And just like that we have an “almost one year old”! Dang that went fast! Hannah sure is acting like an almost one year old these days. From month-to-month her development keeps changing more and more rapidly, it seems. This girl is turning into quite the little spitfire!

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: heavy!
• Length: not sure!
• Clothing size: 12-18 month
• Shoe size: baby size 2
• Number of teeth: TWO!
• Eye color: bluish turquoise – it totally depends on the light and her surroundings
• Words: dada, Ben, mama, yeah, hello, banana
• Favorite foods: cheese, strawberries, smoothies, ham, bananas, bread, blueberries, watermelon
• Least favorite foods: jalepeno, sadly – egg 🙁

Hannah’s BIG personality comes out more and more as the days go on. She is a spitfire! Hannah knows just how to get what she wants {we’re going to have to work on this as she gets more into signing!} and is not afraid to ask for it. She’s becoming quite adept at communicating.

Lately, Hannah has been talking more, which is the sweetest thing. She’s been saying “Ben” but it sounds more like “Nen” and she started saying “mama” which, naturally, melts my heart. I swear she’s trying to say “water” – she gets out the “w” sound and looks at her water bottle. I’ll take that to the alternative, which is a bit more demanding. Yesterday when she was eating a banana she pointed to it and said “banana” – her communication seems to be taking off lately.

Just like her big brother, Hannah seems to be rather independent, especially for a baby. She’s cool just cruising around the house, finding her own thing to do. She’ll happily go to a toy basket and find something to do and entertain herself. I will say, though, just like her brother, she’s turning into a wrecking ball knocking things off the table, pulling books off the bookshelf, dumping out toy baskets. Oofta! That sure happened quickly.

Of course there are times throughout the day, usually when she’s hungry or tired, when she’d prefer to be carried around. Lately when she wants some love she’s come up and clung to my legs like a little baby koala bear, which is so stinking sweet. She has also started raising her arms up when she wants to be picked up.

When we’re out and about and she wants the attention of a stranger she’s not afraid to let them know she’s there. She will squak and make her presence known! Occasionally she will wave at people – it’s about 50/50 at this point, but she will clap on command. I love watching her clap her hands – she gets so excited.

New this month – Hannah is pulling herself up to stand! It’s SUCH a big milestone. She has had the lower body strength to stand up for quite a while and now put it all together and can push or pull herself up on things. She’s super sturdy and is able to push off and land on her bum when she’s ready to crawl around again.

I’m so excited for this milestone because it gets her closer to walking. I can’t wait to hold her little hands and help her take practice steps and watch her do some furniture cruising and be able to have a different perspective on the world.

The first day Hannah figured out how to stand up on her own she’d keep practicing standing, then plopping down and laughing hysterically at her new trick. She has the funniest little cackle when she’s just being silly, but her giggle is the sweetest sound in the world.

This is our last month before we can introduce cow’s milk to Hannah. This is going to be such a big change to start transitioning away from breastfeeding. I think both of us have enjoyed that journey tremendously and it will be hard for both of us to say goodbye to those sweet moments we have together every day.

We’ve recently started working on having Hannah put herself to bed. We’re not using any particular methodology or strategy – sometimes she’ll fall asleep nursing, other times she won’t. The times when I put her in her crib when she’s awake I stay in for moral support until she falls asleep. I think it’s our goal pretty soon to remove my presence for the most part. We’ll see how that goes…

Hannah is sleeping really well – the nights she puts herself to bed she typically stays asleep until morning, but when she falls asleep nursing she’ll usually wake up briefly within 30-45 minutes. Very occasionally at home she’ll wake up in the middle of the night. When we’re at the mountain house it’s much more common for her to wake up once in the night. Hannah is typically taking a short nap at some point in the day and then a long two to two-and-a-half hour nap at some point in the day. I’m working on getting her long nap to take place in the afternoon and have her take a short cat nap in the morning.

Hannah is the proud owner of her first two teeth! Her bottom front two teeth are mostly all the way up. She handled teething like a champ!

Hopefully having a couple of teeth will come in handy with eating; however, I don’t really think Hannah needs any support in that area. She is such a good eater and loves to feed herself. She will try anything I put in front of her; however, as she gets older, she’s really beginning to develop preferences.

Hannah typically has 3 meals a day plus at least one snack. These days she is very much into fruit. I have to hold out on giving her fruit until the end of her meal, otherwise she wouldn’t eat anything else. She really does like most things, though I’ve noticed recently she is starting to really develop preferences. Her preference is always for fruit! She’s got a sweet tooth, I think!

