13 months old

So, no more monthly pictures with her children’s book, but we’ll still try to document what our little lady is doing each month!

Ashleigh turned thirteen months old on October 18. She also took her first steps just a few days before she turned 13 months old. She surprised Matthew and I by taking FOUR steps in a row (these were her first steps!) from one couch to the other couch. Fortunately, we were both watching and just looked at each other in amazement. It’s so hard to believe how quickly she is learning new skills. Sometimes, like with walking, there’s no practice time. She does it once, and then she doesn’t stop! Two days after taking her first steps, we finally caught it on video, and she hasn’t stopped walking since then. She is still unbalanced and falls quite a bit, but oh how cute it is to watch our sweet girl toddle around the room. Arden and Hobbes are in a bit of trouble… she can get to them a lot quicker now! Ashleigh loves walking and tries to do it all the time. She has unfortunately had her fair share of bumps and bruises now that she wants to walk everywhere. She just doesn’t quite know how to stop and ends up just falling into whatever is closest to her.

At 13 months, Ashleigh…

- has taken her first steps.

-is saying mama and dada more often.

-still loves to point at things.

-shakes her head no.

-is very vocal with her made up language

-makes some great facial expressions

-is working on cutting her top two teeth (finally!)

-is sleeping a bit better. We had to re-do our sleep training after moving to Michigan because she wanted to get up every couple of hours and nurse. Well, that made for one tired mommy! We are re-teaching her how to fall asleep on her own. She is still waking up about once a night, but we just go in her room and lay her back down and rub her back, and usually she’s back asleep in 1o or so minutes. (P.S. Teething has NOT helped this process!!)

-is wearing size 3 diapers.

-is wearing 9 month and some 12 month clothing

-is eating so much food (baby food and table food). She wants to eat whatever we are eating.

-drinks about 2 cups of whole milk each day and loves it.

-loves to “collect” objects in her hands (rocks, sticks, cheerios, etc!)

-loves to play outside, and fortunately, the weather has been fairly nice recently, so we’ve been outside quite a bit. She prefers to crawl on the pavement rather than the grass. Odd?

-loves, loves, loves to read her books.

-enjoys climbing up and down the stairs (over and over and over again). It’s good exercise for momma and daddy, too!

- has figured out how to get off of OUR bed by herself… she puts both feet over the edge, leans back, and just slides down. Good gracious.

- has started copying our sounds.  So cute!

-likes being chased around the house. She knows what “I’m going to get you” means!

On a side note, Ashleigh’s new friend Jonah was born on October 16 to proud parents Jason and Dana Lee. We can’t wait to meet the cutie pie!