Violin lessons!

I think that this is about the coolest thing that Aria has learned, and I just realized it yesterday....

I mentioned before that Aria does squats and says up, down, up, down, as she does them. So, when she started to do the same thing when she'd lift her hand in the air, and bring it back down, I thought she really understood the concept that up was up, and down was down. I have never done a game with her where I lift my arm and say up and bring it back down and say down. I thought she made it up all on her own... then yesterday it hit me!! Aria likes to watch violin lessons with my 2 beginner students. Each lesson we start with bow exercises, and we try to keep our bows as straight as possible while doing up bows and down bows in the air. As their bows slowly go up, I say "up", and as they bring them back down, I say "down". THAT is what Aria has been doing all week!! I am amazed at what she is picking up.

Busy bee

This little girl is ALL over the place. She walked all day, and I don't think she crawled at all.

Over the last week or two she's been spinning in circles while sitting. She'll sit there, and then take her feet and go in circles. It's really funny when she does it. I wish I could show you a video ;-)

Today we were looking at an animal book, and I pointed at the elephant and said "what does an elephant say?" and she did the elephant sounds!! I couldn't believe it! I know I've told you all before she can do the elephant sound... but she used to just repeat it after I did it, and now she is doing it all on her own!

Today we had Winsty (the doggy) at our house. He was sitting on his big doggy pillow. Aria went over to him and sat down, and leaned over with her mouth WIDE open. She wanted Winsty to lick her mouth! GROSS! I would say NO and she would laugh hysterically.... and then do it again. She just cracks me up!

Last night when my mom was leaving from babysitting, I was holding Aria on the couch and she was eating. I thought she was asleep. My mom walked to the door, and I said "bye" and Aria's hand popped into the air and she started to wave. It was funny bc I thought she was sleeping.

Aria loves cheese. I think if she could eat cheese all day and night she would.

No more room on my computer

Hi! I'm sure you are all sitting there wondering why there haven't been any new pictures and videos... well, I ran out of room on my computer! I'll be getting a new hard drive soon, so stand by. ;-)

Cheerio Cheers!

I keep meaning to post this, and I keep forgetting! One of Aria's favorite games is to do "cheers" with everything. It started out with Cheerios .... whenever it was that she started eating cheerios... February I think? She would have a cheerio in her fingers, and I'd have one in mine. I'd hit mine to hers, and say "cheerio cheers". She thought that was so funny! Every time she's eaten cheerios from that point forward, she hits her cheerio to mine and I say "cheerio cheers" and then we eat our cheerios. She also does this with her toothbrush when she's brushing her teeth. She extends her arm with her toothbrush in hand, and we hit toothbrushes together and I say "toothbrush cheers". She thinks it is funny every time.

She also likes to feed me cheerios (or whatever she's eating). She'll take a bite, and then give me a bite. If I just pretend to take whatever she's offering me, she persists until I actually take a real bite. I especially like when she does this when she's offering her gooey baby teethers or a handful of mushy peas. YUM!!

I think I also forgot to mention that she hugs now. She's been doing it for awhile. When we hug I say "hug". Now when we hug, SHE says hug. ;-)

She is also back to giving her Uncle Chris high fives. She did it when she was itty bitty, and she started doing it again lately. Chris says she does it every time. So cute! She has a special game with her Uncle.

She's doing great with walking!! Every day she walks more and more. When she tries to crawl while wearing a dress, her dress gets caught on her knees and frustrates her. She crawls by walking on her hands and feet (like crawling, without having the knees down.... like a bear crawl). She doesn't like to do that much, so she just gives up and walks. She can walk so well that I don't understand why she'd even want to crawl anymore.

She ate pasta for the 1st time this weekend. She's officially Italian ;-) She loved it!

;-)

Yes!

Aria has been shaking her head NO for a long time, and has known that she is saying no when she does it more recently. It took her awhile to nod her head to say "yes". It's so funny when she does it because she lifts her eyebrows when her head goes up, like that is helping her to lift her head up, and her eyebrows go back down when her head goes down. Just this week, Aria has learned that she can answer questions with "yes" if she nods her head ! I can actually ask her questions and she'll "say" yes or no by shaking or nodding her head! I love it! It helps me to know what she can and cannot understand. She can understand a lot more than I thought! I think all babies do, and it must be so frustrating for them not to be able to answer with all the words they want to say.

It has been so much fun to be able to communicate with new words and motions!

