pepper kelsey: 11 and 12 months!

So almost a month ago my cute little miss pepper turned a year old!! but we'll go back in time a little bit and talk about what she was doing at 11 and 12 months old.

she still....just...looks the same her whole life i feel like. we have loooooved this age. guys, one year olds are just kind of the best ever.

11 months:

12 months:

sleeping: she has been sleeping really good lately! goes to sleep around 8 and wakes up around 8:30 ish. so it's been pleasant. we had a breakthrough one night when i had fed her and changed her and she still just wanted to cry, so we let her. she finally fell asleep and since then she's been sleeping! woot woot!

eating: she is still breast fed and loves it. she used to eat solids really good and now she's been refusing lately. she usually loves table food, but lately i think she's been nursing and a little sick so ALLLLL she wants to do is nurse. good thing she's chunky.

milestones: so i guess the big one is that she is walking! she is my earliest walker and i knew she would be. she started taking steps on her own about right at 11 months and by the time she was 12 months she was full blown runnin around the house practically. i always love when they start to walk. she offically has 8 teeth. four on top, three on bottom and one molar. (lately i think the other molar is trying to come through.... she's been gruuuuumpy). she still doesn't talk a whole ton. mostly grunts to communicate. she an sign "more", "all done" and "please". Those are what she does the most often. She does say "tickle, tickle, tickle", too. It's hilarious. She'll come up to someones feet and start tickling them while repeating it over and over. she gives good kisses, too! we love watching her learn new things. She's my most aware child, and loves to mimic.

things to remember:

she is quite feisty. screams at others when she's mad (we are trying to curb that already....in fact she's doing it to me right now). she loves to play with her siblings and thinks they're hilarious. She also loves to be one on one with her mama or dad. whenever the other two are off doing something with grandparents or something she gets all hyper and happy. she loves toothbrushes, mostly i think it just feels good on her gums. we love her spunky personality and can't wait to see more of it!! fire and all!

stats from her 12 month appointment:

weight: 22.4 lbs    percentile: 84th

height: 30 in         percentile: 79th

pepper kelsey: 8, 9, and 10 months

i think i like this whole 3 month at a time update thing a little better. pepper is at the funnest age right now! yes...funnest. :) so let's get to it:

pepper at 8 months:

9 months:

9 month stats:

weight: 20.69 lbs    percentile: 83rd

height: 28.25 in      percentile: 66th

10 months:

sleeping: little turd has definitely digressed in sleep. i won't lie though, a little part of me loves it when i go in her room and she's sitting up in the corner of her bed crying with her eyes closed, waiting for me to pick her up. i always just feel so lucky to have her. but she does wake about 4 times a night these days....it's a bit exhausting. but.. i've been here before. grant was exactly like this until i quit nursing so.... i will be patient. 

eating: she loooooves her food. even if she's full, if you're eating...she better be eating. or she yells at you. she hates peas. loves green beans and most everything else we have tried. but she just can't do the peas thing. gags about it. i feel ya, girl. she still nurses and i plan to until she's a year old. she's a pretty aggressive nurser though, i won't lie. i chalk it up to her love of food. my kind of gal.

milestones: the only reason i hate doing these in 3 month periods is because i forget when she started doing each milestone! i'm pretty positive after i wrote her 7 month post she started crawling. she skipped the army crawl all together and went straight to crawling. she is my best mimicker of all my kids. she sees someone do something and she copies. she has started to pull herself up on couches and walking along them. she's also learned some sign language with ease. she can sign "all done/finished", "more", and "please". all three are the cutest things i've ever seen. she's definitely a talker. babbles all the time. even when i tell her to say "please" in sign language she has times where she copies my inflection in my voice as she signs it. she loves to clap, copy our facial expressions, and nod and shake her head when we do. she truly is such a joy right now! i love this age. also as you can see, she has pushed through her top 4 teeth. making it a total of 6 teeth! i won't lie, i already miss that little gummy smile of hers. 

things i want to remember:

she loves to go "ooo" (as pictured in the last picture above)

she makes the cutest funniest noises when trying to talk. hard to explain in writing, but i hope i don't ever forget them. they're so sweet. 

she loves to play with her lips and babble and make noise that way, too.

she sits on her bum and turns in circles on the floor... like a dog chasing it's tail. makes me laugh every time.

