11 Months Old!

It's totally cliche to say, but I cannot believe how fast these months have flown. I can't believe our little man is almost a year old. And it's also totally cliche, but I honestly love this little baby more and more every single day. I look at him and just think how did you get so beautiful/smart/funny/cute/clever/wonderful? I can't imagine what we've done to be so lucky to have this little monster in our lives. Some big moments for Mason this month:

He took his first steps! He hasn't taken off yet, but has walked several times and loves it.

He crawled up the stairs and now that's ALL he wants to do. If we leave him alone for even a few seconds, you can bet we'll find him on the first or second step trying to make his escape upstairs. His method of going down is a little less graceful.

He has started to wave and say bye-bye. He says "uh-oh" and will whisper when we do. He's also started to repeat sounds that we make, and says mama and dada in context on a regular basis now.

He tried lots of new foods! Strawberries, peanut butter, hummus, yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, cous cous, black beans, eggs. I think that's all. He loves it all. The child is an eating machine!

He dances to any music and laughs and laughs when he likes a song that's on. We listen to Pandora a lot and he likes to carry my phone around while it's playing and just dance all around the house.

I haven't weighed him lately, but I can just say that he is BIG.  Here's a comparison of him in his old carseat today, he didn't even fill up half of it when we brought him home in it!

We celebrated by making him homemade cinnamon applesauce, and Dad brought him home this cardboard roll thing as a gift. We are cheap. =)  But he loved it, of course.

Bye~bye

Mason has been starting to say several words over the last few weeks, and yesterday he started to wave and say "bah bah". It is so cute to watch him wave to Dad as he leaves for work. And still cute when he's waving and saying it from his crib when he should be going to sleep.
He also says mama, dada, sometimes nana, and he'll put his arms in the air and say "a da", like "ta da!". And I swear he said cat a couple days ago when we were reading, but Austin doesn't believe me. :)
And I realized I didn't take any pictures today except this one of the pot pie we had for dinner. I'm a terrible mother. And yes that is a pumpkin cut out of it, per Austin's request.

Walker

Mason had a big day today!

First, he climbed up the entire flight of stairs all by himself this morning. Of course I spotted him so he didn't tumble to his doom, but he was cruising up the steps like it was no problem! Just a couple of days ago he was terrified of the stairs and wouldn't go near them, now he sprints toward them every chance he gets. We need a gate.

Then he ate strawberries for the first time and LOVED them of course. I also gave him cucumbers and hummus which he chomped down. I don't think we give him anything that he doesn't like. He loves spicy food too. He was going nuts over the Massaman Curry we had tonight that was SUPER spicy.

And then this evening, he took his first steps!!!  He has been standing on his own for several minutes at a time for the last couple of weeks, and has been cruising the furniture and walls for about a month. Most of the time we use little snacks to bribe him to stand for longer or try to take a step. I was giving him bites of strawberry with whipped cream (real healthy, I know, especially for a kid with dairy issues) and he kept taking a step and then sitting down. But then all of a sudden he just hauled off and walked from the ottoman to the couch where I was sitting. We got super excited of course and freaked out, and it kind of scared him. He didn't really see what the big deal was. He was more excited about being able to crawl up the stairs. =)  Needless to say, our weekend will be spent baby proofing.

Mason's New Tricks

Mason does this hilarious little head shake thing lately. Sometimes he does it when we ask a question like he's shaking his head no. But he also does it when we sing or whistle or dance, like he's dancing along. Or sometimes he just does it until he looks kind of dizzy and topples over.





He has also learned to do pat-a-cake. We'll sing it without doing the motions and he'll clap his hands. I didn't get it on video, but he'll also do "mark it with a B" pointing his little finger at the palm of his hand. It's so sweet and he looks so delighted with himself when he does it!