11 Months! (Baby Eli)

Eli is 11 months old already!  I say this every month but I just can't believe how the time flies.  But at the same time it's going by at a perfect rate.  I love our silly little boy!  Some things he's up to:

• He loves to close doors, and he's figured out how to open them too.  Doors, cupboards, drawers, anything with knobs!
• Speaking of doors, he loves to go outside, and since Daddy takes him out the front door sometimes, most days if not all he plays over by the front door and slaps it because he knows it can open and that outside is on the other side.  Today I saw him putting his fingers in the crack to try to open it.  He's so smart!
• Also on that note, he likes to slap the windows too.  He plays a lot by the back door which is a sliding glass door (and slaps it) and constantly rolls over on his changing table to slap the window that is right by it.  Sometimes Daddy takes him to the window that faces the street to watch cars go by and he slaps it too.  He likes to go outside and wants to be out there!
• He loves to go over to the piano and reach up and press down on a few of the notes he can reach with one or each hand.  It especially attracts his attention when I'm playing.  It's so cute and so fun!  I love seeing him reach up and play and hear the "dink dink dink" of his piano playing.
• He's learning the art of fake crying!  We're trying to teach him that he doesn't need to cry when he wants something...
• Randomly this month he started giggling like crazy when we would put him in his crib at night along with our wrapping in a blanket and goodnight song rituals.  He immediately starts to roll over so he can reach to the side of the crib to stand up!  It also makes him laugh when we pin him down on his back.  He thinks it's funny!  What a silly kid!  We loved when he would smile when we started singing our goodnight song, but now he just tries to get up like it's a game!
• Literally the first thing he does when we put him down for bed or for a nap is get up.  He instantly rolls over, grabs the side of the crib and stands up.
• He LOVES the bath!  Still!  He is the most talkative when the bath is turned on.  He gets so excited!  He squeals and babbles and wants to run/crawl/whatever quickly over to the tub and play in it.
• We've been going to a swim class still.  He's doing awesome and loves it.  He goes under water like a champ!
• He's also a champ at eating solids!  He eats a variety of foods, even some to chew.  He's doing great!  He even had (a lot of) Thanksgiving dinner!  That was fun.
• And he's gotten pretty good at picking things up and put them in his mouth to eat.  He still drops some on occasion, but he's improved a lot!  We started him with puff snacks, but he's even eating little squares of cheese now!
• He finally caught on to blowing bubbles in swim class (and does it! Sometimes I can see actual bubbles).
• I think because of that he's discovered new noises he can make with his mouth, namely a motorboat sound (or farting sound).  He does that one a lot.  He did it for like a week straight. 
• He also makes a blowing noise by blowing his bottom lip out....  It's cute.
• And he makes a sort of popping noise with his lips.  That one he does a lot recently.  It's sort of his "go-to" noise.
• His also "go-to" noise is a clicking sound, with his tongue on the top of the inside of his mouth.  Kind of like a "tisk-tisk" noise?
• He says "momomom" a lot lately!!  He started doing it again and does it frequently.  We think he actually means "Mom" when he says it...  It just seems like he says it when he wants my attention.  Some of the time at least!
• He really likes playing peek-a-boo.  It makes him giggle a ton!  It's super cute that he plays with us...  A couple times he has walked out from behind something and I'll react and he'll go back behind it (the couch, door frame, wall) and then peek back around with a smile when I react again...  So fun!
• We have a couple normal sized plastic pumpkins and Eli loves to play with them.  He crawls over to one and pushes it across the floor and crawls after it and does it again.
• He loves to be thrown in the air by Daddy!  Well, by Mommy too but Mommy doesn't do it very often because I'm not very strong and he's getting heavy!  Eli will smile and giggle and laugh in the air when Daddy throws him up!  It's so so so cute!
• The other day I sneezed next to Eli and he laughed so hard!  So I proceeded to do a series of fake sneezes, all of which he thought was hysterical and laughed so hard at!  So funny!
• He likes to play the chase game.  It's cute how he'll be walking along the coffee table and sometimes when we're behind him he'll look back at us to see if we're there or coming and I'll say "I'm gonna get you!" and he'll squeal and run away, and look back, and squeal while he runs down the table, etc.
• He has been walking along ALL of our walls.  He can pretty much walk all the way around our living room (and down the hall if we let him!).
• Tables don't stop him because he has learned how to duck. 
• We bought a walker/activity toy thing, which he did NOT want to walk with the first time we showed it to him (he lifted his legs up like a sitting position while Adam held him in place... so funny!).  But a week or two later he was going to it on his own and walking with it by himself!  It was so cute!!  He would smile and giggle because he was so proud of himself and he was so happy.  And he did it all himself, I only helped him steer.
• We also had been working with him this month on walking while holding only one hand of ours.  He started doing really well!
• And we even finally got him to stand unassisted!
• But the BIG NEWS is that HE STARTED WALKING!!!  He took his first steady step last week and since then he has gotten the hang of it and has been walking around everywhere!  He's still learning and nervous sometimes, but he's doing so awesome and is pretty brave!
• He has CUTE little cheeks and I just want to kiss them all day!
• I love love love hearing the pitter patter of his feet when he walks on hard surfaces!!!!
• He still fits into 6 month clothes.  But we have some 12 month that he also wears.
• He's getting the hang of brushing teeth!  When I take him to brush his teeth he opens his mouth for me and even doesn't bite down on the toothbrush long enough for me to do a quick soft scrape of all his gums and tongue.
• When he wakes up from a nap we find him standing in his crib (sometimes crying, so sad!) and when I walk over to him he wraps his arms around me!  He gives us hugs a lot, it's so sweet!
• He's still sleeping through the night.  It's great.  And he's having two naps a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  They seem to be getting shorter maybe...  But he definitely needs those two naps still.
• His new trick is pointing!  He points at Mommy and at Daddy and at lights...  Sometimes he'll point and then wave.  It's so cute!
• He also makes this really cute cheesy face.  He lifts his chin and squints his eyes and shows his teeth.  We love it!
• Another new trick is getting down from the couch!  He somehow knows how to go backwards, feet first and on his tummy, to get down.  It's awesome.  He's awesome!

Eli is growing up so fast!  I'm loving every new milestone and trick and thing that makes him laugh and happy...  It's so fun watching him learn and explore and try to figure things out and see what he's interested in.  He's growing up and we love him to pieces!!!