she's easy to make laugh but is also quite feisty. not terribly easy to calm down unless you nurse her.

everyone says she looks like a spitting image of norman. it's hard for me to see, but she does look like a little boy if i don't have her in girly clothes. 

speaking of norman....she's a HUGE daddy's girl. what the heck?? can even ONE of my kids be a mama's girl/boy? (actually grant is kind of a mama's boy right now and i'm loving it).

every time norman comes home from work she yells and crawls as fast as she can to get to him, then bounces on her bum til he picks her up.

she is a little animal lover. there's a cat in our neighborhood that likes to come visit us and she yells and screeches in excitement every time she sees it. she does the same with dogs. she also likes to try and bark when she hears dogs barking. she's just the best, ok? it's all just so cute. we love her so much and i can't believe in less than 2 months she will a year old!!! guess it's time for another one! ;)

jokes...i'm joking. really, though. not thinking about it over here. yet.  

pepper kelsey: 5, 6, and 7 months!

well! summer got a little crazy around here and i haven't written about my baby girl in 3 months!! so i'm doing one big catch-up post. luckily i DID take pictures on her month birthdays each time. however, i feel like pepper is going to be one of those kids that looks the same their whole lives. like grant. i can look at a video of grant 2 years ago and the only way i can tell that he's younger is cause he doesn't talk as well. pepper doesn't change a whole ton! just has gotten some more hair and some more chub! 

5 months:

6 months:

7 months:

sleep: sleep has been back and forth the last few months. some days she'll sleep through the night, other nights she's up 5 times, other nights its only once. she's all over the place. lately i feel like it has gotten a bit better though. so we are getting some decent sleep over here. she's a TERRIBLE napper though. she takes a really good solid nap in the morning and then after that it's cat naps all the day long until bed time. so...i don't know what that's all about. 

eating: still nursing and we introduced solid foods around 6 months. i'm kind of super lazy about starting solids. it's just so much easier to nurse. haha. but she looooooves food. she's my only baby that's been crazy interested in what everyone else is eating and wanting some of it. she did go on a little 24 hour nursing strike that had me in a bit of a panic. she has nursed like a champ since day one and then one evening a couple weeks ago she refused. just SCREAMED every time i tried to nurse her. it was so odd because she's kind of a comfort nurser, too. problem was i think i startled her when she had bit me a few times while nursing that day. ugh. i felt terrible. eventually after almost exactly 24 hours i got her to start nursing again and she's been fine ever since. we just realized she's a little more sensitive apparently....haha. got her feelings hurt and went on strike! a nice little peak into my future. :)

milestones: i'm pretty sure she was rolling over last time i blogged, but she's a pro at it now and has started to kind of scoot around. she turns in circles and gets around on her tummy by pushing back. she hasn't started to army crawl yet but i'm sure it's not far. she still hasn't rolled from back to belly. she gets close and rolls to her side but hasn't gone all the way, yet. did i mention she can say mama???? it was mid to early july i think? She started saying mama. she had been kind of saying dada already, not sure if she knew what it meant but she does say mama and dada consistently now and i feel like she knows what she's saying. she mostly says mama when she wants to nurse so....that's my cue. she also sits up like a champ. she started a month ago ish and wasn't as steady but now is good at catching her balance. she also cut her two bottom teeth a while ago...she's had them for at least a month. i feel like a lot of her milestones happen around 6 months!

these were her stats at her 6 month old appt:

 weight: 18.6 lbs                              percentile: 85th

 length: 26 inches                             percentile: 46th

head circumference: 17.5 inches      percentile: 94th

things i want to remember:

she has some weird sleeping habits! she loves to cover her face with a blanket, a burp cloth, nursing cover...anything. She will be fussing and trying to fall asleep and she will mess with her blanket or whatever is in reach, pull it over her face, and is instantly out (don't worry, we move it off her face once she falls asleep so she can breath... freaks me out). 

she is sooooo wiggly. wants to jump on your lap while you're holding her all the time.

she is kind of needy. she's very content but loves to be held. always wants to be included.

she loves food as i have mentioned....my kind of gal.

she has the sweetest smile and doesn't really have stranger danger, yet. she loves everyone. 

she does little crunches when she's on her back and either wants up or is trying to see something. she's gonna have killer abs.