Annaliese 13 months and Philadelphia house

Annaliese has been doing some really cute things lately and I wanted to be sure to record them. Today she tried to crawl up into her booster chair (where she eats) by herself- signaling that she was hungry. I helped her into her seat and she pointed to the food I had sitting on the counter. She has been pointing at things a lot lately. If I'm holding her, she points in the direction where she wants me to walk or points to things she wants. If we're reading a book, she points to objects because she wants to know their names. In general, she doesn't like to have her diaper changed, but yesterday in the morning when she first woke up, she pointed to the diaper changing area because she wanted her diaper changed.

She's been saying some new words lately: cup, cracker, and dog (she says dog while doing the sign for dog- patting her leg). She says "dog" when she sees other animals too, like if she sees a bird she'll say dog, so we try to correct her. She also says cat, but again, sometimes gets it mixed up with other animals. Other words that she is saying lately: hi, mama, daddy, and thank you (thank you is a tough one, but she's working on it). She also has a few of her own words: "gook" means grape, and "nana" sometimes means pacifier, and "bvv-ah" means bottle. Sometimes she likes to practice saying her words to herself when she's walking around. She also recently started trying to sing.

Another thing that she does that's really cute is climbs into her bouncy seat (the green reclined chair that's meant for little babies) and starts bouncing up and down in it. She has a lot of fun doing that- today I came around the corner and she was in the kitchen by herself just bouncing in her chair. I have a video of her bouncing but it's sideways. I'll take another one soon.

A few other funny things Annaliese did: when we first got to our new house, I had the plastic outlet safety plugs sitting on the floor. Annaliese picked one of them up and tried to put it in the outlet. I just thought it was funny and ironic that she was trying to put the outlet plug in when the purpose of the plug was to keep her from putting other things (besides the plastic plug) in the outlet. Similarly, she found one of the cabinet safety locks and started trying to put it on the outside of the cabinets... because in her mind, that's where it goes!

Also, today she got her first haircut- sort of- I just trimmed her bangs because they were getting in her eyes all the time. So maybe it doesn't count. But I did save the hair, because I guess I'm supposed to put the clipping in her baby book (although, if I was looking in my own baby book, I'd probably be a bit frightened to see 30-year old hair in there, hmm)

And as far as the move goes- all our stuff is in our house so we've been busy unpacking, but most of our efforts right now have been going to painting and re-carpeting the three bedrooms. They had bright red, light yellow, and green carpets, which were 35 years old. It was definitely time for a change. Aaron also took down wallpaper and curtains in some of the rooms, we are going to replace with blinds and/or new curtains and paint. There are other house projects we hope to complete in the coming year including re-doing most of the upstairs guest bathroom.

I just realized the last time I posted was about a month ago- I need to post the pictures from Annaliese's birthday celebration and her cupcake!