Just a swingin'

We purchased a swing for Vanessa a couple months ago but weren't able to hang it up till recently. She loves it! This is one thing she'll sit still for!

Sticky

Vanessa explored “sticky” yesterday. We taped down contact paper so she could feel the stickiness and test how things stick. I don’t often take pictures of every little activity we do, but she was so intrigued by this that I couldn’t resist. (That’s her thinking face.)

Whole Milk

Vanessa had her first cup of whole milk on Wednesday of this week. Don't let this picture fool you -- she seems to like the milk a lot but was being silly as I was trying to take a picture. (Her new thing is to go after or scream for the camera when it’s pulled out. Immediately after this picture was taken she threw her cup down and began yelling for the camera.) She finished all of her milk this morning.

And no . . . that’s not blood on her and the highchair . . . it’s raspberries. :)

Columbus Zoo (Part 3)

The girls were excited to go home and take naps.

Columbus Zoo (Part 2)

Okay . . . so here's more. Notice Vanessa is incredibly dirty in the last two pictures. She was very determined to be on the ground crawling around. She didn't get too dirty until it rained, in which she thought she wanted to crawl around in but decided rather quickly the big rain drops falling on her head were no fun, so she happily went back to the overhang that the rest of us were under while waiting for the rain to pass.

Columbus Zoo (Part 1)

Vanessa and her cousins Celia and Audrey had fun at the Columbus Zoo this morning. The girls were just a little interested in the animals, but their moms enjoyed taking them. As Vanessa's Aunt Jenni suggested, we had to document them at the zoo together. So here's a nice sequence of pictures to show how hard it can be to capture the girls smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. Poor Celia probably wishes her cousins could focus more. :) The last two extremely cute shots were captured by Jenni.

What a smile!

11 Months!

Gee – Vanessa turned 11 months on the 6th. She’s doing extremely well. She’s "talking" more and more and comes up with new and cute sounds every couple days. She’s been showing more of her temper recently. She has five teeth and I think one or two more are about to come in. She stands alone for quite some time now. She takes steps while barely holding on. She says Da Da tons and tons and now is beginning to say Na Na, who I assume is me. She sometimes repeats easy words when you say them and it’s usually out of the blue and isn’t necessarily repeated immediately.

She loves to eat lots and lots. Cheerios are still a favorite. This week we’ll begin to mix whole milk with her cereal in the morning, per her doctor’s recommendation. I imagine she’ll do well since she’s been eating yogurt, cheese and cottage cheese successfully.

For those who don’t know already, she’s an extreme climber with incredible curiosity. She loves to try and climb in chairs and all over things. When holding her she often wants down to crawl and explore for things to climb and scale. She’s very determined and you can tell when she feels a sense of accomplishment. At times it can be difficult to change Vanessa's diaper and clothes -- she wants up to crawl around. She has been turned up on her head while getting her diaper put on. I'm sure it's a lot fun for others to watch, but it's not cool to be the one trying to do it! :)

Her hair seems to be a little curly and fuzzy in the back. If she ends up with my hair, we’ll have our hands full! :) I don’t think I’ve mentioned in the last month or so how Vanessa likes to hold toys and turn in circles when sitting on her bottom. She’ll do it over and over. She also likes to crawl in circles and move furniture in circles. She still sleeps really well, although her early morning feeding has moved to an hour earlier. It’ll be interesting to see how she handles that when she completely transitions to whole milk. Vanessa loves the outside and will whimper when we come back in. She loves her bean bag stool and stuffed animals.

As you know – we love her lots and lots!!!!!!!!!!!!