Chandler Renee - 11 months

11 months. 11 MONTHS. ELEVEN. Are you kidding me?! Seriously, she's 11 months today. This past month has been a blast with her. It was like all of the sudden she decided to do a bazillion new "tricks." She hasn't perfected them yet, but she's working on them. She's started trying to dance. Any time she hears music she will bend her little knees or shake her little bum. Seriously, so cute. We have a dance party every morning. She's also working on clapping. Her right hand does better than her left hand, so it's not perfect yet either. But if you say, "Yayyyyyyy," you better believe she'll be hitting her little hands together. She continues to pretend like everything is a cell phone and you must say hello if she puts something to her ear. She does a great job walking all around our living room from couch to table to chair, etc. And sometimes she gets the courage to walk from the couch all the way to the dining room table... and for her little legs, that's a good distance! Some times she tries to repeat what you say. Really, she's probably just making random noises, but it happens to sound like "bye-bye" or "tout à l'heure." Or we really do have an overachieving bilingual child and I'm ok with that.

This month she got settled back into her home and bedroom in Benin. She loves to play with the toys in her bedroom! I think she knows it's her space. We spent a week alone without Trey. It was like a slumber party every night - even the night we didn't have power for 5+ hours and had to help the guard refill the generator with gas at 2 a.m. :) She hasn't done much world traveling this month, but did make a trip to the Togo border. It should have only taken 4 hours total and took over 6 hours! She did great on the trip. She's started to wear shoes! I know, they aren't supposed to wear shoes while learning to walk, and most days she doesn't put a pair on. But when we're going out and she might walk in a dirty place, she wears shoes. She's getting better at walking in them.

I'm going to do my best to cherish this next month before we have a 1 YEAR OLD child! I'm sad that this month is so short. It will fly by faster than usual. But alas, here's to the last month of Chandler's first year!

Chandler Renee - 10 months

Finally, caught up. 10 months. This happened so quickly. Watching a child grow is truly an amazing thing. I thank God daily for allowing us to be a part of Chandler's life. I am also amazed at how He has designed us to grow. Seriously.

Most of this month was spent in America. She celebrated her first Christmas and New Year's! She got to see so many family and friends that she had not seen in months. And she did great with all of it. In Africa, she never meets a stranger. I was afraid, though, after so much travel and lack of sleep and transition she wouldn't do well in America. After an 8 hour car ride, 6 hour plane ride, 8 hour layover, 9 hour plane ride, and another 5 hour car ride we arrived at Trey's parents house. One of my biggest fears was that she would cry when she saw them because of exhaustion. She proved us wrong and jumped right in, at midnight, and started playing with them! It took a few days to adjust to the time difference, but her grandparents and great grandparents didn't mind getting up with her at 5 a.m. and letting us sleep :) We spent the first few days in Panama City, then drove to Pensacola for a week, and back to Panama City for a wedding in Dothan. Then Trey headed to California for the National Championship game and me & Chandler went back to Pensacola. Every car ride she did great! Like I said last month... she's so flexible. Since we got back to Benin, it only took a day or two to adjust to the time difference. We are SO thankful!

Rigo was right. She was saving her second tooth for America! Within a few days of arriving, her second tooth cut through. And we could see her top teeth start moving in. She cut her first top tooth the day she turned 10 months old! This month was much like the first time she rolled over. Chandler took her first steps on Christmas Eve!! And then didn't take anymore. Once we got back to Benin, she got her courage back and began taking more steps. She's showed off for everyone here. We wanted her to get as much baby socialization as possible so she went to Mother's Day Out and the nursery every chance she could. She also loved playing with her cousin, Owen, even though sometimes he wasn't too fond of her taking his toys :) Along, with her first steps she got her first real runny nose from the cold weather and a bought with RSV at the very end of our trip. She kicked it quickly, thankfully, and got a clear check up from the doctor just before we left.

