Eliza is 10-months-old.

Our sweet, funny and genuinely cool baby girl turned 10-months-old today. She was born last summer and here we are in summer again. In two brief months from now and we'll have ourselves a kid with a full year of life experience under her belt. Here's what Eliza can do now that she couldn't do last month.

-She crawls and cruises like a champ. She can walk from one side of the room to the other as long as she has enough furniture to steady herself.

-She can drink an entire bottle on her own without having to have me recline her to finish it.

-She just started taking baths in the big tub.

-She will eat almost any baby food we give her, and she's starting to try more grown-up food. This month she tried watermelon and iced tea for the first time.

-She's babbling up a storm and says DADADADADADADADA constantly. She's beginning to realize that it actually means Daddy.

-Her top left tooth is poking through. Good thing we just started brushing with her brand new Hello Kitty toothbrush.

-She tries really hard to wave, but sometimes it's a delayed reaction. Someone will wave at her and she'll wave 5 minutes later. She also randomly waves during the day or waves at the TV or computer screens.

Last night we went to the drive-in again and took a few pictures. As much as we love watching a movie under the stars, the movie we saw was terrible. Eliza sat and watched the whole movie like a big girl. She even sat still and ate puffs out of my hand most of the time. So big.

Here are a few pictures of Eliza's first bath in the big tub, our trip to the movies and, of course, this month's Raggedy Ann picture.

Vacation and the beginnings of cruising

This weekend we took a little break and headed down to the Smoky mountains with Brian's Mom and his sister Lee. We had some fun and Eliza got to swim for the first time.



Eliza was attempting to pull herself up in her pack n play all weekend, so I wasn't surprised at all when serious attempts to stand were made when we got home. We put her behind her baby gate to play for a bit, and within 15 minutes she was trying to stand up. She used her boppy for leverage, stood up, realized she didn't know how and pitched face forward onto some blocks. She had a block-shaped mark on her forehead for the rest of the night. This learning to stand/walk thing is going to be traumatic for me. I'm putting serious thought into buying her a helmet.

Then we played in the living room where we try to keep her away from dangerous furniture. She targeted the suitcase we hadn't carried upstairs yet. The first time, she crawled over, pulled herself up, and actually cruised a couple of steps. The second time she just pulled herself up, grabbed a shirt and fell. We did manage to catch her second attempt on video, though.



She's growing up so fast. She'll be 9 months on Thursday. Can you guys believe it?