Lyla's Turns One!

I've been meaning to do a post on Lyla's birthday but haven't had time until now... It's 9:40 am and Lyla is still asleep! She's usually up around 8:30 or 9.

Anyway, so Lyla turned ONE on Thursday, August 25. Here's what we did on Lyla's first ever bday!

In the morning, Lyla played with her new toy, a Leap Frog Musical Table! She loves it!

We spent the rest of the day outside. First, we went to the zoo, and had a really good time, even though zoos are kind of depressing.... Lyla pointed at lots of animals and categorized most of them as either a dog by sign language or a cat by saying "Boo." She calls cats "boo" because my parents' have a cat nicknamed Boo Boo. Komodo dragon was a "Boo."

After the zoo visit, Lyla took a nice 2 hour nap, and then we went fishing for about 20 minutes. Erik and I each caught one. Lyla helped me from her spot in the Ergo. Erik hasn't had much time for fishing this summer, and he had the day off, so we went more for him than for Lyla, although she is happy wherever there is water!

We grilled outside on the patio for dinner...

And then it was cupcake time!! Lyla wasn't too sure about the cupcakes at first. She mostly just smashed hers and smeared frosting on her face. At first she wouldn't even touch it! She would put her hand close and then pull it away!

But she ate a little!

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by and how much Lyla has changed! It seems just like it was yesterday that all she did was sleep, and I cradled her in my arms all day long. And now she is moving, moving, moving!!!

This past month has been a huge one for Lyla! She started crawling AND walking! She gets into everything and really makes a mess of our place sometimes but that's okay.. Lyla started playing peekaboo with her own hands, which is really cute. She has learned to stack and take apart bowls! She understands that she can't eat trash or specks off the ground and now picks them up and gives them to me right away... She likes to "feed" us with her spoon and put toys in our mouths or give them to us! It is pretty cute :)! She has also gotten really snuggly and her stuffed animals have been getting lots of love and hugs lately! Adorable! And she's always saying "dada" and "mama"! Anyway that's a quick update on Lyla's happenings.....

And here are her 12 month stats:

Height: 29 inches (42nd percentile)

Weight: 20 lbs 2 oz (55th percentile)

Head Circ: 17.75in (54th percentile)

A big change from last month where she was in the 18th percentile for height and 65th for head circumference!

What an amazing year, we are so blessed to have such a beautiful and healthy baby girl! We have learned so much and had so many adventures together, and I can only imagine what is in store for us this coming year!

Happy Birthday Lyla, Mama and Dada love you soooo much!

Now onto the toddler years!

play date!

baby owen came to play yesterday! look at this cutie!!!!

big yawn!

'hey, what are you doing.. eating my markers?'

hold my hand!!!

mmm sucking on markers is SO GREAT

what a cute little man!

jam session!

they were so cute crawling around together and playing by each other! they have gotten together quite a few times since they were really wittle babies and it seems like every time they start to interact a bit more! it is so fun!

BIG NEWS!

But first, an overload of cute pictures of Lyla, taken yesterday, THE BIG DAY!

And here is the big news.... Lyla took her first steps on her own yesterday! She was standing and holding onto my fingers and seemed to be balancing really well so I let go, and she stood for a moment and then took EIGHT WHOLE STEPS by herself! She got a bit wobbly so I nabbed her before she plopped! I couldn't believe it! Then later we practiced having her walk between us, back and forth, and she could take maybe five steps at a time, on average. The problem is that she gets so excited that she leans way forward!

This is such a bitter sweet time in our lives! While I am so excited for Lyla to be walking next to me, exploring on her own, running and playing.... at times I still miss carrying her, asleep and snuggled close to my heart, all the day long! It seems so long ago and yet it really wasn't, less than a year!

Here's the little mover!

Growing Up...

IMPORTANT NEWS: Lyla crawls (a bit)!!! She doesn't really like it, she'd rather walk (holding onto our hands) EVERYWHERE. And all day long. My back is sore. Anyway, she crawls every now and again, and just a little, but we are very excited about it.

Lyla's new face

Lyla is picking up on more sign language. Her favorite one is still dog. She does it immediately when she sees a dog... or any four legged creature really, and every so often when she sees her Grandpa (hehe). We thought she might even be trying to SAY doggie... she kept saying "Dangie" whenever she saw Erik's dog. Who knows. She can do the sign for "eat" now. She prefers it over the sign for "more" but sometimes says "more" and "eat" together. Today we were playing in the living room, and all of a sudden she looked at me and did the sign for "eat" so I fed her. Makes life quite easy.

