The DeLorme Family: 11 Months

Graceyn is now 11 months old. She has only one more month of being an official baby. She will always be my baby and will always be my precious sweet girl. Our monthly pictures are getting much harder to take because she is just obsessed with grabbing the chalkboard and its hard to get a good shot before she messes it all up. I do my best.
    Graceyn has been doing so much growing and is doing new stuff all the time. The biggest skill she has learned is walking. She has been taking more and more steps each day. After today, I am officially considering her a walker. She kind of just woke up today and decided she didn't want to crawl much anymore. She has been walking everywhere today with a little bit of crawling thrown in here and there. She still has to use the walls and furniture to balance herself, but she is walking so well. She is so proud of herself when she walks and always has the biggest smile on her face. I just can't believe she is already walking. My how the first year flies by!
   Gracie mastered a lot of new skills this month. She now waves like a champ and is pretty good waving hi or bye. The other day at Costco she decided she was just going to wave at everyone. She has also learned to give hi-fives and always give me one when I ask her to.
She is talking up a storm. Most is still babbling, but we are making out some words. She says "mama", "bubba", "dadda" and "hi". Hi is definitely her favorite. She walks around the house all day saying, "Hi". I think it's because I always say it to her. I think I have heard a few more words but I'm not sure. I swear she said "ball" today when we were playing. I am excited to see if I hear it some more. I love when they start talking. Although if she is anything like her sister, she is going to start and never stop.
     Another new thing Graceyn has been doing recently is dancing to music. She has a little music piano that plays short songs. She loves pushing the button over and over and dancing along. It is the cutest thing to watch. She has also has learned to throw a ball. She loves playing ball with me. I roll the ball to her and she throws it back to me. She is pretty good at throwing a ball for just being 11 months old. The girl impresses me daily with what she can do.
    Gracie continues to eat so well. She just eats whatever we serve her. She does have some favorites. She loves cheese. She also continues to love meat. We also have discovered that she loves cucumbers and hummus. She can't get enough. She is a big vegetable fan, but she doesn't usually show too much interest in fruit. I keep giving them to her and I hope she will start warming up to them.
    Sleep has been going much better. I don't want to jinx anything, but I am praying she is finally getting sleeping through the night. In a moment of desperation in the middle of the night, I was googling different sleep ideas. One site I found recommended that I not feed her 20 minutes or less before bedtime . It said that it makes the associate eating with sleeping, so when they wake in the night they feel they have to eat. I was willing to try anything, so the next night I gave it a shot. I fed her around 6:00, then we played and got her ready for bed at 7:00. She slept until 5:30!!! She has continued to do that every night since. I keep telling everyone I refuse to get excited until she does it for at least 14 nights in a row. She's gotten me excited before. This week because of snow, we have been very home bound and have not being going to the gym like we usually do. She takes a nap around 9:00-10:00 and then another nap in the afternoon. I think getting two good naps in a day have also helped her sleep better.
      We are just loving this little lady to the moon and back. She is truly the sunshine in our lives. She is truly the sweetest and happiest baby in the world. I thought I was biased, but people are always commenting on how smiley and happy she is. She is literally all smiles.
   We will be doing a lot of traveling in March. We will be having her birthday party next weekend because it worked the best. I am so excited for the theme I decided on and I think she's going to have a great little party.

I will finish this post with some of her likes/dislikes:

Likes: books (especially touch and feel books), pulling all the books down from the bookcase, walking, pushing her walking toys, playing with her toys, exploring (today she discovered the baggie drawer and she was entertained for a long time), crawling up the stairs (with mom behind her), playing peek-a-boo, and trying to find me when I "hide" from her
Dislikes: eating without a sippy cup of water to drink from, eating much for breakfast, yogurt, having her nose suctioned, being bored in the car seat, when I take away something she wants to have she does a great job of letting me know when I make her mad