Clara Jane at 11 months old

Oh wow, where to start.  In only one more month Clara will celebrate her first birthday.  Unbelievable.  In case you haven't already seen this post, you should click through to our adoption blog and start following it (I know we currently have more followers on our HoN blog but we will be posting on our adoption blog again too). 

So, she finally walks!!  It actually just happened on her 11-month birthday.  She's been testing the waters for probably a month now with steps here and there, but on Thursday Clara decided to go for it and started toddling across entire rooms.  Hooray for Clara!  It is possibly the cutest thing ever; especially when she toddles her way toward me and her smile widens with each step until she collapses against my legs or into my arms giggling at her own audacity and daring.  As a parent, I don't know how I could be any prouder. 

She still hasn't spoken any words, but she definitely understands "wave", "clap", "kiss", and "dance".  She seems to be kind of confused about "blow kisses" and mostly just blows raspberries on her forearm when I tell her to "blow kisses".  We are working on identifying her nose and mouth.

Her favorite game would be obnoxious if it wasn't so hilarious - she likes to throw her pacifiers out of her crib (we always give her two of them in case she loses one) then stands at the edge of her crib and hollers for us to come give them back to her.  As soon as we open the door to her room, she squeals in equal parts delight and terror and throws herself onto the mattress with her face in her blanket.  Here is a video of it: 

Clara loves to go outside still for walks or to play in the grass in the backyard, but she continues to stuff leaves, sticks, grass, flowers, dirt, rocks - anything she can get her grubby little hands on - into her maw and mash it until she either gags or I can swipe it out.  She also loves our nightly dance parties where both her parents take turns dancing with her around the living room - it makes her laugh and laugh and laugh.  We go to the park most days so that she can swing for a little while and I even put her  on the short slide and stand at the bottom so that when she leans toward me she slides down. 

She is 29" tall and she weighs 19 lbs 9 oz.  Which means she takes up about 2/3 of the length of her crib mattress and looks huge in there and it is freaking me and Paul out.  She is in 12-18 month sizes by height, but her pants and shorts hang low and would slip right off if it wasn't for her diapered booty holding them up because she is a skinny little thing.

Clara LOVES her blankie. Like, seriously loves that thing. She has a back-up zebra-striped blanket that is the same type of material, but she doesn't obsess over it like she does over the white, pink, and green polka dot blankie. She also loves her binkies, but I try to only let her have them when she is in her crib for naps. And she doesn't actually suck on her binky - she gnaws on it and chews the plastic - so I don't worry too much yet about having to separate her from her binky.

The very best part about Clara's 11-month birthday was that her birthmom, Kayli, came by for dinner and dessert.  Kayli and a friend are relocating from Texas to the Northwest for summer employment so they came to see us on their marathon roadtrip.  It was SO much fun to see her and we stayed up gabbing really late.  Clara even woke up around l0:45 even though she had already been asleep for a couple of hours because she must have sensed she was missing out on the fun and wanted one last kiss and squeeze from her Kayli.

Kayli read Clara some of her favorite books, we talked about Kayli's new job, relocating, our adoption plans, the kitchen remodel, her family and our families, and a bunch of other things.  We just can't express enough how much we love Kayli and it was so much fun for her to finally get to see our home and the Bay Area.

I kind of can't believe I only have one more of these monthly posts to do for our little miss.  We love our 11-month old girl so much!

P.S. - In case anyone was wondering, the pictures in front of the rose bushes were taken at the San Jose Rose Gardens.  I had driven past it a few times and finally decided to take Clara there one afternoon and check it out.