on to something.  I am totally okay with that.  The longer the better.  She is fast enough when she is crawling.  She discovered stairs for the first time at Grandma and Grandpa's and she mastered climbing them within seconds.  She was so giddy about it too.  It was adorable.  Grandpa had a lot of fun with that.  Now the hard part is teaching her how to come down them.  We would grab her hips and pull her down slowly.  She thought that was pretty funny.

So my struggle with Layla right now is with eating.  She is a great eater when the food is pureed and pretty smooth.  If she gets anything in her mouth that isn't that soft, she gives a look of horror, spits it out or gags it down.  I am talking anything.  Saltines, fruit bits, puffed cereal, pancakes, eggs, pasta...the list goes on.  I am starting to worry that this could become a problem.  I have done some research on it online and some people have said they had to take their child to a type of speech therapist that basically teaches them how to swallow solid foods.  I'm not ready to take it to that level yet, but I wish there was an easy solution.  I can't puree her food forever.  It will be one of my many questions for the pediatrician at her year check up.

Not really sure what the frightened look was all about, maybe she swallowed some solid food.

On a hike with Mommy and Daddy.  Such a beautiful day.

Mommy slathering me with sunscreen!