eleven months of eden

eden is eleven months old today.  i am in washington with her for brittany's wedding (and there will be several posts about this trip in the coming days weeks).  i wanted to get these photos with her lying down and smiling, like all the other monthly photos have been.  but eden is not about lying still for anything these days so...that did not go so well.  ill chalk this one up to taking photos of real life, not the posed life that i try to portray sometimes. people are always asking me if she smiles for every photo.

but mooooom, i dont want to hold still for even one second

your protest is duly noted dear

today she will get all dolled up in her wedding best and hang out with her birthday buddy carter, whose mother julie has been a life long friend.  we actually had our babies on the same day.  yep.  hard to believe since carter weighs about seven pounds more than eden and looks like a two year old.  i had eden first, on the east coast, and then julie got the memo that if we wanted the impossible to happen, she needed to get with it.  she went into labor and had carter later on the same day.  (good thing we had that three hour time difference buffer or it would not have happened).  

she is eating...everything.  she has eaten chicken, turkey, beef, and bacon so now and its official; she is, to her daddy's pure joy, a meat eater.  she loves it so much, we have to cut her off.  she also loves carbonated water, she thinks its really funny and crinkles her nose up when she drinks it.  she has eaten quiche, rice pilaf with bacon, taco meat, homemade spaghetti sauce, quoina salad, kale muffins, amaranth and pumpkin, zucchini muffins, black bean and sweet potato hash, oatmeal, peaches, yogurt.  we let her lick a blackberry and ginger popsicle from king of pop and she was our best friend forever. oh, and she adores watermelon. basically it goes like this...she will eat whatever veggie i give her, until i add meat into the arena.  then its meat only and she ignores her veggies.  then, as soon as i add in watermelon, forget it.  that is all she wants.  so i have to layer her meals if i want her to stay interested.  she would swim in watermelon if she could.

she has a few little words.  she calls me mamamama and she says 'beeeee a beeeee' for please a good portion of the time.  its pretty much really precious.  especially when she stands in her crib after a nap and sings out 'beeee a beeeee'. she can also sign please and all done, but has her own funny versions of them.  she mostly just places her hand on her chest, like she is going to pledge allegiance.  its really cute.  sometimes she signs please in her sleep when i scoop her up before i go to bed.  i die. 

bed time is my favorite because i always sit with her for a moment before i put her down and just sing to her and enjoy the still.  she curls up on me and puts her curly head of hair up on my neck and does this baby koala thing around me. its just about the closest to thing to a perfect moment.  and then i lay her down on her back, put her bunny in her arm, and cover her up while she looks up at me wide eyed.  oh how i love those moments.

she has also taken her first few steps.  some wobbly ones toward mignon and some more defined ones toward me.  she never stops moving or making noise.  i love this about her. now she will take five or six in succession and be tickled pink and so proud of herself.  she knows its a big deal.  

she loves water.  bath, pool, hose, she does not have a preference, as long as water is involved.  the other day she was on my parents porch, naked as the day she was born, just enjoying the sunshine.  she peed all over the place and then i proceeded to hose off the porch.  as soon as the water came out she was all about it and played in the stream of water for a long time.  i love that she loves water and being outside.  it must be cause her mama was raised near the water.  

its hard to believe that her next age update will be one year.  i have no idea how that happened. 

happy 11 months eden!