Aria is 11 months today! ;-)

Walking and more

Aria walked, as you know, last Saturday. She walked a few times that day, and went about 6 steps at a time! I thought she'd be an expert by the end of the week... but she decided not to walk anymore all week.... until yesterday! Yesterday she walked for several steps several different times. I thought she had decided that she was only going to walk on Saturdays ;-) I was wrong ;-) She walked even more today! She's so big! She's solid and balanced most of the time when she walks (and sometimes not so much ;-). I'm not surprised bc she's been walking by just using her hand on the wall for awhile now. I kept wondering when she was going to just do it! Good job, Aria ;-)

She is also saying more words all the time. The ones she says most often are "all done", uh oh, oh boy, hi mama, hi dada, hi zig, up, down, no, bye bye, butt butt (haha! She says that bc I say it when I change her diaper). I think she is also saying "hi love love" bc that is what I always say to her, but it's not really clear when she says it. She tries to copy what you're saying. She also loves to have conversations with people. She looks very intently at the person she is talking with. I think she must know what she is saying ;-) It's cute!

She's really doing a lot better with animal sounds. She loves to copy what you do. If you whisper, she whispers. If you talk in a really high voice, she'll do the same. SO, if you say "arf arf" she'll copy it. She's tried to do a pig sound (when you actually snort) but she can't figure it out. She clicks her tongue and looks at you very intently trying to figure out how you're making that funny sound! Today when we locked the car (and it went beep beep) she repeated it!

She knows 3 signs in sign language. All done (she says that one, too), more, and milk. I gave her bread for the 1st time this week and as soon as she had that first taste, she was signing MORE like a maniac baby. I guess she likes bread!

One of the funniest things she does (considering her daddy is in the Fitness industry) is squats. She started doing them all on her own, and when she'd do them I'd say up, down, up, down. Now she says up when she's up and down when she's down. When she wakes up from her nap and is playing in her crib, I can hear her saying "up, down, up, down". She must be doing squats in her crib. Funny baby!

She started climbing like a little monkey, too. She climbed up on her chair and got onto the coffee table. I have since moved her toy chair to sit up against the couch so she can climb up there instead of the coffee table!

She has also started to realize when she is doing something wrong. As she goes to do something bad, she will look at me as she's starting the bad behavior, and shake her head "no". She knows I'm going to tell her no!! She had my keys, and I always tell her no if she tries to put them in her mouth (keys have way too many germs on them! eww!) and then I pull them away before she gets them in her mouth. She had my keys last week, and as she brought them to her mouth she was looking at me and shaking her head "no" even though I hadn't said told her no yet. BABY!!

I love that she is able to communicate so much better now! Just the ability to say "no" is helpful!

She puts the phone to her ear and says "hi!". I was surprised when she did it bc, although I talk on the phone a lot for work, I always use my ear piece. She had to have learned to do that from her daddy! (or her cousin Diella! We think they've been making secret calls to each other!)

Playing with kids... she LOVES to play with kids. She used to seem like she was soooo much younger than her 2 year old friend, Kali. Now they can actually play together and have fun!! That is so cool! They were playing with a tea set together a couple of days ago. She was trying to eat from the forks and spoons! haha! Kali and Aria played catch with a big ball.

Mia (baby Mia, not me ;-) and Aria are good friends, too! They are interacting a lot now! Jenn (her mom) and I have looked so forward to them getting to the age when they can play! They played at the beach club today, and again later that night. Mia is 4 months younger, but they are seeming closer and closer in age each time they play together.

Speaking of the beach club! We had a FUN day at the beach today! Aria loved the pool and the sand and playing with her bucket and shovels. She also likes to eat sand. Yum!

Teeth - She has 6 teeth, and is working on more. I seem to see the teeth when they have already broken the surface (vs when she got her two bottom and two top teeth, I saw them before they broke the surface).

Sleep.... oh she sleeps like a baby! ;-) (Actually, whoever made up that saying has no idea how a baby really sleeps! ha!) But, really, Aria is sleeping wonderfully! She sleeps until 7 am, regardless of when she goes to bed, and then eats, and then goes back to bed (usually) until 8:30 - 9. Usually bedtime is between 8:30 - 9:30 It is wonderful to get full nights of rest!! I even get work done in the evenings before bed.

I am still in disbelief that my baby is going to be 1 in a month!

Breaking news!

Aria WALKED today!! She walked across the carpet to me today. I guess that what I needed to do is clear off the carpet so she had no toys to hang on to.

I missed her 1st 3 steps today because I was leaving out the door to go to the grocery store without Aria. I always take Aria to the grocery store with me bc she loves to go, and she has so much fun in the cart. This time I left her at home bc she was playing with Ahna and Papa. Well, as soon as I walk out the door, and get in the car, she starts walking. Matthew comes outside and starts waving at me to come back inside. Figures... the one time I leave her, she starts to walk! Silly baby! Once I got home from the store, she walked across the carpet all the way to me! She did it again right aftwards, and then started crawling again.

Crawling & Whistling

I meant to post this in March. This video is from the 1st day that Aria crawled. Every once in awhile, she starts to whistle, and we caught her doing that in this video. :-)

Uh oh... Stairs

Look what Aria discovered today (and check out the clown hair! :-)