For the last couple months Hannah has really mastered using her water bottle. It’s been really fun to watch her drink water. I realize that seems like such a trivial thing, but it’s such an important life skill that takes a lot of practice. She loves water, too, which is just icing on the cake.

Lately Hannah has been so, so into her big brother. The other day we were having family story time and cuddles on the couch and Hannah launched over, grabbed Ben’s arm and gave him a big raspberry! It was so funny and adorable and perfectly Hannah. She sure has a big personality.

Jackson is another pal to Hannah. She LOVES our dog, Jackson! He’s not always so sure about her, mainly because she’s working on being gentle still.

We are going to thoroughly enjoy this last month with our baby girl before she’s not really a baby anymore. It has gone by so unbelievably fast and we’ve had such a wonderful year with sweet baby Hannah here in our family.

Ben is Eleven Months Old

In her tenth month, Hannah went through some major developmental milestones and has come out the other side officially as a mover! Now that she’s finally mostly healthy after a brutal cold/flu season she’s becoming an independent, on-the-go baby who is showing signs she is getting ready to turn into a toddler.

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: heavy!
• Length: not sure!
• Clothing size: 6-12 month or 12-18 month
• Number of teeth: 0, though I can see at least two on their way up
• Eye color: bluish turquoise – it totally depends on the light and her surroundings
• Words: dada
• Favorite foods: cheese, strawberries, smoothies, ham, bananas, bread
• Least favorite foods: jalepeno

Hannah had a rough bout of all of the viruses this cold and flu season and has a fresh runny nose right now. I noticed during the last two months how much that was affecting her sleep and her disposition and now I’m happy to report she’s back to her normal chipper self, even with the runny nose! It also seemed like her health was working against her interest or ability to hit some developmental milestones.

Within the first two days of finally not being sick, last week she figured out crawling and pulling herself up to stand and both of those days she slept through the night for the first time in a while. These little babes sure do have a lot going on in their little bodies.

Hannah has been mobile for quite a while, she just wasn’t formally crawling. Now that she has figured out she can crawl all over the house and get Ben’s toys or come climb all over Jackson she is enamored with life. This last week has been nuts chasing her around but it’s been SO fun. She’s having a blast with this newfound skill of hers.

Last week we transitioned Hannah to a big kid car seat. It can also be used for infants, so it’s really not a big deal, it’s just significantly more plush and comfy. I’m not sure if the timing of this happened to coincide with her feeling better or if she’s just that much happier in the new car seat but I saw a significant difference in her disposition in the car after the switch.

{These two in their big car seats!!!!}

Hannah is extremely loud! She has an opinion and she’s not afraid to share it – her squeals of excitement or the enthusiastic full body wiggles when she sees food she likes are a day brightener, and then there’s the times when I swear she’s going to make me go deaf by expressing her displeasure in something, usually getting a non-baby toy taken away from her or getting laid down on the changing table. Or any time in the car {before her new car seat}.

This girl has a very big personality – and she has to in order to keep herself in the spotlight with her big brother. That said, she is very calm and easy-going. Hannah is becoming more independent and has been enjoying exploring on the floor on her own lately.

We’ve had some big changes this last month relating to sleep and eating. Hannah is really starting to transition to getting more calories from solid food as opposed to breast milk. We are down to nursing only 3 or maybe 4 times a day now and she really is showing less interest in nursing to sleep.

Speaking of sleep – Hannah had been pretty under the weather for a solid two months or so and her sleep was significantly impacted as a result. Since feeling better, her brother has moved into his own room and she’s been sleeping so well again! Hurrah! Our next mission is to get her to put herself to sleep… please wish us luck!

There are a lot of things that Hannah loves to do. Here are a few of her favorite things:

• Eating!
• Taking her brothers toys
• Grabbing Jackson’s tail
• Exploring
• Reading books
• The song Skina marinka dink
• Bath time
• Being included
• When her big brother does anything even remotely funny

We are rounding the corner to this sweet baby’s first birthday in two short months. I’m so enjoying these days with Hannah Maxine. She has been the happiest, most content baby I’ve known. I adore her personality and her spunk. I can’t wait to see how she changes in her eleventh month.

Ben as a ten month old

What a big month for baby Hannah this has been! Hannah has hit so many fun developmental milestones during this last month. She loves playtime, especially if her brother or her dog shows an interest in her.

