Ellie: 11 Months

This past month has been such a big one!! Ellie just grew and changed so quickly! Many friends commented that Ellie just shot up over night and is almost toddler like now. Y'all I put size 24 months pants on her and they were too tight and short. The girl is so stinkin' tall! Bless! But of course her waist is nice and trim so she is a hard one to fit already!

Height: 30 inches
Weight: 21 lbs.

Ellie took her first steps at 10.5 months old and has been walking more and more on her own ever since then. Crawling is still her fastest method of transportation but she is loving walking on her own to where she wants to go! She just pops right up to a standing position and on she goes! The dogs are getting a run for their money as Ellie is after them and eye level with them now!

Ellie's top two central incisors popped on the same day giving her a total of 4 teeth by 11 months.

She weaned off bottles and now takes a sippy cup regularly. I hid the bottles one day and she hasn't seen them since.

She has started saying "get" and a lot of new phonetic sounds in long strands of babbles. She will have a full babbling conversation with you based on your facial responses and your feedback. She asks "what's that?" by pointing with her finger to an object and babbling, "wasat?" She also points to ask for things and show us what she wants. She smiles when we "get it right." She is an excellent communicator!

Ellie LOVESSSSS dogs. Like, obviously she was pre-conditioned to be a doggy person with her two crazy fur siblings. But the dog love is real. She sees a dog and squeals with joy and wants to pet them all. She loves dog kisses and to watch them play and hear them bark. She responds to more dogs than humans (just like her mama, lol!) However, she is so sweet to everyone she meets.

She loves kind friendly faces and voices, posing for cameras, other babies and children, stealing other people's food, kisses, reading books, playing games, blocks, balls, bubbles, swimming, and dancing!

She is in the tricky stage of knowing the word, "No" and testing us with it. She will get right beside a dog bowl or a (covered) outlet and look at it, stick her index finger out, look back at us to see if we are watching and what we are going to do about it, and then she goes for the touch. And yes, she gets a pop on the hand when continually disobedient. But she is stubborn and strong willed like me and those pops do not phase her apart from irritating her briefly. Oh boy!

Ellie began swim lessons this past month and thoroughly enjoyed those!

She initiates her own games of peek-a-boo, and chase. She will look at you, smile sneakily, squeal and start running away. She will look back and see you and squeal and take off again. I love to catch her and tickle her and kiss her up! She giggles soooo hard it is incredibly beautiful to hear! Peek-a-boo she will play anywhere and anytime and she thinks it is just the coolest thing! She loves having raspberries blown on her tummy, neck, and legs! She laughs so hard and it makes my entire body euphoric to hear that laugh!

Some fun things Ellie did this month: Hiked with her friends and swam in creeks, went to Kindermusic to play and dance with Mimi, went to the zoo for the first time, celebrated the 4th of July a little early at a festival in Greer, took swim lessons, went to a birthday party, participated in an African tribal dance lesson, met her best friend, Adeline, and had a couple play dates with her, operated her first lemonade stand, had lots and lots of cousin time, went to her first drive game and family day with daddy's work.

Next month, we will have a one year old!!