Eliana - 11 months old!!!

Eliana you are 11 months old!!! 

This is what happens when we try to pose you for pictures.

-You are still wearing mostly 9-month clothes, but you can still wear some 6-12 months. I have put you 

in a few 12-month outfits recently. They’re a little long, but you can wear them.

- I have no idea what you weigh now. My guess is 20 lbs.

- I have no idea how long you are.

- Although on my last blog I said I was afraid to try giving you a regular sippy cup again, we did. I 

think you’re really starting to get the hang of it now! Although, you still prefer to take a sip and then 

throw your cup.

- You do a great job of eating solids! You have started doing a really funny thing though. Whenever I 

feed you, you do great and eat it with no problem. However, if I have been feeding you and then 

Daddy tries to give you a bite, you turn your head and fuss. Eventually you give in and take it from 

him. After that you are fine to eat from him until I give you another bite, and then the cycle repeats.

- You still love Cheerios!

-You like to “read” your books in the car. You sit in the backseat and just jabber away.

- You aren’t really standing by yourself, yet. Sometimes you do for a few seconds before 

you realize it and get scared. You started doing that on 1/7/13, but you don’t do it consistently.

- You are still giving me kisses more than anyone else, but you've given a few out recently. You've 

started attacking whomever you are kissing. It gets a little scary since you have teeth now!

- You are still sleeping through the night! You've even started waking up a little later than 6:30! Yay! 

It's usually somewhere between 7:30-8:30 now. I hope it stays that way!

- Naptime is actually getting better... FINALLY!!! 

You’re only taking about an hour nap right now, but it is much better than it was! 

Some days you don’t even cry now!!! Oh you have no idea how happy this makes me!

- You still try to get as much attention as possible when we are in public. You are so funny!

- You have gotten so many teeth in the last month! I know for sure that you have 4 on top 

now, and 2  more are coming through on the bottom, which will make 4 on the bottom. I can’t get a 

good enough look to see if there are any more.  At first we thought that you were going to have fangs 

because your top front teeth were not coming in first. Thankfully, they showed up only a few days 

later.

- You like to eat socks! You almost never have 2 socks on because you pull one off and crawl around 

with it in your mouth. You also like to crawl over to me and pick a piece of fuzz off of my socks to eat. 

Weird…I know.

- You’re still not a huge fan of playing in your pack-and-play or your exersaucer when I need to get 

something done. You’d much rather be crawling around. Your favorite places to play right now are in 

the kitchen and behind our loveseat. You love to mess with the boxes of soft drink cans, the dishtowel 

that hangs on the oven, and the mat. I also can't do any dishes when you are around because you like to  

climb on the dishwasher! You get really upset if you see me close it when you are crawling toward it. 

- You like to go behind the loveseat because our guitar cases are back there, and you like to play with 

them. You've also started standing at the back door.

*Note that not only are you climbing on the guitar cases, but you are also carrying a sock. 

- Still having temper tantrums, and I doubt if that will change anytime soon.

- Have I mentioned that you play with your own hair when you get sleepy? It’s really sweet.

- You can say, “Mama,” “Dada,” “ball,” “bye,” “yeah,” “that (which comes out as “dat” and it’s super 

cute!!!!),” and occasionally “cheese.”

- You have started nodding all of the time. It is precious! You are very adamant about your nod.

- You have gotten to play in the snow a couple of times now. Honestly, you're not a big fan.

                        

So maybe I dressed you in a few layers...

Sledding with Daddy. 

- You take baths in the "big girl bathtub" now. No more baby tub for you! You absolutely love it! You 

crawl all over the tub!

- You did something on 1/25/13 that we knew would happen one day, and we were surprised that it 

took this long…you pooped in the bathtub. Oh my, it was funny! Thankfully, you have a wonderful 

Daddy that cleaned it up! I could tell it was about to happen, but I couldn’t get the words out in time to 

warn your Daddy! That’s another one of those things you are going to hate me for publishing.

- You still love playing with tags. This picture is evidence to that.

- We’ve said “last bite” and “all gone” to you since you started eating solid foods. We usually clap 

when your food is “all gone” and do the sign for it. Recently you have started getting very excited 

when we say, “last bite.” You’ll put the bite in your mouth as quickly as possible, so you can clap for 

yourself. It’s adorable!!! We really need to get that on video. Tanner, if you read this, try to remember 

that. ;0)

Eliana - 10 months!!!

Eliana you are 10 months old!!!

FYI: This post is going to have a TON of pictures because I just couldn't choose which ones 

I wanted to use. For all of the grandparents reading this, you can click on the pictures to 

make them bigger. Also, one day I'll get blogger to cooperate and allow me to post pictures 

side-by-side, so you don't have to scroll so much.

Ok, back to Eliana...

-You are still wearing mostly 9-month clothes, but you can also wear 6-12 months…for 

the most part. I have put you in a few 12-month outfits recently. They’re a little long, but 

you can still wear them.

- I have no idea what you weigh now.

- I have no idea how long you are.

-We’re still working on the sippy cup. I feel like you’ve almost gotten the hang of using a 

straw. I don’t know if we should try a regular sippy cup right now or not. I’m afraid you’ll 

lose the progress you’ve made on the straw.

- You are eating all kinds of things now! You love macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese! 

You really love anything you can eat with your fingers. I think you ate half of my dinner the 

other night!

- You absolutely love Cheerios! You seriously act like they are the best things you’ve ever 

eaten.

- You got a bunch of cloth books for Christmas, which has been wonderful! You will even sit 

down and let me read them to you now! I really hope you love to read.