Signing "eat"

She is a pointing MACHINE! The world around her, I'm sure, has always been a strange and fascinating place. But now she can express her wonder by pointing! She points at absolutely everything, it's too cute. It's also helpful when we're walking around with her because she'll stop and point in the direction she wants to go.

It's so amazing to see her growing up a little every day, finding new ways to express herself (including tantrums now and then.. oh joy.. like today when I wouldn't let her keep licking the TV...) and new ways to interact with us (like high fiving, which she started to do today!). I can't believe she is almost one already. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday she was sleeping the days away in my arms, not even able to hold up her on head! And now she stands and takes steps! Unbelievable!

Okay now some beach pics. Some of these were a bit overexposed... woops.

Sandy face.. (she ate some)

Staying cool in the shade, nothing but a diapy

Digging and throwing ... a favorite beach game.

She learned how to brush her hands off

About to go in the water with mama!

picture post

isn't she the cutest??

hopefully i'll have a picture of her pointing next... she is a pointing machine! mostly pointing at where she wants to walk to next...

one month to toddler-dom

Our baby turned 11 months old today!

It has been a pretty big month for our Lyla Bee... we thought she was on the verge of crawling, but she decided that it was time to start cruising instead. She absolutely loves taking steps and is always trying to get down from our arms to walk around... I wonder when she will start walking without our hands or a couch for support. Looking at her it seems so strange, she looks too small to be trying to walk still! She can also stand on her own for short periods at a time.. very short.. like maybe the longest has been 20 seconds, but mostly it's like 10 seconds probably. We were so shocked the first time because she was very clearly trying to balance herself and stood for quite a few seconds and we just couldn't believe it!

She maybe started cruising a week ago and has already gotten so much faster, it is amazing!

I've read very contrary opinions on babies who skip crawling, some say it isn't an important developmental milestone at all, while others say it is very important, especially for a baby's vision. Actually I had a yoga instructor tell me once that a baby who skips crawling should be encouraged to crawl a lot during playtime. So we'll do that I guess, just to be safe. Who knows, she may still crawl before she walks on her own, we'll see!

Some of my favorite things that Lyla does... she has a hilarious fake cough that she does whenever someone else coughs.. she has been doing this for awhile now, but I don't think I've ever said something about it before... It's so funny, she's like "look at me, i'm a poor coughing baby!" She also buries her face in our chests and clutches onto us whenever anyone gets close or tries to hold her, and looks like she is trying to hide! This started maybe about a month ago I think.. She sometimes sticks out her teeth on the bottom and looks so goofy! She has so many silly faces! And of course, the babbling! Mostly "Da da da da da" but a lot of "ma ma ma" and "ra ra ra" .. lots of other sounds, and some mixes of sounds too! It's so fun to hear her talking and expressing herself! I bet Dada will be her first world... definitely a daddy's girl.... She also started signing the sign for Dog this month! Whenever she sees a dog she does the sign, and sometimes when she sees a cat too... that's ok, i think the sign for cat is kind of hard haha.

Today, I was actually feeling a bit sick for the first bit of the morning... The one good thing about this was that I got the afternoon off of work! Lyla and I went down to see my parents.. They live right by where Erik works so we walked down to see him and surprise him!

our water baby

summer has been busy because whenever we have a spare weekend, we rush off to erik's cottage! here we live about 15 minute from the beaches of lake mi, but at his cottage, it's about a 5 minute walk up a hill (a big hill, unfortunately). so we spend lots and lots of time at the beach! it's been very hot lately, so we usually go down after lyla's nap when the sun isn't so strong on her, and sit her on a towel under an umbrella where she can play with (and sometimes eat) the sand, which she loves, although she was a bit freaked out by it at first, i mean there is so much of it! (by the way, someone came into the market the other day wondering where they could find a 'sandy' beach.... i looked at her, confused.... well, they are all sandy.....)

lyla also has a shady little baby pool that she can sit in on the beach and she looves it! she used to be kind of afraid of the lake, but now we can put her in on her belly (holding her of course) and she flaps her arms and kicks her legs like she's swimming!!! it's so cute! especially because she kicks her legs out at the same time, like a little froggy! i rarely take a camera to the beach but i'll try to get a video sometime!

in her baby pool!

sharing with her cousin abby