To My Sweet 11 Month Old Baby Girl

Wiggle-Wart,

You are a curious, squirmy, wiggly, little girl who never has one second to hold still, unless you are sleeping.  We took pictures with the SAAS cousins (Sadie, Avery, Adalyn, and Sonja) all in matching outfits, and were such a little trouble maker.  Because you are the oldest cousin, you are the first to become the most mobile, and while we were taking pictures, you were only interested in crawling away, or worse, crawling on top of your smaller, helpless cousins.  Luckily, we still were able to get a few good shots, and we were all able to laugh about it at the end of the day.

You are a happy little girl and love to jabber and giggle all the time. Your favorite jibber jabbery things to say are "diddle deedle dee" and "da da lum."  I'm not sure why those are your favorite noises, but they are so silly to listen to and you keep all of us giggling.  You also love to say "mom mom mom" over and over again. I don't think you really know that the word "mom" means me, but you seem to get that it means "help me" or "pay attention to me" or something like that.

You get very, very giggly when you are tired, and you will giggle at the funniest, smallest things. One night during dinner you hadn't gotten any good, long naps, but later that night while we were eating, I would look up from my plate while I was eating my dinner and just look at you, and you thought that us making eye contact was pretty dang hilarious.  You love being tickled, and it is so fun for us to play tickle games with you.

The other day we were playing with your toys in your room.  I picked up a stuffed animal and cuddled it like it was a baby.  I was trying to show you how to snuggle and love on it, and you got very jealous!  You started shrieking and crawled into my lap, and threw the stuffed animal away from me.  I hope you handle things better when we decided to have another baby and I'm holding a newborn all the time.

We got to visit Flaming Gorge this month and you got to see Great Grandma and Great Grandpa for the second time.  They loved you, and were so amazed by how much you had changed since you were only 4 months old the last time they had seen you.  You are almost walking, and you would cruise along all of their furniture, which they thought was amazing.  Great Grandma is an amazing mother, and I tried to get as much advice from her while we were there as I could.  She told me to love you and to be polite towards you.  She told me that you are the most important thing that will ever be in my life, and to always be kind towards you, even if I feel myself trying to lose my patience.  I will try to do my best at this, sweetheart.

I love you so much, baby girl.  I have loved having you in our family, and I can't believe it's almost been a full year since you joined our family.  You are the best first child I think I could ever have, and I am so glad I get to spend all day every day with you.

Love,
Mommy

To My Sweet 10 Month Old Baby Girl

Bug-Bug,

You turned 10 months old on the 4th of July, and we had a blast celebrating!  We started off the day at a hot air balloon festival with Daddy's side of the family, which you thought was very fascinating.  We then headed up to spend the day with my side of the family and watched a parade, went swimming, and had a BBQ.  At the end of the day, we watched fireworks, and even though you were so tired, you stayed awake, and you loved watching the sparkly sky.

This month you took swimming lessons with me, Aunt Autumn, and your cousin Avery.  You love swimming so much, and if I would let you, I'm sure you would stay in the water all day every day.  I was worried you would be nervous about being in the water, but you were always so happy and loved kicking your legs and splashing in the water.  We even practiced dunking you under the water, and while it wasn't your favorite, you didn't even cry.  We spent a lot of time this month at a water park, and you loved crawling around in the wave pool.  You were sometimes a little too brave, and would crawl in too deep, so we'd have to really stay close by and watch you, but you always loved being in the water.

You are a very fast crawler and love to get into everything.  If I take my eyes off of you for only a couple of minutes, sure enough, you will try to tip over containers, empty baskets, and make all sorts of messes.  Even with all chasing after you I have to do, you are still so sweet and happy that I can't help but just laugh.

This month the last of the four baby girl cousins we got in our family was born.  Sonja was born a couple of weeks early, on Aunt Alicia's birthday.  You actually got your first cold the day before she was born, so you didn't get to meet her until about a week later.  I can't wait to watch you four girls as you grow up, I'm sure you girls will be great friends and have a lot of fun together.

You also decided this month that you were too grown up for baby food.  You had only been eating pureed foods regularly for about two months, but once you had six teeth, you were much more interested in eating whatever your daddy and I were eating instead of the mush we had been giving you.  You love feeding yourself little pieces of food, and your favorites right now are green peas, zucchini, tomatoes, and cheerios   You are such a good eater, which makes me so happy!

You are a hoot, little girl.  I love you to the moon and back, and I am so glad that you are my sweet little girl.

Love,
Mommy