So this month was full of holidays! Technically all of the Christmas pictures will be in her 11 month post since they were past the 18th. The other thing I’ve been thinking about is that we need to start thinking about her first BIRTHDAY!!! My goodness!!! ONE YEAR?! I can’t even think about it. She’s already so grown up! I can’t stand it!

When I think back to her tenth month of life and all that was going on, these are the things that I want to remember:

• She currently does this fake laugh that is forceful and hilarious! Her shoulders go up, she tenses up her whole body and she laughs like an old woman! It’s the funniest thing!
• She’s doing better with her solid finger food!! If we let her, she would live on mandarin oranges and Mimi’s chicken salad!
• The winter months have made her poor little face break out but it’s getting better!
• This month we hired a sleep coach. Basically, when most babies learn to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep around 4-5 months, we had a baby in a permanent hip harness. Needless to say, we babied her and did ANYTHING we could to get her to sleep in that thing! Then at 9 months, she was out of the harness and we realized that she desperately needed to retrain herself to go to bed without us and without nursing to sleep. It’s so humbling because I remember listening to Baby Wise before she was born thinking “Oh we’ve got this!! We’re not going to rock her to sleep and make her dependent on us to go down” and then we find out about her hip and all of our plans went out the window! You do what ya gotta do! She was sleeping 7ish hours a night but WOULD not nap and so I felt like we needed some help! Hiring Becca from Little Z Sleeps was the best decision! Evy has been sleeping 12 hours a night for three weeks now. Yep. She has learned to go down for naps almost instantly BUT we’re still working on those naps being longer than 30-45 mins. It’s a work in progress but we’re so thankful!
• She’s crawling and standing and walking up and down the couch… she’s also falling and busting her lip and hitting her head.
• She learned her first round of sign language this month!!! She knows “More”, “All Done” and “water”!!
• We found a sippy cup that makes her love drinking water which is great since she’s not nursing as much!
• She’s still trying to EAT her books but is actually getting better about reading them!
• She just recently started “singing” along with us and it’s the sweetest little sound!
• She’s a squirmer on the changing table!
• She LOVES to wave bye to people… even if they aren’t leaving.
• She loves that her cousin lives underneath her and that they get to play so much!!
• This is the month where taking portraits of the two of them together, smiling is almost impossible! … But also hilarious!
• She’s wearing 9-12month clothes and is quickly outgrowing the length of her pants!
• She seems so petite all of sudden! Where did my chunky  baby go?!
• She loves to tear up paper and tissues!
• She also loves to DANCE! Michael plays music throughout the house every single day and she bounces to the beats!

Thanksgiving at the Alsops and she got to see her WAGON for the first time! I think she likes it!  Love this picture of her and Aunt Sarah!  Kisses….  Wet kisses! Thanksgiving with my family!  We were missing three of our crew!  I love these so much!  I wore those pearls on our wedding day and she LOVES playing with them!  Just checking out the dirty floor with grandaddy!  Her first REAL SNOW!  Oops!  Daddy was here a lot helping us finish up the basement apartment before Emy and Joe and Micah moved in!  Helping daddy with the dishes!  Annnnd she’s not too excited about the baby YET! haha  She’s on the MOVE!  Playing in the loft in our room!  She looks terrified!  We tried so hard…. It just wasn’t happening…
Nope. Yikes. Close enough!  This is for all of you out there that don’t think that she takes bad pictures… think again. Isn’t this pleasant? A framer for sure!
Her great nanny!
Again… we tried.  Nope!  That sweet face…. She wasn’t in the best mood this day!  Ok maybe she was!  I LOVE THESE!!!!! That’s her old lady fake laugh on the left!  And I can’t forget our beautiful portraits by Annamarie! I’m so THANKFUL to have pictures with my little family before I started to REALLY show!!!