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: 20 pounds 9 ounces {84th percentile}
• Length: 27.5 inches {40th percentile}
• Clothing size: 6-12 month or 12-18 month
• Number of teeth: 0
• Eye color: bluish turquoise – they’re pretty striking. Her doctor said they’ll stay!
• Words: dada
• Favorite foods: mac & cheese!, banana, smoothies, cheese, broccoli!, carrots, raspberries!, pancakes… basically anything we give her….
• Least favorite foods: jalepeno

One of my favorite things that happened during the last month has been that Hannah has started to feed herself. Watching a baby learn how to feed herself is one of my favorite parts of parenting an infant.

Hannah loves to eat whatever we’re eating and I love to share with her. I can tell she’s really proud of herself too. She has been working on her fine motor skills with picking up little bits of food I put on the tray of her high chair. Her accuracy rate is pretty high for getting the food in her mouth, though holy cow, we have to deep clean the high chair almost daily right now!

In big body movements Hannah has made tremendous growth over the last month. She is rolling and scooting and pivoting all over the house – part of me thinks she’ll skip crawling and go right to walking. I feel like she can get to whatever she wants so she doesn’t really think about a more efficient movement? We’ll see!

Just last week she started pulling herself up to kneel, all by herself, and she’s started pushing herself up into a sit, all by herself. I love watching the day-to-day progressions she’s making. It’s remarkable how much strength she can gain in a day.

Over the last month or six weeks I have been saying Hannah had been at the age of frustration. She just couldn’t quite get to what she wanted or do what she wanted. I sort of think that’s over {at least for now!}. She seems more content and while she hasn’t figured out crawling she can get herself across a room just fine.

One of Hannah’s favorite activities is reading books. I feel like I’m constantly reading to her and if she’s ever upset all I need to do is pull out a book. She especially likes the touch & feel books that are more interactive for babies.

One of Hannah’s least favorite activities is being in her car seat. There are some days during the week where I feel like we’re constantly on-the-go and those are her least favorite days, understandably. I try to balance the car time with lots of floor playtime for Hannah whenever I can during those days.

{I can’t believe HOW BIG she is in her car seat! And obviously I buckle her in…}

We’re in a funky sleep pattern right now. The only predictable part of Hannah’s sleep is that it’s unpredictable. I’d say at least 6 out of 7 nights a week she stays asleep during the times I am asleep; however, it’s been common lately for her to wake up several times between when I put her down and when I go to sleep. I have a feeling all of the major development going on with her {plus the fact that she’s been sick for more than 5 weeks} is just messing with her sleep. Is cold and flu season over yet!?

Hannah is still nursing to sleep at night and for most naps that happen in her crib. Until recently I haven’t cared much to change that habit – we’ve both really enjoyed our run with nursing. Now that Hannah is older she is getting SO distracted while eating and it’s become really difficult to fall asleep at night while nursing. Not to mention it makes it hard impossible for anyone else to put her to sleep. So that’s on the docket for the nearish future to work on changing.

One of my favorite parts about nine month-old Hannah is how LOUD she is! Her brother has always been noisy and it seems like Hannah tries to go a little louder to keep up with him. She squeals and shrieks and screams in the best way. Her smiles are full body wiggles from her toes all the way up to her head. She’s just the sweetest.

A couple weeks ago Hannah and I started attending a music class together. She has a BLAST. Not only does she love the music, she loves seeing the big kids. It’s so fun to have a mama and Hannah activity we can do together. She also loves attending co-op with Ben – they do music at co-op once a month, too, and it’s a hit with Miss Hannah.

Some other fun facts about Hannah are: she can wave, she gets SO excited when she figures out it’s bath time, she can bang two blocks or drumsticks together, and she adores her dog!

I’m so excited to see what is up ahead in the next month for Hannah. We’ll see if she ever starts crawling or just jumps ahead to walking.

Ben as a nine month old

Miss Hannah is eight months old and full of joy, squeals and smiles. She is getting more animated and excited about everything by the day. It’s hard to keep up with her frequent changes!

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: not sure – heavy! 20-22 pounds??
• Length: not sure – getting tall!!
• Clothing size: mostly 6-12 months – inching towards 12-18 in certain brands
• Number of teeth: 0
• Eye color: still blue!
• Words: I’m pretty positive she’s saying “dada” and it is so dang cute!
• Favorite foods: BANANAS, cottage cheese, smoothies, hummus… anything!
• Least favorite foods: avocado

Over the last month or so Hannah has been working very hard on moving. She is doing barrel rolls like it’s her job, she loves scooting around the room and can do pivots on her back or tummy. No crawling yet – I thought she was closer than she actually is. She still needs to get up on all fours so I think she has a little ways to go before she starts crawling.

