Eleven Months!

Ava is becoming even more of a little social butterfly. She is so vocal and friendly. She waves at everyone in the store, at church, or anywhere else we may be. If you ever sit behind us in sacrament get ready to be entertained by Ava. She has said her first WORDs! I don’t know which was actually first but within the past couple weeks she has started saying some things. It is so cute! She says Banana (nana), NighNight (Ni Ni), Amen (men), Doggy (da), Dada, Mama, Wassat, and what does an owl say (ooh). She is a huge copy cat and tries everything we do. It is so cute. She now blows kisses, and puts her had to her mouth so she sounds like an Indian. She understands so much when I talk to her, such as when I say, “No ava, don’t put that in your mouth”. She is still a mama’s girl but loves her daddy so much and gets so excited when he walks through the door or she sees a picture of him or hears him on the phone.
She is finally crawling normally, and it is so cute! She is much faster at the army crawl still though and does not like to crawl normally on the hard kitchen floor. She also wants to climb on everything now! She climbs all the way up the stairs by herself, and we are in the process of teaching her how to climb down them NOT head first. She likes to see where she is going though, so it is taking a while. She pulls herself up to EVERYTHING and cruises along. She loves me to hold her hands and walk. She moves easily from crawling to sitting up and is good at going from standing to falling in a “safe” way. Ha. She HATES getting her diaper changed. I have to make sure she is totally interested in something before I lay her down to change it, or else she just rolls and tries to crawl away.
She still struggles at bedtime. Her bedtime is usually 10:30 to 11, but hey I guess that means I get to sleep in so it is ok I guess. She usually wakes up around 9 or 9:30. If she eats really well (solids) during the day she will sleep through the night, but if she is being a picky eater that day she will wake up once because she is hungry. She loves mashed potatoes, fruit of any kind (except applesauce), cheerios, puffs, bananas ( I know they are fruit but they deserve a special mention), and anything that mom and dad are eating she wants to try at least. She dislikes bread, rice, vegetables (we get them down but it is more of a struggle than with the fruits), baby cereal, and pasta. She is eating a LOT better than last month though which is good. I think she is getting a little more baby fat on her cute little body!
She loves water. She loves seeing rivers, lakes, sprinklers, swimming pools, water coming out of sinks, and taking baths. She loves touching it and splashing around in it. We have taken her to the Spanish Fork reservoir a couple times and it is pretty cold but she still loved it!
She also loves dogs, and any animals really. Especially dogs though. She will pant like them and lick with her tongue to pretend to be one. She gets really excited when she sees a dog. If Jared and I were dog people we would totally get her a dog for her birthday. Too bad.
She still loves books. A book is pretty much the only thing that will get her to sit on my lap and be entertained for any amount of time at church. She loves looking at the pictures and really loves the books that she gets to flip open and see what is behind the flap.