The Day Emily Turned 11 Months Old

On March 28, 2011 our little Emily turned 11 months old and weighed in at 19 pounds 3 ounces.  She is so much fun and continues to make us laugh constantly.

She is such a fun and sweet girl and loves her family.  As long as she is with us and feels like she is a part of things she is happy.  If you try to ditch her, she will hunt you down.  She will not be left behind.  I think that is a good characteristic for a third child to have.

Her favorite game to play still is definitely peek-a-boo.  Sometimes she peeks and sometimes she will even say “Boo!” when she uncovers her eyes.  It is a great party trick and she loves to please her audience.

She also loves to eat just about anything.  Her favorites this month were green beans, asparagus, baked spaghetti, yogurt smoothies and macaroni and cheese.

  

Emily loves to give kisses (especially to her stuffed animals) and she loves to read books.  Katelyn and Brooke were so excited when we found a cute book for her for Valentine’s Day about kittens.  Kitty is still her nickname and she loves that book!

She loves to “play” Wii and Legos and a game they invented called “Tickle Attack on the Kitty.”  They get behind some kind of self-made pillow barrier and hide until they are “released into the wild.”  That is when they loudly attack Emily and tickle her.  The game goes until they laugh themselves silly or until Emily pulls their hair.  It is usually a little of both.

One of her other favorite things to play is “empty the pantry.”  She loves to pull everything out and make a mess.  Her second favor area to destroy play in, is in the mud room.  Our shoe bench has three drawers that hold hats and gloves and sunglasses.  If the door is open, she immediately heads for bench, opens the drawers and then proceeds to empty them in what Katelyn calls a “confetti style.”  She doesn’t just pull everything out, she launches it up over her head and shoulders.  Apparently that is more fun than playing with a basket full of toys.

 

Since the pantry and shoe bench drawers are both places the girls can easily and effectively help clean up, they are often assigned this duty.  They hate it, so they are both trying to find better things for Emily to do with her time.  One day, I found Emily and Brooke sitting in the middle of the kitchen with all of the stuff Emily had pulled out of the cupboard.  Since the damage was done, Brooke was trying to show her how to “play” with what she had done rather than just make a mess and leave it.  It was so cute and Emily loved every minute of the tutorial from her big sister.

Emily has also been enjoying weekly story and craft time at the library with Brooke.  She sat like a big kid on a mat with Brooke and her friend Kara.  It was so cute.  Brooke had her arm around her most of the time – it was priceless. 

Emily loves cruising around using anything she can hold onto and she crawls faster than any baby I have ever seen.  She does not like to hold on to your fingers and walk though – she wants to do it on her own and my back thanks her for that.

One of her new words this month is “go” and she continues to love doing her baby signs.  Her favorite is definitely the sign for milk.  If she uses one hand it means “milk” and if she does it with both hands it mean “gimmie gimmie gimmie.”

The other day we were helping out with a cleaning project at the church.  I had her strapped to me in the Baby Bjorn so she couldn’t crawl around and eat anything off the floor.  She was happily riding along while I vacuumed.  She kept playing peek-a-boo but finally she got tired of the project and started signing “all done, all done.”  It was so funny and fortunately we were about finished.

She is always such a trooper and happy to go along with anything and everything we are doing.  We love you Emily and can’t believe you’ll be a year old so soon.