11 Months Old!

I can hardly believe that my sweet baby is 11 months old today. This time last year, I was big as a house and so ready for her to join us. Now she is crawling, pulling up, talking, and into everything. The time just flies by!

Savannah is on the move. She doesn't want to be held when she could be crawling, pulling up, pulling things out of baskets or boxes, finding things to eat on the floor, or anything. :) She is a busy bee!

The biggest development we have seen this month is in communication. She has taken a sudden interest in saying actual words, which is pretty cool. New words this week were "juice", "sasha", "no-no", "please", "baby", and she attempted "thank you" but it wasn't very clear so I don't think it counts yet. She also motions for you to come here, which I find amusing. Ever since she started crawling, when she gets too far away, I say, "hey, come here" and motion for her to come back toward me. She usually comes, but this week she has developed a new habit of stopping, sitting up, and motioning for me to come to her. Haha. What a kid!

She is very affectionate and loves to bestow kisses and hugs on just about anyone. Every morning when I get her out of bed, she sticks those chubby hands up in the air and when I pick her up, she pats me on the back and gives me a kiss. :) I love being her momma! :)

Things we are going to work on this month are developing more real words and transitioning to a sippy cup for milk. Savannah has been drinking juice out of a sippy cup for quite some time now, but will not take milk out of it for anything! We will make her formula, and put it in the sippy cup, and she will take a big drink, realize its milk, spit it out, and glare at us. Then, if we pour the same formula in a bottle, she will drink the whole thing! Someone suggested that we try giving her real milk to see if she liked that in a cup, and no way jose. Someone also suggested that we put a little bit of chocolate syrup in it to see if she would drink it then, and she wanted no part of it in the cup, only in the bottle. I really don't understand it, but we're working on that this month. Feel free to offer suggestions! :)

Well, on that note, I better sign off here and get that munchkin out of bed... we have a busy day today! :) But I did try very hard to get a good 11 month picture to share with you, and well, like I said, she is a busy bee and it was rather difficult. Enjoy!

Spaghetti and Silverware!

Well, we decided Savannah needed to start attempting silverware, so we got her a little plastic fork and spoon. We tried it out on spaghetti night, because we figured we already strip her down and prepare for big messes on that night anyway. At first she just kind of stared at us like, "Why would I use this when I could use my fingers?!" and while she held the fork in one hand, she used the other hand for the feeding process! :) By the time dessert rolled around however, she was using the spoon to put ice cream pie in her mouth and while she missed a little bit every now and then, we were pretty impressed for the most part. Ice cream is easier to keep on a spoon than spaghetti is to keep on a fork! By the end of the meal she was pretty messy though, and quite proud of it (notice all of the chocolate crust from the pie all over her belly)! She got a bath immediately, and Sasha helped clean up the floor (look at the last picture)! :) We decided silverware is something we'll try when we have a lot of time, and many cleaning supplies on hand! :)

Cupcake

This, my friends, is what you call a cupcake. :) And for those of you who know me, you know that I just LOVE cake. We went to the grand opening of the new Kroger (which is huge, awesome, and not really something you can describe) and we were amazed. I was especially amazed by their bakery, particularly of course, the desserts. They had huge awesome pasteries and cakes and cupcakes... wow. My dessert stomach was going crazy. So my husband surprised me and bought me a "colossal cupcake" while I was in a different section of the store. And I thoroughly enjoyed it! Props to the new Kroger! :)

Elmo Loves You!

I've never been a huge fan of a large amount of television watching. That being said, Savannah has completely fallen in love with Elmo! She enjoys Sesame Street, and really loves to watch Elmo's World. At first, I was kind of skeptical. But she seemed so engrossed, and that really helped me accomplish a lot of work. Then, the more and more that I heard Elmo, the more I realized that he is really educational! I even learn things by listening to Elmo talk, haha. And he teaches good character traits, like sharing, helping, being kind, etc. So I decided maybe educational tv in moderate doses is appropriate.







At the end of each show, Elmo says, "Goodbye! Elmo loves you!" and Savannah blows him kisses. How can you say no to that?! :)

Update!

Savannah is still teething like crazy over here, as evidenced by the keys in her mouth. :) One of the teeth is through, the other is just below the surface, and the last two are big red swollen bumps right now... hopefully it'll all be over within a week!



