10 Months Old

Ten-months-old already - crazy, fun and adorable as ever! As seen above, her new facial expression is the squishy face!  She is crawling, pulling herself up and into absolutely everything.  She hates to be contained or sit still - she only sits on her play mat for periods of 30 seconds to a minute.  The pot of our ficus tree is now in now covered in a trash bag, since the leaves and the dirt are a favorite snack.  Something we had to do with the boys, too.

I am very proud to say that "mama" or "momma" as the case may be, was her first word!  But that has its downside, because when I put her down for her nap and she cries, she says "Maa, maa" - breaks my heart!

Avery thinks that Gabe is the funniest person alive - all he has to do is look at her and she cracks up.  We joke that it is 'cause he's so funny-looking!  She loves to snuggle and she, Dylan and I have lots of family hugs.  We are currently in the 'attachment' phase and even though I feel a little bad when she doesn't want to go to other people, I secretly love it!  I know the time will come all too soon when she will want nothing to do with me and all she will want is her Daddy, so I am trying to soak this in.  Avery is into her hands and loves to clap and poke her fingers into them.  She pats my shoulder a lot and I say "Pat, pat, pat", which makes her laugh and do it more.  She is doing this less than she used to, but she gives me lots of "kisses", very aggressive kisses, where she will grab my face on each side and suck on it, usually on the chin.  It hurts a little, but it's worth it, as I am the only one who gets kissed like that!

She has brought more love and joy to our lives than we could have imagined - we thought our family was already pretty perfect, but now we know it was incomplete.  I thank the Lord every day for my beautiful little girl, my wonderful boys!  I am so very blessed!