Halloween and 13 Months

How is it already November?  It seems like October just FLEW by in the blink of an eye.  We have had big changes in the Mauldin house this last month.  Lexi started walking and went from a couple steps to moving ALL OVER the house in just a few days time.  I knew when she took steps a couple of months ago and stopped trying that when she did start walking she would master it quickly.  And that is exactly what she did!  Life with a fully mobile baby has totally changed our life at home.  I thought I'd finally gotten into a routine and now all I do is chase Lexi everywhere. 

We have also had to keep our doggie door shut because she is obsessed with crawling through it to go play outside.  We spend a lot of time walking around the yard while she chases the dogs with their frisbee trying to coerce them into playing with her.  She is babbling all the time and has a special voice she uses for any dogs, that resembles a scream.  She also says "DAH!" for dog (and basically every animal that walks on all fours) while pointing to them. 

She is learning to mimic and loves to copy us when we play and use different objects.  Though she only knows a couple words, she is understanding many commands and short sentences.  When I say "Let's eat breakfast" she goes to her highchair and reaches up to be put inside.  If I say "No, No" she'll shake her head back and forth.  Lexi likes to pretend to walk around with objects or her hand up next to her ear whenever we answer the phone and pretends she's talking too.  She makes a vroom sound when she pushes cars or trucks around on the floor and she loves to figure out how things work.  She'll sit and concentrate SO hard trying to put pieces of something together or lids on containers.  It's so cute watching the little wheels turning in her brain.  She loves to bounce up and down and dance to music, especially if she has something in her hand that will make a rattling sound. 

She's drinking milk now and eats EVERYTHING.  She will try almost everything which is nice for us, because we can normally just feed her whatever we are eating for dinner.  She especially likes olives, avocado and macaroni and cheese and still loves salmon.

This year for Halloween, since she is obsessed with dogs, we dressed her up as a pink poodle.  She looked so cute and for a couple weeks before we practiced wearing her headpiece around and holding up her pumpkin to get "treats".  She looked so teeny and adorable toddling up to the neighbors holding out her little pumpkin pail.  It was a fun age to have her first "trick-or-treating" experience.