McKinley at 10 Months

A little bit about our cute girl at 10 months!

- Wearing mostly 12-18 month clothes since we ran out of warm ones in smaller sizes. The 12-18 monthers fit her fine though! She also both loves and hates shoes and sock - hates to wear them, loves to chew on them. We've never driven anywhere without at least one sock and shoe being pulled off by the time we arrive. We're going up to a size 4 diaper with the next purchase.
- Eating everything! She nurses four times a day and gets solids for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is usually a jar of baby food and baby cereal mixed with breastmilk. Lunch is usually a banana, strawberry pieces, cheese squares and snacks (baby munchies, ritz crackers, whatever carb is handy!), although sometimes Madison insists that she eats macaroni and cheese with her :) (that's all Madison wants nowadays!). Dinner is whatever we're eating in bite-size pieces followed by baby stuff if I think she didn't eat the real stuff well enough. She's also doing really well drinking water out of the sippy cups. I don't even think we're going to do a bottle with her (other than the random ones she does now when I'm not around to nurse). We'll just go straight to milk in a cup in two months.
- Sleeping pretty good, although she's been cutting down her morning nap the last week or so. She used to down from 8:30 to at least 10 but lately she's been waking up around 9:30. A bad omen for Mom! That's usually the time I spend doing projects with Madison :( Her afternoon nap is still a good two hours starting sometime between 1-2 depending on how busy we are! She goes to bed at 7:30 and sleeps until about 6:30 with no waking in between. However, unlike Madison, she really does not like being snuggled or sung to before going to sleep. She just fights until you lay her down in bed!
- She has eight teeth now and I can see her "fangs" coming down on both sides.
- Finally crawling!! She started last Friday and is still figuring it out and testing herself, but she already loves the freedom! I love it too! She spends forever in the toy corner moving from toy to toy and playing with whatever she wants instead of me just plopping her down in the middle of the living room and giving her a few things of my choosing. She's also discovered some new places, like the inside of her closet. This definitely means no more playing on my bed while I get ready and lots more sweeping/vacuuming but those are sacrifices I'm willing to make!
- Now that she finally gets to choose her toys, her favorite is definitely the ball popper my Mom got Madison for her first birthday! It's the gift that keeps on giving :) She also loves anything electronic, including phones, remotes, the camera and the iPad, which she often fights with her sister over. Dad doesn't stand a chance :)
- She's sadly past the constant raspberries and smothering kisses :( Her latest thing is waving. She LOVES to wave, usually with both hands. She has a very dainty wave too - she doesn't open and close her hand or wave her arm, she just rotates her hand left and right at the wrist. It's very cute! She waves every time we see anyone or go anywhere, even if we're just walking from one room to another! She makes a "ha" sound while she waves, which I think is her version of hi. She also loves to play the No Hands game where I stand her in front of me on the floor and let go for a couple seconds so she can work on standing. She's recently gotten into the dropping game too. She drops something on the floor and stares at it while saying uh (her version of uh-oh) until we pick it up.
- Getting better with her Mommy attachment. We have at least three friends that she has gone to and stayed with for at least a few minutes in the last couple weeks (thanks Kelsie, Brandi and Jen for being willing to deal with her crying while we work on this)! One time happened during Relief Society when I had to conduct the closing hymn. I was nervous, but I just handed her to Jen and hoped for the best and she was great :)
- Loves bathtime! She squeals and splashes and chases all her toys around. She especially loves her Minnie Mouse bath book.
- Her favorite place to play is her big sister's bed. We go in there when I'm putting away laundry or before nap/quiet time when we read together. The two of them play together with all Madison's baby dolls and animals. They also love to play hide-and-seek under the covers and tickle each other.
- We have lots of Maddie and Daddy monsters around here so she's learned to roar like a monster, although it comes out more like a growl. It's super cute. She loves to get involved when Maddie and Daddy are wrestling around.

Once again, no specific 10 month pictures, just a bunch of random ones from the past month!

Playing with Jen. We had Jen and Ryan over one night to grill and seriously just told Jen to hold her no matter what so she'd get over her Mommy issues! She was all smiles after a couple minutes!

Silly Jen :)

Playing at the park

Daddy's version of the No Hands game - I like to keep it on the ground, but she loves playing it with Daddy!

Sliding - she was squealing excitedly, I promise!

 Cutest picture ever!

She loves to sit in front of the mirror in Madison's room

Sleepy baby

Messy baby going through all the toys in the toy corner

Constantly eating

Or trying to eat (plastic chips are tough to swallow evidently!)

Hello cute girl!

We've eliminated the bink for everything except sleeping and an occasional car ride if I get desperate so she found a replacement while playing - a toy mushroom from Madison's kitchen set :)

Jumping and playing with balloons, two favorite activities around here!

Of course Madison had to take some pictures too so this is her shot. She commented after that it's really hard to get McKinley to hold still - welcome to my life :)

Trail of terror! I guess she doesn't always keep it in the toy corner, although she definitely had help!

 Madison around the same age. Evidently making messes runs in the family!

On the move

Sharing cookies with Dad, a family tradition

 See?

A little bit of crawling. Of course, as soon as I turned the camera off, she laughed and came the rest of the way to me! Stinker

This is our crawling outtake - Madison was seriously rolling around on the floor next to me, she was laughing so hard. I fear McKinley has a lifetime of this to look forward to :)