WALK WITH ME

Stella is 13 months old today, and she has changed so much these last couple of weeks. It is almost like meeting a different kid every morning. Yesterday at church, she crawled over to a baby her age, waved at her, and said "Hi." I almost melted, it was so sweet. She also no longer uses bottles. In fact, one day I gave her a sippy instead and she just drank it with no remorse over the loss of her old pal, the bottle. It is great for me since she would never hold her own bottle, but always holds her own sippies. I wish she was as cooperative about trying new foods though. She likes all kinds of junk food, but has totally gagged over many new healthy foods that I have tried to introduce. She has taken it upon herself many times to dig out her favorite snacks from the pantry or diaper bag, drag them over to us, and hand them to us so that we can feed them to her. It is so cute that we usually oblige her and give her whatever she wants. Yet, she did have a fascination with bringing me the maple syrup from the pantry for a couple of days. I couldn't figure out what she wanted me to do with it, but it sure made me laugh watching her crawl with it all the way into the living room. Her strange eating habits are a small price to pay in exchange for getting to enjoy her adorableness each moment that we are together.

I think she might be on the way to walking any day now because she will now stand alone, and then she can take about three steps toward me. She loves it, and when we were practicing last night at Brent's parents' house, she was all giggles, with each effort being followed by a round of applause from the whole family. She also can walk by our side if we hold only one of her hands. I made her and Brent go outside and take some pictures for proof. I got nothing but complaints from them both (the sidewalk was hot, hot, hot!), but it was worth it. I also snapped a pic of my beautiful Dior heels...so dreamy those shoes!