Baby Kisses - And no more crawling

I just realized earlier this week, that Grace is no longer crawling. It's kind of sad to see the end of an era, but it's such fun seeing her toddling all over the place. This afternoon I took her outside, and for the first time she freely roamed up and down the sidewalks. Ok, not too freely. But enough for an 11 month old.

It's such a delight watching her delight in the world. At one point, a big ant scurried across her path, and she squatted down to watch him. I got a little nervous when I saw her fingers forming into that pick-up-a-cheerio shape (aka, the pincer grasp), but the fortunate little guy was moving too quickly for chubby baby fingers.

It was sweet this past Tuesday; there's an older toddler in our Community Group, and her dad was having her apologize to Grace after they'd done some tumbling over each other. She gave Grace a little hug, and made as if to kiss her, and Grace actually puckered up and gave her a little baby kiss too. She's never seemed to pay any attention to us kissing her, and we haven't quite gotten her to blow kisses even, but apparently she knows more than she lets on!

Grace's First Trampline

We had a newlywed group reunion dinner two weeks ago, and the Philips have a trampoline in the backyard; Grace loved it!

Mommy Notes

 

What New Thing Grace Did Today

I was playing with Grace this afternoon and rolled a metal mixing bowl over towards her. She handled it for a while, and then she picked up Dolly, put her into the bowl, and picked up the bowl with Dolly still inside. Whoa Gracie, look what you did! The bowl turned over as she picked it up, so Dolly fell out. She tried it again, this time trying to put Dolly in head-first, but it didn't work so well, so she picked Dolly up and kept on walking down the hall. The end! (By Daddy)

Grace's First Signs

We've been teaching Gracie some baby signs, and thought the grandparents would enjoy seeing what she's learned so far. She also knows "more" and "eat", but isn't as consistent with them as her three favorites.

Baby Duet

 Last Monday, our old newlywed community group got together for a reunion, as one of the couples was back in town for the week with their adorable almost-two-year-old daughter. All the ladies in the group either got pregnant or had a baby during the course of the year, and it was really good seeing (almost!) everybody again with our babes.

Grace and Addison had a great time playing on the piano together, and Grace shared her Cheerios (for the first time!) with Addie at dinner. For awhile she'd hold items out to us, but wouldn't let go, but she was quite delighted to give away her food. :)

Just a bit too big

 I finally decided it was time to sort thru the baskets of our scarves and hats and clean out the superflous. And of course, Grace had to help. :)