We took her for her 9 month well baby check up when we first got there. She weighed 17 pounds 7 ounces, 26.25 inches long, and her head is 18 inches around. She's thinned out since she started crawling and seems to be a shorty. Not sure where she gets that from! But we do love our petite little girl.

Chandler Renee - 9 months

Chandler turned 9 months right after we got back to the states for vacation. This meant I was a really bad mom and I didn't get her official 9 month pictures, but of course, I have plenty of other pictures.

This month Chandler celebrated her first Thanksgiving!! We were supposed to get together with some other American's at our supervisors house, but after Barbara battling with sickness, we weren't able to. We decided to accept an invitation to attend a dinner at the American Ambassador's house! I mean, can't say we've done that before. They had really good meat, which is hard to find here. Ham & turkey. However, Chandler only had veggies I brought from home. Sorry, kid. She enjoyed it, though! There was so much going on and so many other kids to watch. We also visited our house-helper's home. She was great with his daughters (he has 8!), and really loved the oldest. 

The best part about this month was that Chandler decided to take a bottle!!!! I have no idea why all of the sudden. We had been leaving a sippy cup with our babysitter while we went to language. She wouldn't usually drink much from it, but it was enough to keep her happy/distracted after she got up from her nap until I got home. One day I was fixing the sippy cup, gave it to her, and the "no-leak" cup started leaking. Her other cup was dirty and she was screaming for it. I quickly put it in a bottle thinking it's worth a shot... she downed it!! This made things so much easier. The babysitter began giving her a bottle every day and we gave her one in the morning as well. It had to be a God thing. Her taking a bottle meant we could have some free time and her grandparents could watch her whenever they wanted while we were home. 

This month our One-Tooth-Wonder lives on! Rigo, our house-helper, keeps saying she's saving the second for America. She decided to grow attached to a particular toy this month. She doesn't drag it around with her, but it comforts her when she's sleepy and fussy. She can be upset and you pick her up trying to calm her down, and that works, sort of. But if you pick her up and give her the bunny, she's silent :) This helped on our trip home! Bunny helped her stay calm for most of the trip. She began cheering on her Noles this month & playing ball with daddy. I think he's pretty happy about both of these things! The biggest thing that happened this month was traveling to America. She hadn't done that trip since she was 2.5 months old! It was very different this time, but all-in-all we can't complain. We've got a very flexible baby.

Chandler Renee - 8 months

I'm playing catch up and finally posting Chandler's monthly update. Sometimes 2 months can seem like such a short time, but when I try to think back to what Chandler was doing just two months ago, it seems like a lifetime! Time really does go faster the older you get. Enjoy it while you're young, kids.

Chandler turned 8 months on November 13th. After having some... well, we'll call it "tummy issues, " for at least 2 months, we finally solved the problem. However, those issues never slowed her down. She continued to get into EVERYTHING! I know, people always tell you that, but until you experience it, you can't understand. Not to mention, it blows my mind how she can find the smallest speck of something on the ground, pick it up, and put it in her mouth... but then give food a dirty look. ha! This month she got better and better at pulling up on things. She began to stand alone for a few seconds, but not often. She still only had 1 tooth at 8 months... our little "One-Tooth-Wonder."

We were finally able to get her room ready for her to sleep in. After all of our traveling, unpacking, and flat out busyness, she moved into her own room. With that came sleeping through the night again!! We were thrilled for this. She hadn't done that since we came to Africa, when she was an incredible sleeper before. We also got her on a good bedtime routine, that I think helped with her sleep.

This month Chandler went to Ganvie for the second time. She did great when we went into a local family's home... for a minute. Then when she was fussy, she wanted our tour guide to hold her. She really liked him. She also experienced her first solar eclipse... sort of. She wore sunglasses and a hat while we tried to look at it with makeshift glasses. She also traveled to Bohicon (a little further north in Benin) for the first time and did her first photo bomb. And how can I forget her first Halloween. Even though we had no where to trick-or-treat, we dressed her up and went to the expat grocery store :)