The Road to Walking

Gabby started to get really good at just standing; holding on to something or not. She had this skill basically mastered by 8 months. She's not really taking any steps yet; and not really trying.

Then she started to be able to take steps with assistance. 

This next video is the first night she started taking steps by herself. She was really motivated by trying to steal Brooklynn's popcorn. 

Here's a video of her actually taking a step by herself. (the morning after the previous one.)

Shortly after this she started taking 1-3 steps consistently.

Here she is practicing with her walker.

Well...it's official. Yesterday Gabby practiced ALL DAY, really hard. Every time I looked at her she was very focused, taking more and more steps. It's almost like she woke up yesterday morning and said, "OK, I'm doing this TODAY."

Here she is. (December 13)

Gabby's First Word?

Brooke's Voice

I know pretty soon Brooklynn will be speaking in real words and it will be so fun. But for now I really like listening to her little "Jibber Jabber". I taped her just talking because I never want to forget the sound of her tiny voice.

Official Big Girl

Brooklynn is finally 20 pounds and that means we finally got to face her forwards in her carseat. She was SO excited. I still look back and see her just smiling away. I love it. I can even unbuckle her from in the front seat now if it's raining so less time to get wet. She also loves climbing out of it all by herself. What a big girl!

Brooklynn's Road to Walking

Brooklynn is officially walking. She has a little trouble standing up from the ground still, but she does really well! Here is a look at the journey of learning to walk.

First she learned how to stand by holding onto her crib

And onto Sadie's toy stage that she loves

Then she learned how to "cruise"

She finally took some steps on her own here, but still usually preferred to "cruise"

Getting a little more sure of herself

We had to resort to bribing her with M&Ms and her cup or bottle

Finally we moved the couches away from each other because she loves to use them for support, this helped her be able to practice more

Sometimes we call Brooklynn "Frankenstein" (this isn't really a development in the walking, just a funny video of how she grunts and holds her arms like Frankenstein)

And here she is walking! She likes to see how long she can go before she falls. Then she'll crawl over to the nearest chair, couch or Mommy to help herself back up and try again. We do this all day.

Brooke Finally Wants a Bottle

Finally, now that Brooklynn is just about a year old...NOW she takes a bottle.

Brooklynn Turns One

Brooklynn is ONE! I can hardly believe it. She had so much fun, starting well before the party. She loved helping me decorate her cupcakes:

We also had birthday breakfast and she got to open one present from us. We decided to make a new tradition of opening it in her actual "birthday suit" just for fun. (Actually, she was just so messy from breakfast we had to strip her down, and didn't put her clothes on yet.) We'll see how much she likes that new "tradition" in years to come. I can just see her now rolling her eyes at me saying, "MOM, I don't really have to strip down to my underwear to open my present, do I?" ha ha. Of course we won't make her, we just had quite the laugh thinking about it.

We finally got her dressed and we went with her "Birthday Girl" shirt, of course! Bought just for the occasion. (I got it on sale.) I think she liked it, she kept hugging her shirt. It was cute. It was somewhat a frivolous buy, when else can she wear that?

Then Brooklynn took her birthday nap. She really cooperated nicely. It was hard to decide when to have the party, would she sleep during the whole thing? She slept from about 10 until 12:30 and the party started at 1. What a good girl. During her nap Josh and I finished decorating for the party. Josh did a lot of the balloon blowing. I bought a helium tank and you have to blow up all the balloons 1-2 hours ahead of time or else they'll deflate. I frosted the cupcakes, set up the food, etc. We were very busy.

Then all of Brooke's friends started to arrive! So much fun! At first she was still a little groggy from her nap and hid with me in the kitchen, but then she warmed up a little and was having a ball. I think it's partly because she discovered her presents and started ripping into them before we told her she was allowed to.

Here is Brooklynn's very first cupcake! She LOVED it!

We had an adult game of "Timed Shape-O Ball". We laid the pieces out in order 1-10, just so it would be the same for everyone. I won't brag by saying who won with 12 seconds...but let's just say, "I've still got it..." I was excited that everyone got into it so much. I had a slight feeling that they'd roll their eyes and be like, "Do we have to?" But it was real competitive. It was fun.

Brooke and Sadie kept real busy playing. We usually have a lot of Brooke's toys put away under her crib and have one basket out at a time, but for her birthday we had ALL of them out. And by the end of the day they were all on the floor. Good times.

Here is Brooklynn and all of her guests: (Minus 1...sorry Katie! I forgot to take one of you two before you left.)

Brooklynn's possible future boyfriends...quite the selection!

Brooklynn loved opening her presents. Thanks, everyone! She got all kinds of fun stuff!

Our only casualty...Brooklynn ate the ping pong paddle.

Some more of our decorations:

Here is cupcake #2...I didn't think the pink ones showed up in the pictures enough to do my messy Brooklynn justice. So we went with chocolate.

We also got to celebrate Brooklynn's birthday over Christmas in Michigan. Here are the pics from that. We are glad we got to celebrate with you all!