Alaina is 1!

Lainey Jane is 1!  She is our sweet little angel baby and acts as the baby of the family in every way.  We still call her a baby and think of her in that way too.
Here she is before her birthday...I was making her practice keeping headbands in before her big photo shoot...

getting emotional about me continuing to force her to wear the headbands...

This little girl is smothered in love whenever she needs it!  The kids are always excited to see her when she is up from her morning nap!

Thanksgiving day at my parents'....

Getting our Christmas tree...

She will climb all over Lilly and play with her as long as she lets her, and she actually lets her quite a bit!

Stealing a moment with mommy before her party starts...

She had a "You are My Sunshine" themed party.  We had an ice cream SUNdae bar which was quite a hit!

She loved the cake!

I made a scrapbook spread out of some photos from each month.  Now Alaina can say that I did something for her that I didn't do for the other girls!

With her Godparents...

Alaina continues to lag behind in gross motor development in that she still doesn't pull to stand very often and also doesn't cruise along furniture at all.  This is no surprise and something that we don't really think about too often.  We came to the conclusion a while back that this would just be something she does in her own time.  A few weeks after she turned one was the first time that I witnessed her pull to stand all on her own.  Here is a photo of it....:)

She loves to push around chairs and push toys while on her knees.  She also does a little "walking" on her knees.

 

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Besties....

Other things about Alaina...

- She doesn't drink from a sippy cup.  She really won't take milk or water from there and when she has one she mostly just plays with it.  She still nurses on her same schedule which is 4 times a day.  For the last month she has been getting up twice a night and breastfeeding but I just quit that again and she has been sleeping through the night the last couple days...we will see if it sticks this time.

- She is getting lots of teeth.  She has 3 top teeth coming through that you can see, just haven't broken skin yet.  We blame this for some of her added fussiness in the evening.

- She babbles and imitates sounds of words from time to time.  The words that she consistently says with meaning are Mama, Dada, and Hi.

- She will put her arms out or up to be held or get attention from someone.

- She crawls all around the house doing her own thing and exploring.  She likes to take toys out of bins but then also helps to put them away during clean up, it's cute.

- She likes to crawl on and over people.

- Her favorite food is probably cheese.  She eats most things that we give her though.

- She will point at things and sometimes also babble something while she points.

- She imitates things.  Sometimes she will cross her hands to pray with us at dinner when she sees us do it.  She pats me or Lilly when she seems me patting Lilly to burp her.  She bounces along to songs during circle time.

- She gets along great with her sisters.  It's fun to see how much they all love each other...

11 Months

Alaina is quickly moving toward being one year old! It's time I document her 11th month!

This is really not a good photo of me...but I took this picture to show how Alaina likes to shove her hand in my mouth from time to time while she is breastfeeding. This particular day I kept turning my head away and she kept shoving it back in there.

Alaina up in my shoulders on her 11 month bday...10/27... Which is also our wedding anniversary. That day Matthew and I were ships passing in the night, taking turns to go workout in the evening.

 

 

Sometimes the kids will want to make Alaina do or play something and she is not into it! She much prefers to do her own thing. Here Elsie is trying to make her lay in bed and be her baby.

 

 

 

The biggest change while she was 10 months old is that she started crawling. Soon after she turned 10 months, she started backing up from her tummy and getting into a sitting position. The more she practiced that, the more she was also rocking back and forth. One day I pulled out the old trick of putting some puffs just a few feet in front of her and sure enough, she crawled that little distance. That was just what she needed to get started and by the next day she was consistently crawling around the house.

 

Since she started crawling, she is less interested in standing. She will get frustrated when I try to make her stand now. However, she is very interested in pulling things off the couch. Hopefully that interest will eventually get her to stand herself up. She lifts up into a kneeling position and cruises a little bit while on her knees but hasn't pulled into standing yet.

Circle time with her friends...

Apple orchard....

 

 

 

LOVES her cousin Lilly...she races right over to her if she is awake and playing on her blanket. There was one night that I babysat Lilly and the big girls were gone. Lilly and Alaina kept "talking" to each other and cooing back and forth, it was cute!

 

This may have been her first bath with the big girls, now they do them all together quite a bit! Washing up 3 kids is a lot of work!

 

Other things about Alaina since turning 11 months...

-she has started pointing with her pointer finger. I love it! The other night at dinner she was pointing at different things and I was labeling each thing she pointed at.

- started sleeping through the night, finally! I came up with a plan that I would only feed Alaina for 3 minutes at night, then 2, then 1, then not feed her at all anymore. I ended up feeding her for 3 minutes, put her back to bed and she cried for like 5 more minutes or so before falling back to sleep. The next night she never woke up! She now generally sleeps until 6:30-7, if she wakes up earlier than that (5-6) then I feed her and put her back to bed.

Naps at 9ish and 1ish. Eats three meals a day and breastfeeds 4 times a day. She takes a sippy of water sometimes but mostly just makes a mess of it. I am trying to find a sippy that is spill proof that might work well for her to start transitioning to some milk soon.

Races all around the house, crawling into every nook and cranny. As soon as a door opens for a new room, she is rushing over to investigate. Loves putting things in her mouth. Loves pulling things from cabinets, buckets, drawers, etc.

She is everyone's little buddy. Everyone loves to talk and play with her. She is so happy and easygoing each day. Sometimes I get caught up on the fact that I don't track her dvelopment and do things like baby sign with her (like I did with Elsie) but mostly I am just happy that she is a happy and healthy little girl and is so very loved!

 

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