Tuesday, March 24, 2009

11 Months!

Happy 11 months to Little Miss Nelson! It is hard to believe that Riley is almost 1 year old...she has changed so much. Our little baby is turning into a little girl and is so, so busy exploring the world around her and then telling us all about it.

Some fun facts about our smiley, happy little Miss at 11 months...

*Dancing is one of her new favorite activities. No matter where she is when she hears music she will stop whatever she is doing and starts to dance. It so cute to watch her bob up and down to the beat.
*She loves to swing! Now that the weather is warmer we have started to take walks to the park and she loves every minute of being pushed on the baby swing.

*Riley is learning sign language and can make the sign for "dog" when she sees one. She will also make the sign, say "dog dog" and look around when we ask her where the dog is. We can tell that she is very impressed with herself and we think that this a great new way to help her communicate with us. We are working with her on some of the other animal signs like cat as well as some signs for common needs like food, more, milk and drink.


*She is now crawling at lightning speed and getting closer and closer to walking on her own. She "cruises" (aka walks around holding onto furniture) and can even stand briefly on her own. She also still loves to walk around with the alligator push toy for practice.

*Riley loves to help me work. Her favorite thing about working is getting to grab all of the paper out the printer and scatter it on the floor...and then of course watching mommy clean it up.
*Riley has sprouted 3 more teeth this month for a total of 7 chompers and she loves to use them on just about anything that she can get her mouth around.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Walking Practice

Riley has recently discovered a new means of getting around...on two feet!
She discovered that her toys slide on the wood floor, so now she likes to push them around and walk behind them. After watching her use her music table as a walker for the past week, we decided it might be time for a toy that is actually meant for this task. Lucky for us, our friends Tim and Katy had a very cool wooden walker and since James is now an expert on two feet he very generously lent his walker to Riley.
Already she can't get enough of it and there will be many hours spent following behind her and helping her around obstacles she can't walk through.
It's so much fun to watch her teetering around on her little legs!