October

Well - all it takes is a little baby crawling around and POOF! - there goes the blog time.  In the same three day period (waaaaay back in October), Analiese learned to crawl, learned to pull herself to standing using the furniture, and got her first two bottom teeth. Whew.  It made for a very loud few weeks - teething fussiness accompanied by her wails of pain from constantly falling down.  Glad we're through those milestones...and now she is starting to learn to walk. That's why this month's "Signature Picture" is of Analiese happily standing at her baby gate.  That's before she really understood what it was for.  Now, she doesn't really look like that when she is on the other side.

When I last blogged, I had a video of Analiese as she scooted to me in our living room.  About 48 hours later, no joke, she decided scooting was outdated and took up real crawling. She was 6 months old and already crawling, standing, and toddling around the furniture.  It's been "crazy time" around here every since!

We spent the first weekend of October, in Tehachapi, celebrating my Nana's 96th birthday. The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed quite a bit outdoor time in Granna's beautiful yard. ( It was still 100+ here).  Analiese got to play for the first time in an antique wooden rocking chair for toddlers that was originally used by my Aunt and Mom - and then was refinished by my Pop Pop years ago for myself and my brothers. Now it's on to generation number three. I wish they still made mainstream toys like this.





We celebrated Nana's birthday by enjoying dinner out at a restaurant.  We are so happy to be close enough to share these special moments with family! And I would just like to take a moment here and honor my 96-year old Nana.  She is an AMAZING woman (and says that if she had a $1 for everytime people said that about her, now that she's "old" - she would be rich).  We sure love her to pieces.

Once Analiese learned to roll over and scoot, the days of naptime in our bed with pillows as "roll guards" was over.  We set up her crib and that is where she spends her naps and the first part of every night since then...

She is quite vocal now and can entertain herself for surprising lengths of time by making sounds and watching her hands move.  We call the exersaucer her "office" because she loves to hang out there.  I titled this video, "Chatting at the Office".

As I sort of touched on earlier, learning to stand up means learning to get down. That seemed to be the toughest part of the learning curve for her. She LOVES drinking water from her cup - so much so, that we have to ration it out to her in small doses a couple times a day or she would just end up being a water-tarian. This video just goes to show how scary 'getting down' really is - not even her precious water was worth the risk.

For those of you who were wondering: Yes, that is her real hair. It's one solid lock of baby wonder hair that has grown since birth. Weeee LOoooove iiiiiiit!

Analiese LOVES her bath.  There are so many cute bath pictures we have - but they are not web appropriate. Darn it!  But this one is still pretty cute...can rolls get any more delicious than those???

And, of course, Halloween.  Our little MOMS Club had a Halloween Party so here is a picture of Snow White and I.  She was sick for the first time so she wasn't really all that thrilled.  We just went to drop off my first official batch of "Mom Cupcakes For a Kid Party" which I am showing here because I think they came out awesome and I am proud of my presentation.

I will leave you with these - no more stories - just cutie pie pics!

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