New word

After weeks of only saying the "uh" part of "uh oh," Piper finally put it all together today. Watch!

Wordless Wednesday

Piper takes Jonathan Swift a little too seriously

Babies for dinner?

Visitors!

Tam-Tam and Mamaw came all the way from Gray for a visit this weekend. We had a great time! There was lots of playtime and food, a little bit of shopping, and of course some book-reading. Piper is so lucky to have such a wonderful grandmother and great grandmother! We hope they come back to visit soon!

books at bedtime

posing with Tam-Tam

This weekend, Piper decided she needed to clear out her toy box and use it as a seat. Silly girl!

Thanks, Tam-Tam, for my new slide! It's so much fun!

One more video of the walker

Here she comes!

She'll make a liar out of me yet

So this morning I posted about Piper's lack of desire to walk. By 3:00, she was taking as many as 7 steps in a row unassisted.

It's difficult to get a wobbby toddler's first steps on video! But here's the best I could do.

Happy birthday, Grandad!

And Happy St. Patrick's Day, too!

13 months

At 13 months, Piper is:

• loud.
• playing in her crib up to 30 minutes before finally settling down for naps. This always involves throwing out everything in her crib meant to soothe her (blanket, dolls, lovey, pillow) and sticking her little arms out to open and close the clothes hamper for what sounds like 100 times.
• growing teeth like crazy (see picture). The current count is seven. I can feel her first year molars under her gums, and she must feel them, too, because she's started putting her fingers in her mouth again after not doing this since her first two teeth bothered her.
• pushing anything and everything around so she can walk. This includes her push toys, chairs, Daddy, her plastic house, hampers. You name it--she tries to push it around. Oftentimes she's pushing with one hand and holding something precious (lovey, ball) with the other. I consider that progress.
• taking a single unassisted step here and there but adamantly refusing our attempts to get her to take a step or two on demand.
• standing on her own a tiny bit more each day. Today I tricked her into clapping while she was pushing her stroller around upstairs. She clapped for a good 10 seconds before realizing that she wasn't holding on. Then she cried and fell down. Silly girl.
• laughing at other people's laugh. I've mentioned before that she loves to mimic, but it's really funny when she hears others laughing--they could be several feet away and not paying any attention to her--and she laughs "with" them. Josh and I love this.
• eating us out of house and home. She pretty much eats everything I put in front of her unless it's cold. She's doing great at drinking her milk, but I have to warm it in the microwave before she'll drink it, no matter how thirsty she is.
• nursing once a day (in the morning). I know I said in my last monthly post that I would be cutting this out soon, but she's been fighting a cold for the last three weeks and growing all those teeth, so I've kept it for now. I plan to cut it out next week, though. Enough's enough!
• stubborn. I'm afraid she got this quality from her mom and dad.
• loving the outdoors now that the weather is cooperating.
  

Look at all those teeth! She has cut one on the bottom right that you can't see in this picture, and her bottom right molar is dangerously close to coming through, too.

New Videos!

If one is good, then two is better. Right?

She did this all on her own. I'm not sure it worked out like she wanted.

Right before my eyes

When did she get so old?

Nothing is more fun than playing in the dirt!

Practice makes perfect

This is how we've spent a majority of the past few days: practicing walking. Although she's not ready to let go of us or her push toys yet, Piper has been wearing a track in the downstairs of the house. All she has wanted to do is walk around. Notice that lovey has to come, too. All of these pictures are taken at different spots in the house, proving that she's constantly on the go!

her anti-paparazzi pose

cheese ball

One last birthday post

For some reason, I hadn't yet gotten these pictures off my camera from Piper's birthday weekend. Anyway, here they are!

While at Nana's house, Piper found great amusement in climbing in and out of the stove drawer. I'm not sure why this was so much fun, but she loved it!

For the party favors, I made 120 little elephant cookies and iced them all with royal icing. It pretty much took me all day the Saturday before her party. But I was very happy with the way they turned out (for the most part), especially since it was my first time using royal icing.

just a few of the 120 elephants, waiting on their icing to set

the completed favor bags

Wordless Wednesday

This child is LOUD.

Today Piper and I went to the grocery store, and I'm pretty sure the pharmacist (in the front of the store) could hear us when we were all the way in the meat department. Piper is loud when she's happy, loud when she's mad, and loud when she's everything in between.

Here she is playing with her Valentine's Day cards.

Videos!

**Remember to watch these videos FULL SCREEN so that you are seeing the entire frame.**

This toy is good for many things, including dancing and throwing.

New trick!
(No one tell her that she should have mastered this several months ago.)