- You have perfected the art of pulling up and cruising. You are starting to work on your 

balance for standing without holding onto anything.

- You’ve been giving me kisses more than anyone else, and I am perfectly okay with that.

-You are still sleeping through the night!

- Naptime…oh my…naptime. I think I honestly hate naptime as much as you do. We started 

working on getting you to sleep in your crib for naps while Daddy was off from work for 

Christmas. 

You absolutely hate it. You just scream and scream and scream! You also decided that 

messing your diaper was a good way to get out of taking a nap, so that’s your new trick.  I 

really hope you get the hang of taking a nap one day. There have been several days that you 

haven’t taken a nap at all, and boy does that make you grumpy! Honestly, it makes me a 

little grumpy, too!

- You are still a ham in public. You love getting as many people’s attention as you can.

- Still just 2 teeth, but I don’t think it will be long before you get one on top. I thought I saw 

some white the other day. You chew on everything!!!

- You like to lick things, too!

- As usual, we are still working on getting you to play by yourself without being held. Some 

days are good…some days are not so good. I would say that overall it is getting better, 

though. There have been several days where you’ll play for 30-40 minutes without crying.

-Oh my… you can throw some temper tantrums. Unfortunately, that has not improved 

much (if any) in the last month. I am trying really hard to ignore these. Sometimes this 

works and you’ll start playing with a toy…sometimes it just gets worse.

- You are still pulling my hair. However, now you also grab my eyelids, nose, eyebrows, and 

ears when you’re nursing. Sometimes it hurts, but sometimes it’s really cute. I love it when 

you grab my hand to hold while you are nursing. These are the moments I want to cherish 

forever!

- You are saying “mama” all of the time now!!! Yay!!! I’m not sure if you know what it 

means yet, but I’ll assume that you do. 

- You are pointing at things that you want now, and that is soooo helpful! It really helps 

with communication! I especially love it when you point at your pack n’ play because you 

want to get in it and play with your toys.

- You started clapping on 12/21/12. It is so cute! You clap when we clap for you because 

you’ve done something good. You also clap along with music. I’m not sure if I’ve put it on 

the blog before, but you stop everything that you are doing when the “Hotdog Song” from 

The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on. You got a Mickey for Christmas that sings and 

dances to that song.

- Grandpa Lee got "Old Blue" out of storage for you. This was your Auntie L's toy first, but 

Mommy used it a lot, too. Your favorite thing about "Old Blue" right now is sometimes you 

get a snack when you're sitting on him.

- Case in point... look at your messy face in this picture.

- Speaking of Christmas...you got way too many presents, but we are so thankful for 

everyone that got you something. By the end of Christmas you were starting to get the hang 

of opening presents. I’m hoping you’ll be able to do it by your birthday (I don’t want to talk 

about how soon that is). Below are some pictures from some of our Christmas festivities!

- This is a picture of you and all of your cousins celebrating Christmas at Grandpa Lee and 

Grandma Sue's house.

- On 12/20/12 you tried to swallow one of my earrings. That was not a fun couple of 

seconds! I was nursing you, but I wasn’t really looking at you. You were messing with my 

ear, but like I said before, you do that. All of a sudden you stopped nursing, and I looked 

down and it looked like you were chomping on something. You’ve also pretended to chomp 

before, so I thought that’s what you were doing. All of a sudden I saw the back of my 

earring fall down in front of me. I quickly realized that you weren’t pretending to chomp, 

and you had my earring in your mouth! I sat you up as fast as I could and swiped your 

mouth with my finger. Thankfully I got the earring before you swallowed it! Needless to 

say, I’ve been very careful about wearing earrings, and most of the time I don’t wear them 

at all right now.

- You still love bath time. You crack Daddy and me up because it never fails by the end of 

your bath you have managed to try to stand up in the tub. We always call it “showing the 

dimple butt.” Ha…you’ll love me for publishing that one day. I love you!

- These are some of the pictures we took when we were trying to get a picture for our 

Christmas cards.

And here are some more pictures that I just wanted to post...

Oh, Ellie. I love you and your sweet, hilarious personality.

Eve's sin...

While reading the beginning of Genesis yesterday, I had a new perspective on the effects of Eve's sin. This new perspective likely came because this is the first time I have read that passage since Eliana was born. I am a mother now, and I am wearing what I like to call my "mom filter." Basically that just means that I have to think about how most everything I do affects my daughter.

Anyway, back to the new perspective. Eve was the first person to ever sin against God. "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." (Genesis 3:6, NIV).  Later on, Adam and Eve's son Cain, killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8). Now, think for a moment about this. Imagine that you are a mother, and one of your children murdered one of his or her siblings. Not only would you grieve the loss of the child that died, but you would have to deal with all of the emotions that you would have toward the other child. I can't even imagine! Now...think about Eve. She (and Adam) brought sin into the world. Can you imagine the thoughts that must have gone through her head? I imagine it would have gone something like this, "If only I had not listened to the serpent and eaten the fruit, Abel would still be alive."

As a mother, I try to protect my daughter from things that will hurt her...stairs, electrical outlets, hitting her head on the coffee table, swallowing my earrings, RSV, etc. I'm sure Eve did the same (except minus the modern day things like electrical outlets and such). How did she get over the fact that eating the fruit brought sin on every man (except Jesus) for the rest of time on Earth? Did she understand that God would right her wrong with His Son? Did she know that God knew that would happen and He had a plan bigger than anything we could ever imagine?

9 more weeks...

I just had the realization that my itty bitty baby girl will be 1 in only 9 weeks. How is that possible? How are we in single digits? Moms out there, tell me it gets easier to accept that your kids are getting older.