Hannah is making her opinions known and shares them loudly! Hannah is so noisy. She squeals with excitement and screams out of frustration. Sometimes to an untrained ear it’s probably hard to tell the difference.

Our sweet girl loves to be a part of the action. She loves attention and will most certainly let you know if you’re not giving her enough. She shrieks and squeals and makes all sorts of wild animal noises to communicate what she wants.

Lately Hannah has really become a dada’s girl. She has been saying “dada” or “dadadada” and gets super smiley and squealy when Alex comes near her. It is adorable.

Ben is Hannah’s first love, though. Anything and everything he does can get a giggle out of her. Ben loves to roar like a dinosaur to try to make Hannah laugh – he has a 99% success rate I think!

Oh my – eating is Hannah’s favorite pastime! For her first seven months I could say she would nurse all day and all night if I let her – now, she would eat solid food all day and all night if I let her. In the last month I’ve noticed a big shift from her milk consumption to solid foods. She has made a big change in her calories and the amount she is taking in from breastfeeding.

It’s really hard to narrow down Hannah’s favorite foods. The only thing I’ve given her that she doesn’t like is avocado, otherwise she’s loved it all. She can eat a tremendous amount of solid food, too. She has been known to down a pouch and a half in one sitting before {that’s a lot for a 7-month old!}.

I have started feeding Hannah the Once Upon a Farm pouches – in my limited research these seem to be the real deal and Hannah LOVES them. She quickly figured out how to eat straight from the pouch, as opposed to from a spoon – this is much faster and far less messy. Once recently, Hannah got frustrated with me spoon feeding her from a pouch and grabbed the pouch, put it in her mouth and fed herself. This girl knows what she wants!

Hannah has been playing very independently lately. She is very much in the stick-everything-in-her-mouth phase, so she loves teething toys. She also loves our activity cube, a toy we got when Ben was a little older than she was. This is our tried and true attention holder toy – it is so wonderful and Hannah is so into it.

Anything that Ben has is of tremendous interest to Hannah. She is so curious about everything her big brother does and has and this is a great source of frustration for them both.

Since she was about 10 weeks old, Hannah has been sleeping through the night. The last five weeks or so have been more hit-or-miss, I think with the changing environments since we’ve been back and forth to The Lodge a bit more. More often than not she is sleeping through the night – sometimes she just wakes herself up and, really, I probably go in there too soon out of fear that she’ll wake up her brother.

One of the biggest challenges of having two young kiddos is managing the logistics. Hannah’s naps have been so inconsistent. When given the opportunity, she’s a great napper, and when being carted around from here to there she finds the chance to take cat naps and then falls asleep a little earlier at night. These days she’ll either take two or three naps during the day, depending on what we’re up to and how mobile she is. She is such a trooper with sleep, though I do wish I could consistently allow her at least one long nap every day.

This sweet little girl continues to light up the room and our little house. We adore her so very much!

Ben at eight months old – they had so much in common!

Our sweet baby girl is rounding the corner and headed straight for age one. I know it’ll be here before we know it. Just like most months, this last one was a blur – especially blurry in fact.

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: not sure – 19 or 20 pounds maybe?
• Length: not sure
• Clothing size: mostly 6-12 months, though she is starting to outgrow a few things already!
• Number of teeth: 0
• Eye color: still blue!
• Words: we swear she’s working on saying “dada” – it’s the absolute sweetest Hannah is SO LOUD. She squeals and shrieks with excitement {or exhaustion} and loves to be part of the conversation. She’s a chatterbox!
• Favorite foods: bananas, applesauce, CHILI
• Least favorite foods: avocado

Hannah continues to bring our family so much joy – lately in the form of whole body smiles that include exasperated leg kicks, cackles, squeals and giant ear-to-ear grins on her face.

She loves playing and being included in whatever is going on. Alex likes to have her chase Ben around the house – everyone gets a good laugh, especially Hannah.

Over the last month Hannah has become more comfortable eating solid foods. With all of the craziness we’ve had going on I really haven’t made as much of a point in trying new foods with her as I should. Once things settled down I got a little more creative and offered her new tastes. She absolutely loves to eat!

One of my favorite recent memories was one of our first dinners at home as a family of four after our families left and after our au pair left. We had chili for dinner and Hannah devoured it! She loved eating the soupy part as well as very small chunks of meat and beans – her first experience with that consistency and also that much flavor. Chili is one of my favorite winter meals to make and eat and it brought so much enjoyment to be able to share it with both of my kids and have them love it.

