Baby Penny: 11 months

Penny has started scrinching up her nose when she smiles. I particularly love this, because that's what I do. See, she is my child after all! She smiles a lot more these days. It shows off her four new teeth on top.

Her new teeth allow her to eat all sorts of goodies. Her favorite food right now is watermelon. She also eats a lot of pears, bread, blueberries, and egg yolks. She's moved past Cheerios and rice a little bit, since each piece is so tiny. She likes bigger pieces. When her mouth is full, her cheeks stick out, which makes her look like she did a few months ago. She uses her sippy cup like a pro. When she's done drinking, she smacks her lips or spits a raspberry, and then the sippy cup flies to the floor.

Penny, after just polishing off a huge chunk of watermelon:

Penny's favorite toys include the keyboard in the living room, the piano, a brass bell, and really, anything new or interesting. She's finally gotten to where she will play on her own with toys and be interested in them for more than 2 minutes at a time. Wahoo! Yesterday she was fascinated with an applesauce lid, making it pop and make cricket noises.

She really likes her walker. She sits in it and plays with the toys, and she also started pushing it along, beaming at her newfound mobility. No walking or standing yet, but she's started crawling a lot. When we moved here, she might crawl to something 4 feet away from her, but beyond that she just sat still. Now she'll take off, usually into the laundry room where the dog's food is. This morning she pushed open the sliding door's screen and stepped outside into the yard.

Penny loving her walker:

Her favorite place to get into is the cupboard under the TV, which houses the VCR and Daniel's playstation. We taped the doors shut with packing tape, and she deftly pulled it off and opened the doors again. Hmmm.... so much for babyproofing.

Penny talks a lot more. She doesn't say words yet, but her repertoire of sounds is expanding. She likes to read her books to herself, which means she opens a book, slaps the pages, and yells, "Dat!" This is also similar to how she sings hymns at church. Open book, slap pages, and yell, "Dat!" She isn't terribly reverent at church, and this week, she stood on the bench and growled at everyone behind us. I'm not sure anyone was actually listening to the speakers. :)

We put her hair in piggy tails the other day. It was extremely cute. We put her hair up in one little ponytail with a big flower stuck in it. Kevin said it looked ridiculous, like a bird of paradise sitting on top of her head. Oh well, birds of paradise are beautiful, if a bit ridiculous.

The cute piggy tails:

Yesterday was Kevin's first Father's Day. "Penny" and I got him a couple folding chairs so we can sit on something besides the dirt or a curb when we go to the outdoor concerts, movies in the park, 4th of July fireworks, and other events we have lined up for this summer. I also made him-- and my dad-- blueberry waffles for breakfast.