From Baby to Toddler

It's official. Our little Hannah is starting to toddle around the house. On several occasions over the last week, she's taken anywhere from one little step to three or four little steps. Today she decided to try to walk about four feet by herself - and succeeded! She loves to walk around the house while holding onto our hands and gets a good laugh out of falling down, which is a good thing, because there's probably going to be a lot of that going on in the next couple of months! :)

Hannah's language development is also coming along, although it's mostly in her ability to understand language rather than to communicating language. There are a few words she does say. Right now her favorite word is "Bapa," but she also says "Bup," which in Hannah language means "book." She loves to look at "bups," although it's almost impossible to actually READ them to her, because she's mostly interested in turning the pages! I think she's also starting to learn the sign for "milk," because I mentioned something about milk the other day and she started signing it. She understands the names of objects, as we can ask her where a specific toy or object is and she'll either point to it or get it. One of her newest developments is showing us where her head and nose are when we ask her. Now we just have to work on the rest of the body parts! It's definitely a ton of fun to watch how she learns and masters each task. Watching her development has also helped me understand just how much Christ had to humble Himself to become man. He also would have had to learn these things, as Hannah does. Truly amazing!

My parents were down last weekend and my wonderful husband and dad took the glass doors out of the shower and replaced our leaky drain plug in the bathtub, so Hannah can now take baths in the big bathtub! She absolutely loves it, especially the new bath toys with which mama spoiled her! I've also been trying to be better at remembering to brush her teeth every night (I know, I should've started doing that A LONG time ago, but I usually don't remember until after she goes to bed - oops!). Anyway, I bought her a new toothbrush and some Gum and Tooth Cleanser. She thinks brushing her teeth is just the funniest thing ever! I'll have to get a video of it sometime for you.

Last weekend we also turned her around in the car. She loves facing forward, because she can look out the windows and watch Mommy drive the car. She has started babbling a lot, too, and talks my ear off in the car, which I think is so cute. We'll see how I feel about that when she can actually talk! :)

Hannah is also a big social butterfly! She makes friends wherever we go, especially with other little kids and babies. She gets so excited when we see other kids and starts squealing and waving to them. It's so cute to watch!

We've also discovered the joy of a webcam! It's much better than having her talk to people on the phone, because she usually gets distracted by the phone and doesn't talk. With the webcam, however, she gets really excited to see someone and is more interactive. She even got to have a lunch date with her twin cousins in Northern CA, and was also able to talk to her Grandma in Oregon! We were laughing today, because James was watching a Mark Driscoll sermon online. Hannah walked up to the computer, stood in front of it, and got really excited and started talking and pointing to Mark. She thought it was someone on the webcam! :) She'd love to chat with any of you, whenever you have time. Just let us know and we'll schedule it. :) We're looking forward to seeing Papa and Grandma next month in person (we're working on how to say, "Papa."). :)