The Pearly Gates: Hadley at Eleven Months

Hadley is now eleven months old! My mind is officially blown. In one measly month, we will be celebrating her one year birthday. I cannot believe it!
In this last month, we have been blessed with Hadley learning how to put herself to sleep. After months of anguish of not knowing if we were handling her sleeping habits correctly, she suddenly decided that she could put herself to sleep in her crib and even has a *gasp* awesome nap routine! She takes two naps per day (unless her first nap is later in the morning, then she'll just have one) and they average between 1-2 hours. I can't believe it! We sleep so much better now and everyone in this house is happier.
Besides learning how to sleep in her crib, Hadley has also done the following:

• Hadley can "read" her board books, and will sit for long periods of time flipping through the books and making quiet comments about them, usually in the form of squeaks and squeals.
• She can walk when holding only one of our hands. I don't think she realizes how close she is to walking on her own. It doesn't seem to be a priority for her, and that is just fine with us!
• She is starting to eat a variety of food. She doesn't actively seek out grown-up food, but will eat it if we help her.
• An amendment to the above statement. She doesn't actively seek human food, but will actively seek cat food. I have caught her several times dumping out Louie's bowl and picking out a piece to put in her mouth. Gross! We finally moved Louie's food and water bowl to higher ground and hopefully this will keep her out of it. Silly girl!
• Along with cat food, she also loves eating toilet paper. She'll pull handfuls off the roll and shove it in her mouth before we can get to her. We're seriously going to have to take the roll off and keep it somewhere high. She is so funny!
• She is still a cautious little girl and can take a little while to warm up to people. I always have to remind people that it's not personal, she does love them, she's just wary and doesn't leap into people's arms. I'm still surprised that Levi's daughter isn't a total social butterfly, but I watching her study people and decide if and when to go to them. I love that little girl!

I still can't believe that we'll be celebrating her first birthday soon. Laurie and her kids are coming up and we have reserved a room at the BSU bowling alley (the same place we had Levi's 30th birthday party.) I'm so excited and I can't wait to see her eat her cake! Every day with this little girl is a blessing and I look forward to the day when I can explain to her how hard we tried getting her here and how much we love her. She is the best!