11 months old!

It's hard to believe - our sweet baby is almost a toddler! Erin is 11 months old today. Here are some of her new tricks:

- Pulling up on everything and letting go for just a second before falling down
- Cruising for just a couple of steps
- Whining until she gets what she wants, which is usually for us to read her a book (we're working on that one)
- Eating Cheerios and peas like a champ - her 2 favorite foods! She will eat other things too, especially cookies and rice...she really only avoids fruit for some reason
- Drinking out of the sippy cup...we are going to try formula in it this week so we can make the switch to cow's milk next month
- Turning on her mobile music in the crib
- "Power crawling" if she really wants to move!
- Sleeping 10-11 hours at night (ahhhhh)
- Playing "kissing monster"...if we crawl towards her making kissing noises, she will squeal and hightail it away from us
- Hide and seek (she hides and giggles until we find her)
- Climbing the stairs and jumping on the bed - baby gates are up!
- Biting - we are definitely working on that one...nobody likes a biter!
- Talking up a storm...she is really working on her words!
- She is also infatuated with the camera, so it's really hard to get good pictures of her...plus, I'm not the best photographer in the world!

She is feeling better after a stomach bug and runny nose last week. We are glad to have our sweet girl back! She is such a good girl and is super busy these days!

Nap troubles again

Erin thinks now that she doesn't need to take a morning nap...which is fine, except she will only sleep for 30 minutes in the afternoon! We try morning naps without any luck, and I don't really know why she is waking up so soon in the afternoon. The sleep book says to start putting her to bed earlier at night if this happens, which we did last night and worked great - we started her bath at 6:30 and she slept from 7:15-6:30! Tonight, I had her in the crib around 7:00, but she just now fell asleep at 7:30. I don't think going any earlier than that is going to help, since she isn't ready to go to sleep any earlier.

So, if anyone has any ideas of how to make the naps better, please let us know! She is super grumpy all afternoon because she's tired, but then gets a second wind around 5:00, which lasts through bath time. Does this look like a girl who is ready to go to bed?

Our teams

Erin is ready for the Wolfpack to keep up its winning streak (of one game):



The outfit came with a matching turtleneck, but it was too warm for that. She might just use this for Halloween and be a cheerleader!

And she and Daddy were pretty upset about the Panthers' loss on Sunday, but are hopeful for next week.

Girls' Week!

Bob had to go to San Jose for work this week (Tuesday-Friday), so we have had girls' week around here. It's been nice, but of course we miss him and are excited to have him coming back tonight around midnight...but I doubt anybody will wait up for him! Grandma A. came up to babysit yesterday while I worked my evening shift, and Erin got to show her all her fun toys. Today, we went on a walk and went to get things for Christmas dresses that Grandma is going to make for the girls.

Mommy lets Erin jump on the bed when Daddy is gone:

Dog and Car Sorta Falling Apart!

Poor Bella started rubbing at her right eye yesterday afternoon, so I took her to the vet this morning. She's got a little infection and scratch, so ($135 later) we are now armed with antibiotic eye drops, steroid eye ointment, and oral antibiotics for us to give her 4 times a day for 2 weeks. Oh boy! I'm sure she will love the eye stuff - at least pills are no problem.

Oh, of course I put Erin on the scale at the vet, and she weighed just under 20 pounds! (19 lbs. 13 oz.)

Leaving the vet this morning, the Taurus wouldn't start. It did this to us about a year or so ago, and Bob replaced a switch under the steering wheel. He suspects that the same switch isn't working since it won't make any noises to start. That's odd, since the switch is only about a year old. Let me remind you that he and Chris spent 2 weekends recently working on it and were able to replace 2 parts to get rid of the rattling sound (unrelated to this problem). I wonder if someone is trying to send us a message to get a new car! The only thing is, we were going to get rid of the truck and keep the Taurus, which feels wrong since the truck has never given us an ounce of problems in 4 years!

Bob, here is a little picture for you...just food for thought:

Update:
My best guess as to the car trouble is that oil is leaking from somewhere near the oil filter, and is dripping onto the solenoid on the starter. When we are attempting to start the car, the switch in the solenoid can not make an electrical connection because of the oil (it would act as an insulator), and thus the starter motor would never run. Wait long enough, and gravity fixes the problem, and the car starts up a few hours later. I've confirmed that it's not the ignition switch, starter motor, or relay.