11 Months

Our Sweet Eloise is 11 months old.  I'm trying not to get too sentimental but it's difficult as I think back on what I was doing a year ago.  By this time last year I had left my job and was in full preparation mode!  I remember the excitement and anxiety of her pending arrival.  I can honestly say I had no idea (even in my happiest expectations) what a beautiful, smart and sweet baby would enter our lives.  She has brought us oodles of joy each of these last 330-ish days.

Eloise is now standing!  She pulls herself up to a stand, and is getting braver and braver about letting go.  She is loving this new power and independence.  She is crawling/scooting around so fast now, it's hard to keep up.  She continues to add to her vocabulary-- our latest favorite word is "Amen" when she joins us in closing our prayers.  The other day she even folded her arms for prayer when we asked her to!  She is eager to mimic our actions and words (a great incentive to living a good life), and has lately been working hard on the word "Love."  She'll say "Luh, Luh, Luh" over and over with her tongue practically rolling out of her mouth.  Her favorite animal this month is the fish, and any word that sounds like "fish" is immediately followed by her puckered fish lips and sound.  We told her, "Uncle Phil is coming to visit!" and she immediately started her fish face.  "Phil" and "fish" do sound an awful lot alike...

Here are some of our favorite pictures from her 11 month photo shoot (by the way, this is another one of the dresses I wore as a baby):