Savannah's favorite thing to do now is to stand at our front door and look outside. :)



She also has a new, cool skill.... carrying anything around with her new teeth! :) This silly kid has figured out that she needs her hands free for crawling, so she takes everything "to-go" in her teeth! (Yes, thats a wrapped milky way bar below!)





Also worth mentioning, we found this awesome new paci clip at Target! It is the only one I have ever seen that was made to fit those crazy hospital pacis that Savannah is ever so attached to! Yaaay for someone finally inventing it!!! :) Now I don't have to chase pacis dropped in the grocery store, a restaurant, on the bathroom floor, etc. Call me a germaphobe, but thats just gross! :)



Savannah and Sasha are pretty much best pals. Sasha always goes and sits outside Savannah's door in the mornings and waits for her to wake up. As soon as she cries, Sasha comes and gets me. She is Savannah's personal communication assistant, apparently. They also crawl all over the house together, eating everything on the floor (haha, yep, both of them). Savannah also likes to feed Sasha off of her plate. Or, better yet, she likes to let Sasha take a bite off something and then put it back in her mouth. That can't be healthy. Even better than that, last week Savannah found out that Sasha has food which is kept on the floor. She tasted it out to make sure it was yummy. Luckily, she didn't like it very much and spit it back out quickly.




Thats our life this week! Hope yours is just as crazy. :)

Teething Pains...

If you get a chance, say a little prayer for Savannah today! She is getting her fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth teeth, and she is pretty miserable. I've been told that these are the worst four teeth to get (the ones on either side of the traditional first four) and its true for us. She has been running a significant fever and just doesn't feel like doing much of anything, including eating. I can see one of the teeth right below the gums, and the other three spots are just red and really swollen. Hopefully those teeth will bust through soon and our sweet girl will be back to her happy self. :)

Anybody Want an Oreo?! :)

Pool Party

Today was really hot, so Savannah had a pool party on the front porch! All went well until she figured out she could crawl out of the pool, sit on the outside and splash, and that apparently was way cooler than actually being IN the pool. :) Go figure!

Before and After

When we moved in our house, we had this eyesore of concrete in our backyard where there used to be some sort of shed. We debated about what to do with it, but we concentrated on redoing the inside of the house and saved this project until later. Well, later came this spring when we decided the ugly concrete had to go. Darren thought about tearing it out, but I was afraid his equipment would destroy the rest of the yard. Then, Darren's mom came up with the idea of making it into a flower box! Darren bricked the back of it to make it look nice (which he said he will NEVER do again!) and drilled holes in the bottom of the box for drainage. Then, we filled it with tons and tons of dirt, and then I planted the flowers. They have just recently started blooming really well, so I thought now was a good time to show the "after" part. In the front of the box are petunias. In the middle are azelas, but you can't see those very well from the picture. In the back, in the center, is a flowering jasmine climbing up a decorative pole, and on either side of that are some shasta daisies. I really love my flower box and think it looks way, way better than it did before! I'm very thankful for my creative family and all of Darren's hard work!

Beckner Booty

If you can't quite stand up, just put your butt into it. :) She played like this for about ten minutes before she fell over. :) What a silly kid!

Take Me To MiMi's House!

The other day, I tried to take a cute picture of Savannah and she pitched a fit about it. She had not really behaved very well all day to be honest. After that, we headed over to Mimi's and I warned them about our grouchy little girl. I told them she'd been fussy and clingy all day long and she probably wouldn't be very good. However, she proved me wrong (as kids always do) by being a smily, perky, sweet little girl the whole time we were there. Then she cried all the way home. Haha. Moral of the story? Take the kid to Mimi's house!

The Homeplace!

Darren's great grandmother took us Beckners out to the Homeplace this past Thursday evening. We had a great time and, as always, great food! :)

Cow Appreciation Day 2008

Well, we participated in Cow Appreciation Day 2008 today at Chickfila. If you dress like a cow, you get a free combo meal. :) If you think we look funny, you should've seen some of the people we saw! :) But we did think we had the cutest calf of them all...











Hope you have a great weekend and don't forget to Eat More Chicken! :)