12 Months

• Eliza's 12 month stats: 26 lbs 13 ozs (95th percentile) and 31" tall (95th percentile)!  So, not surprisingly, she is still our big girl :)

• Babbling: Eliza isn't saying many actual words yet, but she babbles on and on as though we understand her.  It's so cute.  It really sounds like she is forming sentences, but only she knows what she is saying.  Haha.  She does say "duck", and knows lots of animal sounds - do those count as words??  Heh. 

• Standing!  She stood on her own the day of her 1st birthday!  It was funny - hubby and I were both sitting on the floor with her and all of a sudden she was standing.  We were both like "are you holding on to her?" but nope, she was standing all on her own!

• She has her first real cold.  She woke up on her birthday with a runny nose and a cough.  Poor baby  - I can hear her breathing over the intercom right now, and every once in a while she coughs in her sleep :(  We have been so lucky with her health though, this is really the first time she's been sick - she's had a few runny noses, but nothing that I would count as being truly 'sick'.  So we made it an entire year!

• Eliza is still wearing the same diapers - size large in cloth and 4 in sposies (which we use for overnights now).  She's in mostly 18 month clothing, though a few 12 month things still fit, as do some 24 month things.  Baby clothes sizing is so wack. 

• This girl is smart - I know I always say that... but it's so true!  Wait, what?  Every mom says that about her baby?  Oh... well, get this: the other night we were eating squash for dinner and Eliza was mostly eating it with her hands, but she also had a spoon on her tray.  She picked up a piece of squash that had fallen on her tray, put it on the spoon, and then put the spoon in her mouth!  It was so cute, it was like I could see the wheels turning in her head.  Another one: she "asks" for help by putting whatever she needs help with into your hand.  For example, she has a wind-up stuffed lamb that plays music and when she wants me to wind it up, she takes my hand and places it over the wind-up mechanism.  So neat!

• She is eating everything we are eating - she has been for a couple of months now (which reminds me that I have had a few people comment and ask me about baby-led weaning.  I could do a post about it or I could just email you girls, too... but I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you yet.).  She doesn't seem to dislike anything so far, but I know it's only a matter of time before she decides which foods she loves and which she doesn't love so much.  And now that she's 12 months old, she can finally eat honey; tonight she had her first taste, and it was fresh from her grandpa and grandma's beehives :)  She loved it of course.  She can also now drink cow's milk, so tonight we gave her a sippy cup full of whole milk.  We usually fill her sippy with water, so when she tasted the cow's milk she was like 'what's this??!!'.  The expression on her face was really funny.  She seemed to take to it right away.  This girl is so easy-going, it's such a joy to be her mama! :)

• We're still nursing, probably about 3-4 times a day (or more??  I guess I haven't been keeping track very well lately).  She asks for it about that often (she uses the "milk" sign), so we nurse whenever she asks, and also before naps and bedtime.  She is not sleeping through the night, so there's usually one or two nursing sessions overnight, too.  We are still happily co-sleeping part time; she starts out in her crib and sleeps there until she wakes up in the middle of the night when I bring her into bed with us.

• Naps - she's still taking 2 naps a day, but I'm starting to think she's moving towards just one nap... we'll see.  I'm not sure I'm ready for her to only take one nap a day quite yet!

• Eliza is SO incredibly sweet - she's developing the sweetest personality.  She loves giving hugs and she's recently started giving kisses, too.  It just makes me melt every time she does it.  It is soooo adorable.  I say "I love you" a lot to her, and she's started hugging me whenever I say it to her.  Awww, I just can't even stand it, she is so cute!  Her kisses are the open-mouth variety, and are currently quite snotty... but we love getting them.  :)

Happy 12 months, my sweet girl!  Mama loves you so much.  I can't wait to see what the next 12 months hold for us!