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"

New Talents

Since I started watching Jackson Daniella has become more curious about her surroundings. She is exploring every area of the apartment she can.

One of her new favorite things to play with is the DVD shelf. She discovered this the first day Jackson came and I was a little worried that she would fall from taking DVDs off the shelf, so I kept helped her sit down a few times so she wouldn't slip. I think this partially encouraged her to try harder to stand and get the DVDs off the shelf. She pulled about 6 DVDs off and dropped them on the floor the first day. Then a couple days ago she was able to take a DVD off, look at it and then place it back on the shelf between the other DVDs. It was on it's side, but still back where it belonged. I was very impressed.

Daniella has a passion for making music. She loves the piano, keyboard and organ and even enjoys the guitar on occasion. She is fascinated by the new CD player in her room and is desperate to learn how it works. Recently, she has found a few new sounds she can make with her own body. She blows raspberries on my belly. She takes one finger and tries to wiggle it between her lips while vocalizing. When I read her "From Head to Toe" and talk to her about the gorilla and how it pounds it's chest, she will say "Ahhh" while I pat her chest for her (Similar to Tarzan). Then yesterday, while I was trying to feed Daniella I lightly patted Jackson's chest to calm him down. Daniella saw me do this, stopped eating, looked at Jackson and said "Ahhhhh" as if to tell him what he was supposed to be doing.

Yesterday Daniella discovered that she can use almost anything as a walker (the kitchen chair, her bumbo chair, her incrediblock, etc.). I was impressed because she first uses the item to stand without pushing on it at all and then lowers her torso and gets her back into the push to make it go. I'll add pictures after I get them.

Today Daniella was able to stand by herself for about 7 seconds. She even stooped down to pick up a toy and stood up for a couple seconds all without support. She seems to do all of this without really thinking about it and it I don't think she realizes what she is capable of yet.