Ezaza is 13-months-old

Eliza can say her name now. It sounds like Ezaza, but she makes a pretty solid attempt. Last night, she very clearly said "Eliza" in this throaty growl she makes. Brian looked at me and said "You did just hear her say her name, right?"

She's making small attempts to walk on her own, but she can't take more than 2 or 3 steps without losing her balance and falling down. Mostly she'll opt to sit down and crawl to her destination, but she's slowly growing more brave.

Today she's 13-months-old!

Edit: Oh, okay. By popular (and by popular, I mean my Mom) demand, we've decided to continue on with Raggedy Ann pictures. At least we'll try monthly 'til she's two.

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.

Eliza's Summer Fun

Eliza went swimming outside for the first time today. She absolutely loved it. We had a fun afternoon hanging out with my old friend Lyssa and her adorable son Ryder.

Yesterday our neighbors were nice enough to share some watermelon with us, so Eliza had some for a snack. Enjoy these videos of our summer fun.





This week Eliza has made great progress on the road to walking. She can cruise anywhere there's a piece of furniture to steady herself with. She always gets a little too ambitious when trying to change pieces of furniture and lets go too soon. This usually leads to abruptly falling on her rear. Luckily Eliza fears nothing, so she just picks herself up and tries again.

She's also become a human vacuum cleaner. She'll find pieces of food we dropped months ago hiding under furniture, etc. She always manages to find a months-old puff and shove it in her mouth before I can stop her. Thankfully the incidents seem few and far between and have been isolated to food and not other, more dangerous objects.

Our little baby is doing so well. I can't believe she'll be 10-months-old on Sunday.

Nine months!

If it's the 28th, it must be Raggedy Ann time!

This month, Eliza learned how to crawl with her belly up, pulled up to standing, started eating more adult food, babbles constantly, including "dada" and "mama," took her first vacation (more on that later) and went swimming for the first time.

It's hard to believe I have a 9-month-old baby. She shouldn't be this old. For that matter, I shouldn't be this old.

She's the best thing to ever happen to us, though.

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?