OH MY...

I absolutely CANNOT believe that it has been 3 weeks since I last updated the blog!!! We have been soooo busy that I haven't sat down long enough to update!! So...let me catch you up!

Raychel is 10.5 months old...

**She is walking (getting better everyday and this week she is walking across rooms)
**She is talking (I have lost track of everything, but she is signing bird, cat, and STOP now and says cat and stars)
**She is ORNERY!!!! (I'll share some funnies below)

I go in to pick her up in the morning and reach down to get her, she hops down and crawls across the crib. When I get down to the other end, she crawls back. We were both laughing by the end!

When she is doing something she KNOWS she shouldn't be doing (getting something off the table, eating something off the floor, going into a room she shouldn't be in) and you call her name, she will just start "running". We call it running, but really she is crawling...it is just that fast. Then, she gets pretty far away and will turn around to look at you like, "I didn't do it...honest!". Now, if she is eating something...she will pop that in her mouth before she runs!

I put a basket of toys in front of the end table to keep her from getting to the remotes and drinks on the table, but it doesn't stop her! She climbs into the basket and on the toys to get to the stuff!

If you ask her to stop doing something, she signs stop and then continues doing it until you get more serious with her...she KNOWS what it means...she CHOOSES to ignore! (How do they learn this so young?)

**She knows where your nose is and will be happy to hit it, poke it, or pick it...depending on where her fingers land!

**She follows Mommy's directions in the bath tub. Put the duck IN the cup, put the cup in the cup (nesting), put the baby duck on the mommy duck (has a flat spot for the babies to sit), put the duck ON the cup...etc.!

**She LOVES to go up and down steps. She holds my hand because she has to lean so far to get her leg up to the next step, but then she pushes up to the next step alone. We go up and down at least 2-3 times a night outside.

**She LOVES to walk from the porch to the car and the car into wherever we are going!

**She giggles and laughs... A LOT! She is almost always HAPPY! The other night she started laughing at something, while finishing dinner, and we spent almost 45 minutes giggling back and forth to one another.

**She POINTS at everything and wants to know what it is and then repeats something...even if it sounds nothing like what you said!

**She loves her Daddy and points at him and says, Da-Da, DAA-DAA, DADEEE!!! She asks for him when he is not there and calls to him when he walks by in the house. She even hits Mom in the head, pointing at his picture on the wall as we pass it on the wall! Oh, occasionally she says Mom or Ma-Ma...but Daddy is definitely a favorite word (oh, and PERSON) for her!

**She tasted a McDonald's cheeseburger this last weekend and now she doesn't want baby food! So, we are constantly searching for something she will eat now. She likes cheese crackers, Ritz crackers, peaches, ham, ground beef, bread, potato, golden grahams, vanilla wafers, and we are still trying others! She likes chocolate, but we don't think it likes her. We haven't found another night that we would like to be up with a screaming baby, so we haven't tried it again to make sure!

**Occasionally, she will eat more or stay up later and that allows her to sleep through the night. It has happened at least a couple times a week for the past couple weeks...Mom LOVES the break!

**She LOVES her new day care! She sometimes comes home covered in dirt or something else she got into while playing, but we know it means she had fun! When we come to pick her up she isn't screaming and crawling to us as fast as she can. Instead, she looks to say HI and then continues in her activities. She LOVES play group and story time that she gets to go to and so far has slept through all the Zoo visits (the stroller walk gets her every time).

**She wears shoes now. Before, she wasn't too interested in shoes. She would pull them off or seem to complain about them while crawling. Now that she is walking, it was a MUST...and she adapted quickly. We have found LOTS of cheap shoes, so she has sandles that flash, hot pink tennis shoes, and even a pair of moccasins (thank you Grandma O).

**She loves balls. She likes to play catch and is pretty good at throwing the ball straight to you! The problem is that it makes her sit still, so she doesn't play for very long. I imagine that when she is really sure on her feet, she will play all the time!

**I'll add more when I think of what I haven't told you yet! It has been a MAJOR month for growth and changes! Not only are we too busy to sit down, she is too much fun to let her play by herself so we can update! LOL

I'll have to post pictures tomorrow...it is bedtime! I know...I know...sorry, that is what you REALLY wanted to see!! LOL