Our Family: Isabella at 11 months

What a fun age!!! She is getting so big but still is so little. She is still only about 17 pounds and is just barely ready for 9mos size clothes. She is petite and oh so sweet. Issie started doing all kinds of new things this month. She is now walking (short distances) and eating all kinds of finger foods like green beans, noodles, eggs, fruits, chicken and more, and she is becoming much more of an explorer. She is serious a lot of the time, staring you down with those big blue eyes but once you get her giggling it is super contagious. Lately she has been really making herself laugh, really laugh, like the big belly laugh. She did it when she pushed the little car walking around the house for the first time. She did it when she took her first steps. And she did it when I let her play in the bathtub without her seat for the first time. I think she is so proud of herself and thoroughly enjoys her new freedoms in mobility. She also loves books, much more that Jack or Kadie at this age, she will sit and play with a board book for an hour. She loves Jack and Kadie. She loves playing "chase" and keep away. She is still mesmerized watching them play, I think inside she is just waiting til she can run with them. Here are some of our favorite snapshots of this stage....

Watching the dogs, longing to be able to go outside with Kadie.

Crazy child in the bathtub. She is hilarious, flopping around in 2 inches of water and laughing so hard. I cannot believe she does not have bruises all over from hitting the side so many times.

One of her favorite places to be, under the table. I always laugh when I see her there, it is like she is putting herself in a little jail. She loves being under things and she loves being upside down.

Here's my public confession. I am usually the parent that is afraid of the kids getting hurt ( partly my control needs in my personality and partly from being a Physical Therapist and seeing the worst case scenarios of everything), but Brad has always been much more afraid of the kids falling down the stairs than I have. I guess I always think, we will just teaching them to do stairs and then it will be fine. Isabella has not even noticed the stairs yet, so I have not been great at putting up the gate. Brad said she is going to do it anytime and we will be sorry, I said she is not even interested. Well today, I thought I heard her playing by my bedroom door when I was cleaning up lunch, but apparently she was exploring some thing new. By the time I found her she was on the top step and again, laughing her big belly laugh. I am pretty lucky I found her when I did as she was just about to dive down the steps when I got there. Sorry Honey, the gate is up now. Anyways, we proceeded to spend the next 40 min going up and trying to teach her how to go down backwards. She much prefers going up and every time I turned her around to go down backwards she would just start going back up. I think it will be awhile before she gets it. I am sure practicing the stairs will consume the next few months.

Cutie pie.

Kadie took this, as I worked on teaching her to go back wards, not quite getting it yet.

The famous walking bike. Jack got this bike for his first birthday and each kid has loved it. Issie has been pushing it around the house and Kadie loves giving her rides around the house. That bike has really been worth the $19 we paid for it 8 years ago!

Walking to Jack. She loves her big brother.