11 Months

I can't believe it!  In less than a month this kid is going to be one!  Where has the time gone?!  In the past month Anders little personality has just blossomed.  He is just too adorable for words.  I swear, if he could talk he would be cracking jokes and playing pranks left and right.  He is just so happy and smiley all the time.  Dinnertime is probably my favorite time of day.  Anders sits in his booster at the table with us, and makes faces, and laughs, and we all just giggle.  Its the best.  Over the long weekend (Labor Day) we drove up to Minneapolis to see Patty and Eric.  We figured that since Anders didn't really start crawling until hanging around with Mason (thanks Mason for showing him how its done) he would probably do the same with Henry, and start walking over the weekend.  And, we were right.  After one day there watching Henry and seeing how it was done, he surprised us by taking a few steps on his own.  And then he did it again, and again.  Soo adorable.  He is doing a little more each day, though he still feels most confident when I am holding his hand. He really knows what he wants, and it is so funny to see him communicate this to us.  If I am sitting on the couch he will come over to me, grab my hand and pull me to wherever he wants to go.  He is a master "please" signer, and uses that to get what he wants as well. Most often he uses this skill to get frozen blueberries out of the freezer to snack on... they are his favorite.  He also uses the sign to make sure that we share whatever we are snacking on with him.  It really makes you think about what you are eating when you know you are going to have to share it with a baby!
Anders is still getting up about once each night.  But, he has slept through the night on multiple occasions, which is amazing.  I can't wait until it becomes a regular occurance.
Anders had one more tooth cut through on the bottom, so he officially has 7 teeth.  4 on top, and 3 on the bottom, and he knows how to use them!  Sometimes, if he is hungry, he will come over to me and bite my leg!  He only does it to me, which makes me feel special (not).
Anders really loves his books.  He will usually spend about 15 minutes every morning when he wakes up just flipping through the pages.  It makes him seem so grown up sitting there with a book it hand.  He still really enjoys his swim class.  We go every thursday, and I'm pretty sure its the highlight of his week.
Here are a few pics of the little man over the last month.

Here he is checking out some baby lions.  He couldn't get enough of them (or maybe he just liked the fence) they were so adorable! This was at the county fair.

Checking out the tractor pull.

And this was our FHE activity this past week while driving home from Minneapolis.  Liberty Jail.