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 took two steps tonight. People claim she's done this before, but I just now saw it with my own eyes. She was extremely wobbly, but this is progress!
A few days ago I found my old Sprint phone and decided to see what was on it. To my surprise, I found lots of pictures from Eliza's first couple of months. I totally lucked out. I thought every picture from that era had been lost when our laptop was stolen.
She's growing up so very fast. This week we realized she's been making attempts at saying her own name. It sounds like a throaty "Za Za" at this point, but she does resond appropriately when you ask her name. She still isn't walking on her own, but last weekend she stood for a good 30 seconds on her own before she realized what she was doing, chickened out and sat down.
In other news, we've really been busy beyond all reason. We routinely stumble through the door at about 7PM, get up at 6AM and do it all over again. Eliza spends her days playing at her Grammy's house while Daddy and Mommy bring home the bacon. Luckily we've had some weekend fun lately. Last Sunday we decided to head to Cincinnati to a Bengals game. We we sitting on the very back row, but there isn't a bad seat in Paul Brown stadium. Here's a little video of the view from our seats.
This past Friday, we headed out to Christ the King Oktoberfest to see The Minus 5 put on the most rockin' show a church fundraiser has ever seen. Unfortunately, the crowd proved to be a bit much for Eliza, so she headed to Grammy's and called it an early night. We got to have a parents' night out. We got to shake hands with Peter Buck from R.E.M., too. Here's some video of Brian being too chicken to go up and say hello. I had to take the initiative and shake his hand first so Brian would go behind me. Here's a little video of Brian pondering the possibility of shaking Peter Buck's hand and chickening out.
We've been planning our winter this morning and the holiday time is going to be fantastic this year. I'm so excited. I just hope we have enough room for the Christmas tree in our living room. But first, Halloween.
I spent all last week at home with Eliza as part of what corporate has obfuscatingly termed "work reduction" (read: unpaid furlough.) The upside to that was, we got to have a lot of fun. We went to the park one afternoon, we went to the store, we played games, we took naps. Fun was had by all.
Tonight, we had spaghetti for dinner, which meant Eliza got to play with her food a little.
As you can see, Eliza had some fun with it.
She did scare us a little last night by waking up at 4 a.m. screaming for no reason. That's extremely unlike her.
We had such a fantastic time at Eliza's Teddy Bear tea party birthday. Eliza's friends came, we ate cake, drank tea, and opened presents. Here are a few pictures and video of the cake festivities.
I attempted to make Eliza a bear cake, but I had a bear malfunction in the actual baking process. Sweet Magnolia bakery in Lexington came to my rescue and the outcome couldn't have been nicer. Especially wonderful considering the fact that the order came in a mere 48 hours before the party.
There were multiple reports that Eliza took several steps on her own during the party. I didn't actually witness this, so I can't say for certain. I'll keep you posted.
After the party, a lot of our party attendees went out for dinner together. We had such a fantastic day! I'm sure there will be more pictures as they roll in.
We had a fantastic time at Eliza's birthday party. Pictures and details to follow tomorrow. However, here's the video montage of Eliza's first year in pictures that we showed during her party. Makes me cry every single time I see it.
Eliza is ONE! You wouldn't believe how much she's grown over the past month. This morning we took her very last monthly Raggedy Ann picture and her growth was just amazing.
Okay, she hasn't grown that much, but she does wear a size 5 shoe.
There we go. I can't believe my little baby is now a big girl. Over the past month she's become a more confident cruiser, but she's still not walking. She's afraid to stand up on her own, but in her more brave moments, it's obvious that she could if she'd just let go. She says "hey" and "bye", but "hey" is really the only thing she says that's easy to make out. She's absolutely mastered drinking milk and we've entirely put away the bottles. Such a very big girl she is. Tomorrow we're having a Teddy Bear Tea Party to celebrate.