Developmentally Hannah has been working on getting stronger and stronger with sitting up. She’s at the point where we can really plop her down anywhere and she will be okay for the most part.

Hannah is putting eeeverythingg in her mouth right now. Her favorite teething toys are these and these. She is a major pacifier lover, which at this point I love. She adores her lamb wubbanub pacifier.

As a new 7-month old, Hannah is just starting to be on-the-move! While she’s definitely not crawling yet, she is scooting and rolling and figuring out how to get where she wants to go. She has quite a bit of figuring out to do, still, before crawling comes, but she’s a mover, that’s for sure.

Hannah absolutely adores her brother. She loves getting attention from him and enjoys sitting and watching him be goofy. Her sweet squeals and wide open-mouth smiles light up the room and Ben gets the best show from her.

One major change for Hannah this last month was moving into her brother’s room – now dubbed the “kids room.” The transition has been so much smoother than I could have expected. Hannah is sleeping well and she and her brother rarely wake each other up. I think they both like to be nearby each other. I have a few things I found to spruce up the decor in here so stay tuned for an updated photo.

Thankfully Hannah has been a great sleeper and that continued to be the case during her transition to sleeping on her stomach. She typically sleeps through the night and is transitioning to a new self-led nap schedule. She’s been taking one very long nap during the day, usually in the morning, and then a shorter nap in the afternoon. Of course this all depends on the rhythm of the day – if we’re just hanging out at home she’ll take longer naps, while if we bounce around town during the day she’ll get a few cat naps in and be ready for bed a little earlier in the evening. She’s pretty darn flexible.

It’s going to be so much fun seeing what happens with Hannah in her eighth month now. I’m excited to see what she’s up to and what her favorite things are. Now that I’ll be home with Hannah 100% of the time I just absolutely can’t wait to experience the little things that happen during the day with her. We’re going to have a blast!

Ben at seven months old

Sweet Hannah Max has been with our family for half a year now and it feels like she’s always been here. Hannah continues to be an absolute delight. Her smile brightens up anyone who looks at her. I get so many compliments when I’m out with her about how happy she is.

Hannah’s stats:

• Weight: 17 pounds 15 ounces {80th percentile}
• Length: 26.1″ {60th percentile}
• Clothing size: 6-12 months
• Number of teeth: 0
• Eye color: still blue!

As a six-month old Hannah is mostly still sleeping through the night and takes about 3 naps per day. Usually two cat naps and a longer snooze. Her schedule is somewhat predictable and driven by a combination of the day and Hannah – for the most part she goes with the flow.

We’ve had a tremendous amount of change in the last month or so and Hannah has dealt with it okay. I’ve noticed that she has been rather opposed to spending the day, or really any amount of time, with a stranger or any new person. She had a rather lengthy adjustment period when Anna, our new au pair, arrived.

In the last month we started introducing solid foods to Hannah. It has been so much fun watching her get used to the idea of eating foods and seeing the look on her face when she tries something new. So far, we haven’t found anything she doesn’t like.

We knew Hannah was ready for solid foods a while ago when she’d start reaching out and grabbing the food on my plate and bringing it to her mouth. She’s been so curious about the concept of eating for quite some time.

I’ve had a very laid-back and stress-free approach to feeding Hannah. At this point my goal is merely to get her used to the idea of eating. A few foods we’ve tried with her include: bananas {her first food!}, avocado, sweet potato, cucumber, red pepper, pear, yogurt, cheese and oatmeal. Over the weekend we checked “peanuts” off the list. Fingers crossed for no allergies!

Just a few days ago we made the call to say that Hannah is officially sitting up! She loves being able to have a different outlook on her surroundings. I think she really enjoys watching her big brother play nearby, too.

Hannah is SO CHATTY! She’ll interrupt a conversation or dinner to tell us a story or just start talking out of nowhere. She loves being included in what’s going on. Once she has the words I have a feeling she’s going to figure out how to use them rather quickly! Right now she just sounds like a typical 6-month old baby: a pterodactyl!

Ben is still pretty much the only one who can get a laugh out of Hannah. It is really sweet. Usually Hannah cracks up at Ben being a goofball – sometimes Alex will involve Hannah in Ben’s evening rumpus and she loves it.

Another fun milestone for Hannah in the last month is that she’s been able to ride in the stroller seat and the shopping cart. I have really enjoyed this as a way to interact with her a little more.

Our sweet Hannah girl is all smiles these days. She is the happiest, most content baby I know.