I'm thankful for cousins!

We had so much fun visiting with Daniella's cousins. She really enjoyed playing with them this visit and she even followed the oldest around and walked to her spontaneously (before that she had only walked to Mom and Dad).

Daniella loved that her cousin would read to her.

She also loved playing picnic with the three year old.

This is one of my favorite videos from the trip. You can see the two cousins who are closest in age play during dinner.

Walking

Ever since Daniella took her first step in September, I have noticed that many people have different definitions for when a child "starts walking". Is it when they take their first step, first three steps in a row, repeatedly take a few steps, when they take off spontaneously or when they walk more often than they crawl? Right now, Daniella is in the spontaneously take a few steps up to about 5 feet or so away. Dani has improved her walking skills since this video was taken, but at least you are now able to see her walk.

Pigtails

I'm amazed Dani's hair is already long enough for full pigtails.

New Food Creations

Since Daniella loves to feed herself, we have started to feed her small finger foods. Cheerios are a natural favorite and peas were the only soft vegetable I could think of for her to pick up and gum since she still has no teeth. Trent decided to be creative and make her dinner into little sandwiches. She enjoyed her Cheerio pea creations. If you have any ideas of other quick finger foods, please comment and let me know.

ASL

I wanted to get a video of Daniella eating Cheerios since I think it is very cute how she has learned to gum them. I was pleasantly surprised that she also wanted to sign for the camera as well. She still confuses "more" and "all done", but she is getting better.

Happy Halloween!

Daniella helped pick out her first pumpkin. She dressed up as a China doll in an outfit Grandma Lepinski bought her from Houston's China town. We didn't have any shoes or socks that matched so she stood barefoot on a blanket for pictures. She is somewhat scared of touching the grass with her feet, so she didn't try to walk far.

Trent marked the pattern on the pumpkin and it started to cry.

Daniella was not impressed with the pumpkin "guts".

She much preferred playing with the large spoon instead.

The top was not so scary after the "guts" were taken off . . .

. . . it even looked quite tasty.

Jack was happy to be complete. Daniella also was able to try on a lion costume given to us by my old supervisor. It was a size 18 month costume, so I was a little surprised it fit, but she made a cute lion. I almost didn't dress her up in the costume because I've been telling her how only male lions have mane, but she doesn't really know the difference between male and female yet and it was just fun to see her all dressed up. I analyze things way too much.

It was adorable watching our little lion crawl around the apartment . . . "Roar"