13 months!

I'm a few days late with a month 13 update on Owen but you won't be disappointed! He is taking steps on his own now!!! I was on the phone Monday and looked down at him and I watched him take his first step to me! I was thrilled. He has only shown me his new trick - he just gets silly and starts to laugh when I try to make him walk on his own for other people (or the camera) to see. Yesterday evening he took 5 steps in a row and then dissolved into giggles as I scooped him up and shrieked with excitement. I did get a few steps with the video camera but it's kind of hard to video and help him walk so the bit isn't that great. Hopefully I can get a good video in the next couple of days to post. The picture at the top of the page is one of many that I took while trying to get a "Fall" photo at the local nursery. Let's just say that Owen was majorly impressed with the number of trucks that drove by during our little photo shoot. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the road (a mere 20 feet away) to look at the camera and I didn't get a single picture of him smiling because he kept saying, "vvvvvvm vvvvvvm." I'm going to try to take him back and maybe I can get at least one with a smile and eyes on the camera. We'll see... trucks are quite an exciting thing to watch!

Milestones at 13 months:

• eating everything that we eat (except leftovers more than once - he actually knows it by sight and won't eat it if he's had it twice in a row just previously) and loves his fruit; he actually ate a few bites of the tips of roasted asparagus the other night (it was on my plate so of course it was a must have)
• he will, on request, say the sounds for the tiger, horse, cow, cat, dog, car/truck/motorcycle, and pig and will repeat the sounds for lots of other animals/things
• he will point to my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears but is only truly pointing to nose and eyes on request
• he will sometimes make "sweet eyes"
• puts the circle into the circle space in a shape sorter (all by himself!)
• likes to take lids off of containers and tries to put them back (sometimes succeeding, just depends on how difficult they are to snap)
• loves to put things in a cup or small container, take it out, put it back, ...
• puts one cup inside of another
• tries to stack one block on top of another
• says, "ba?" (which means, "what's that?") and points to EVERYTHING!!!! sometimes I don't even have enough time to answer between "ba?"s
• he LOVES LOVES LOVES to dance - we took him to Bach lunch last week and he had to sit down to dance because his legs were getting so tired from standing and dancing!
• babbles all of the time and has recently begun babbling in phrases
• makes tons of facial expressions - he especially likes to make a very serious face with pursed lips and then he bursts out in giggles if I mimic him or show I think he's funny

I can't think of any more things that really stand out but I'm sure there are lots. The biggest accomplishment as of late is definitely the walking. It's so exciting to see him moving like a "big boy." Here are a few pictures I thought were cute:

our resident monkey (aka, "what happens when daddy let's me climb wherever I want to")