Eleven Months

I say this every month: "Where has time gone?" "How is she this old?"

Thumbs up for 11 months!

I have little recollection of who she was last month. I have no idea what I did last week. All I know is that my little giant giggling ball of sunshine is getting bigger, louder, and cuter. If you entered your child into a cute baby contest with my baby, you'd still vote for my baby; that's how cute she is.

Helping Daddy at work

I don't know how much she weighs, how long she is, or how large her giant brain still is. I can tell you that she regularly wears 24mo and 2T pants, 18-24mo onesies, and she can wear 12mo to 2T dresses. I have no idea what her shoe size is and it's been difficult to find a pair that will stay on her without cutting off the circulation to her cankles. She has size 5 shoes that don't hurt but she looks like a kitten wearing mittens when she tries to walk. I'll probably just continue using socks with shoes on them.  

At 11 months, she is cruising, rolling, crawling, dancing, clapping, waving, singing, babbling, laughing, and melting hearts wherever she goes. She is a total charmer. It's been wonderful seeing the smiles she brings to people's faces.  She loves being in her stroller and waving to people in stores and hallways. Even the grumpiest grinches will wave back. She especially loves to wave and talk to black women and really tall men - I love it!

She eats anything we give her. Her favorite is now Cheerios (sorry bananas!) and she can polish off a jar of spaghetti and meatballs without batting an eyelash. I'm not very good at making her food but I am fantastic at cutting up fruits, veggies, and letting her eat from my plate. In one month, we'll be switching from formula to milk and I can't wait! We're going to save at least $25 a month by switching.  

I am beyond excited to plan her birthday party! Because her birthday is so close to Halloween, I decided to do a costume party. I also wanted her to wear her costume for more than one day because she is seriously the cutest baby I've ever seen in my life. She's going to be Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. Instead of spending $30 on a plastic costume she'd wear once, I wanted to find separate pieces she could wear again.  For her costume, the wings were given to us from Jen, the hat was $5 from Target, and the dress is $18 from Target. There are official Abby fairy wands on Amazon for $5 so I may cave and get her that, too. It's a good thing that Abby is barefoot because there's no shoe that will stay on her foot.

And now that we're in the final stretch before her birthday party, I'm frantically checking pinterest for ways to up-cycle things in my home instead of spending money. So far I've cleaned and painted the lids of 12 baby food jars so people can take candy home with them as a party favor. I've also printed photos and "saved" ribbon so I can hang photos of her as a birthday banner. I'm thankful the Dollar Store had packs of pink and purple streamers for $1 each.

Wow. One more month until we have a one year old!