13 Months Old

Saturday we celebrated Ally's 13 month birthday with a trip to Champaign to watch some Purdue football. It was the worst game we have ever seen but the wind, cold and terrible football didn't seem to bother Ally. It was her first time wearing a hat and mittens and she actually left them alone and wore them for the majority of the time. A lot has changed for our family in the last few weeks so month 13 has been a busy one.

Ally has really reached some major milestones, specifically walking in the last week. She really does well on her feet and loves to carry things around the apartment. She is getting more comfortable taking steps and doesn't crawl much around our place. She isn't ready to show off her talents outside the apartment yet but I think that will come as she gets better balance and confidence in her abilities. Carrying around Ella's leash is her favorite and she also enjoys bags with handles she can put on her arm. I am convinced that Ally is either training for one of those strong man competitions or is the incredible hulk. She is going through this phase where she tries to pick up/carry/flip over anything and everything. She loves putting the strap to her diaper bag over her shoulder and carrying it and dragging around her toy work bench and activity table. She will flip over anything that moves!

Ally got so many great toys for her birthday and she really likes to play with them and spread all the pieces all over the place. She has several shape sorters and a set of big duplo legos that she really likes. She knows where the pieces go, can stack things up, pull them apart, and is very good at knocking stacks over. She has also learned how to throw things which is bad and put things back into their container which is good. Books are still her item of choice, especially the lift the flap type. She has several stuffed animals, a singing cookie monster and a dog that talks but she isn't quite sure about them yet.

We have discovered several new foods that Ally likes this month. The big hits have been black beans, grapes and mini-corn dogs. She also likes cooked peas, carrots and flavored rice dishes. Still not a big fan of meats at all and we have tried a variety of types and textures with no luck. Recently she has shown a ton of interest in utensils and actually does better than expected with spoons and forks. She knows exactly what to do with them and can scoop oatmeal from a bowl and land some in her mouth and can also stab a few things with a fork without injuring herself. We are working to phase out the bottles and are down to the late AM bottle and the bedtime bottle. She still is not a big fan of drinking milk out of a cup but will drink water or diluted juice with no problem. Hopefully day care will help her with more exposure to the cup but I also have a fear that we will digress while we are commuting for the next two weeks.

In anticipation of the new schedule, we worked hard this past week on a new and improved bed time. Ally has been sleeping 9:30pm-9am with a 2 hour afternoon nap for a while now which really isn't going to be possible when I have to work at 8am with an hour commute. We started last weekend moving up her bedtime routine (bath, read, bottle) by a few minutes which also meant that we put her to bed awake for the first time. I also woke her up earlier each day. She did much better than anticipated and we really only had one night where she cried for more than 10 minutes. Right now we are getting her down as close to 8pm as possible and Karl is the best at easing her to sleep.

This months pictures include some from our pumpkin patch visit and Halloween so enjoy. Lots more to come as Ally gets to explore a new day care and a new house very soon.