Warning: This Post is Long (Seriously. I'm Not Kidding.)

Hailey is growing an awesome mullet. We keep hoping the hair in front will start to grow, without any luck. Her hair in back is getting thicker and longer, but the front really, really needs to start catching up!

Hailey is growing and learning so many new things, so fast (and I know it's only going to get faster, and more fun), and I haven't written any of her latest down anywhere. So, at 11 months, this is Hailey.

Hailey loves animals, specifically, dogs. She loves them. Hailey will often spot a dog before I do and begin "woof"ing and squealing. Yes, she "woof"s. She also "moo"s for the cow. We're working on the cat, but it sounds a lot like the cow.

She has associated "nana" with food. If I get out food, or put her in her highchair she immediately starts saying "nana" repeatedly. "Nana" comes from banana, which she loves. Speaking of food, we are totally done and out of the baby food stage. We've moved onto bigger and better things. She pretty much eats whatever we're eating for lunch and dinner. Occasionally she'll have something else. Hailey will eat anything. Seriously. Including orange juice and pickles, which surprised me. I thought she'd at least make a face, but she loved them both. We are also starting to move off of bottles (hurray!). She now has one in the morning and one before bed. Otherwise she gets milk in a sippy cup at meals (which she downs). Speaking of her sippy cup, she will actually hand me her cup after she takes a drink, instead of throwing it on the ground. Happy day. It still ends up on the ground plenty, but she hands it to me more times than she discards it.

Just the other day she began signing "more". Although... I think it was a fluke, because I don't think she really knows what the word "more" means yet. I reinforced it though, and now she will sign it if I say "more". On her own though, Hailey typically waves and kicks her feet to gesture that she wants more. Our neighbor gave us a new (to us) highchair that she was trying to get rid of. Up to that point, we were still using her bumbo. Hailey can now get out of her bumbo. I knew she was done eating when she took off her bib and crawled out of her seat. The highchair is a very appreciated blessing. :)

Hailey waves at people all the time. At the store, sitting outside, at church... anywhere we are and people are, she waves. In fact, the other Sunday we felt like Hailey was in a parade. While sitting in Sunday School Hailey would wave to one side of the room, then turn and wave to the other side of the room. Back and forth she went. We were cracking up. She will wave on command. If you ask her to say hi, she will wave. Sometimes it takes a minute or two, often times she's a little too late, but she will do it.

She babbles, all, the, time. She makes so much noise when we are at the store! I feel like everyone knows exactly where we are at all times because she is squealing and talking up a storm. Of course, it's all nonsense and cute and way better than screaming and crying. I love listening to her talk about who knows what. I just hope other people in the store are as amused as I am, because there's really no stopping it.

She knows where her toes and her ear is. She hardly ever performs on command, especially when we're trying to get her to show off. If she's in the right mood, she will grab the right body part.

Speaking of ears, Hailey loves cell phones. She will pick up a cell phone, put it to her ear (often it actually ends up behind her head) and makes a cute little noise that almost sounds like hi (the same noise she makes when waving). She also loves it when I play the ringtones on my phone for her. She will often hand me my phone and start bobbing her head, indicating that she wants me to play the music.

It's so fun that she will now hand me objects. She loves to pick out the books that we read and will hand them to me. If she is holding something and I hold out my hand asking for it, she will give it to me. She still uses a pacifier for sleeping (but that's the only time she gets it). When I go in her room to get her after she wakes up, she will either spit out her pacifier, or take it out and hand it to me.

She has discovered how fun it is to close the door. She will crawl into her room and close the door. I swear, is she going on 1 year or 13? With the door closed all sort of mischief tends to happen, like pulling out all of her diapers and opening them up. I usually get there before she's made too big of a mess.

Her favorite place to hang out (besides everywhere she's not supposed to be), is looking out the front window. It's just the perfect height for her to look out and see what's going on. She loves to watch her dad come and go from school, and checks multiple times a day for dogs. Anytime she hears a dog barking outside she perks up, "woof"s and heads to the window to see if she can spot one.

Hailey gives out the cutest hugs. I will ask for a hug and she will lay her head down on my shoulder, and sometimes even pats my back. I love that!

She points at everything. Her pointer finger is constantly at work. It's fun to see her develop more dexterity with her hands. Not only does she point with her pointer finger, but she's found her nostrils. She doesn't pick her nose, she just likes to stick her finger up there, because she just discovered it, and it's fun. Awesome...

She is also still a daredevil. No fear of going off the couch, or anything, head first. We're working on teaching her to turn around and go down backwards. For now though, she dives off the couch and rolls off the love sacs head first. It's funny to watch her cringe for the impact.

Hailey has teeth! I never thought they would come. Her two bottom teeth started to cut through at 10 1/2 months. Right now they're really cute, because they just barely poke through. You can catch a glimpse of them when she smiles big or laughs. I was shocked to find teeth in there, because she hadn't thrown any sort of fit at all. She doesn't seem to be bothered by them. Hopefully it stays that way and the others are just as easy.

Hailey has 0 interest in walking at this point. She zips around the furniture, but once she gets to the end, she plops down and crawls. She can stand pretty well. Most of the time she doesn't fall, she just sits down. Whatever. She'll walk on her own time table.

Lately Hailey has been waking up sometime between 3 and 4 am. She doesn't complain, she just plays in her crib. Kyle and I wake up to hearing her thuds and squeals and babbles. We just leave her alone and try to fall back to sleep. Hopefully that stops soon.

That pretty much sums up Hailey. Can you believe we're going to be celebrating a birthday in 2 1/2 weeks!? I'm so excited!

If you actually made it to the end of this post... you are either awesome, or you are awesome and you are Hailey's Grandma.