Walking.

That's right, Charlotte is officially walking. She had taken a few single steps here and there. Then took her first very official unassisted steps two days before turning 13 months. That seemed to be all that she wanted to do though and it was few and far between. She LOVED holding onto our finger and walking around the house or the store or wherever we would let her, so we knew it was only a matter of time. Then last week (November 7 to be exact) I stood her up and she just went for it. Then I did it again and she just kept walking over and over! She still prefers to crawl, but she does love walking and is gaining more confidence already. However, this is proving to be a challenge when we go run errands because she would much rather hold my hand and walk than be carried or sit in the stroller or cart. It's super cute, but slows things WAY down. Below is a video from Instagram that shows her walking that first night she kept doing it every time I stood her up.

Halloween.

It's just a couple weeks away from Thanksgiving and I just realized I have yet to post about Halloween! Ah!

This Halloween was a little more exciting than last year. Last year, Charlotte was only a month and a half old and basically a blob that I dressed up. This year, I knew I wanted to do more. I wanted to carve a pumpkin. Sadly, the pumpkins we had picked at the pumpkin patch rotted before Halloween, but we had a giant one we got at Sam's that we carved. As you know, Char loves dogs but those were too complicated so I carved a cat face instead. She still called it a "doggie". I dressed her up as a pumpkin in a tutu outfit I made her. It was super sweet, except that it was really windy so when we went and did the trick-or-treat street in town it kept blowing everywhere and by time we came home to take pictures it was twice as poofy as it was when we left the house. She enjoyed everything though. She thought the pumpkin was cool. She liked dressing up. I don't know that she really understood what was going on when we went trick-or-treating, but she had fun and so did I. And let's be honest, all her candy was for me.

This was actually the day before Halloween, but still very festive.

Trick-or-treat streeting.

Pumpkin Patch.

We took Charlotte to a pumpkin patch earlier this month. Something we will want to do every fall. I researched to find the best one in Colorado. There are several, but many had delayed openings due to the recent floods. We finally decided to go to the pumpkin festival at a working farm run by the Denver Botanical Gardens. It was perfect fall weather (although colder than forecasted) and it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of activities other than just picking pumpkins that Char will be able to enjoy as she grows up. They had two pumpkin patches: a baby pumpkin patch where Char picked out two baby pumpkins and a big pumpkin patch where we picked out two regular pumpkins. We had a lot of fun and will go back next year. The only downside is that it's not even Halloween yet and all of our pumpkins we got are already rotted! I think part of that was that we have had several hard freezes already and the flooding we got didn't help anything. But, it still was worth the trip!

Less than thrilled about this.

Baby pumpkin for our pumpkin!

I asked her to smile and she did this.

Followed by this.

Family Photos.

As mentioned in a previous post (be sure to read down - I've added several today!), we have a lovely friend who takes pictures. Brianna Doby of little o photography takes gorgeous photos. She took Charlotte's cake smash photos. So, we knew we were going to use her for our family photos. We met one morning at a park downtown Denver and she was so patient with trying to get Charlotte to warm up (literally and figuratively). She seriously catches the best moments. And fun fact: our family pictures were taken one year to the day after we had taken Charlotte's newborn photos.

First Birthday Party.

Charlotte's birthday party was the Saturday after her party. I had been planning for awhile. Pinning ideas on Pinterest. Trying to come up with a theme. I finally settled on a pink and chalkboard theme. I made as many things for her party that I could, because that felt more special to me. Several friends and family came to help us celebrate her first birthday and we feel so blessed for all of the love!