A post of mostly pictures

Every month on my daughter's "birthday" I write her a letter. A couple of parts of yesterday's 11-month letter go well with some of my recent pictures of the babe, so I thought I might pare those bits with some pictures I've been meaning to share. Thus, in no particular order:

"You love to crawl! It aids your curious, exploratory nature. You get into anything and everything you can, for better and worse. It doesn’t matter that you have baskets of toys or bright colorful things strategically placed – you always want what’s just out of reach, what’s new, or the things that present a challenge or a puzzle. I love this about you, though it can be frustrating at times. I try to not chase you around or dig you out of things if I can help it; I think it’s good for you to explore and discover."

These pictures show the new Ergo baby carrier, in the hip position. (It can be used front, hip, or back.) I'm the one who uses it the most, but sometimes Nate will strap it on, too:

"Feed me" face:

My mom made a bunch of the really cool bib shirts, as shown in the above picture (the pattern is available for free from this website http://doityourselfec.blogspot.com/2008/04/shirt-bib-with-free-pattern.html; for the fabric, we used Babyville Boutique PUL (polyurethane laminate), available at JoAnn's). She had scraps of fabric leftover and decided to make a floor mat to go underneath Darling's high chair -- pretty neat:

"Something else you have come to love is OUTSIDE. You point outside constantly. Out windows, out doors, out everywhere. Out, out, out! You love flowers and leaves. You’re still not sure about grass. You like that there are animals  and people and cars and plants and so many, many things to see. It goes back to your curious nature. We take you out as much as we can, but we do have to be careful of sensitive baby skin and sunburns. The weather has helped us to adventure outside more often…"

"You LOVE to point at things. I don’t know why. But your little index finger is constantly extended, pointing at all of the world. Do you do it on purpose? Do you know what it means to point? I have no idea. I think so. You tend to point and stare at people and objects, animals and plants, everything. We use the opportunity to try and teach you words. So if you point at a tree, or the kitty, or daddy or whatever, we tell you what it is that you are pointing toward. I hope this will help you learn words. It sure is cute."

My mom stays at our house one night a week so that she can have back-to-back days with her grandbaby. Thus the guest room has pretty much become her room. At least, that's how we think of it. So we made it "official" with a sign: