Benscoter Family: November -- 11 Months Old

This month Sophia has continued to amaze us with how smart she is. We have noticed that her physical growth seems to be slowing down but her communication skills are vastly improving! Sophia and Mommy have been attending weekly sign language classes and now Sophia can sign "milk", "more", and "all done". This has been a great help at meal time as you can imagine. She has also improved her verbal communication skills and can now say a few simple words such as "no-no", "da-da", "ma-ma", "uh-oh!", "hi", and "up". She can also say "thank you" in her own little, adorable way which sounds a lot more like "day-do". Of course, these signs and words are not always consistent and usually come with much prompting from Mommy or Daddy. She has learned some very heart-warming skills such as hugging people on command and blowing kisses with the back of her hand. Although she is not walking yet, she loves to push her car all over the house (see video!) and can walk while holding on to Mommy or Daddy with one hand. Mommy thinks it will be another couple of months before she is walking on her own but Daddy thinks it will happen any day now...we shall see what happens! On November 12th Sophia had her last photo shoot with the very talented Kasey Mikelle. We have enjoyed working with Kasey as she has provided us with beautiful photos of my pregnancy with Sophia, Sophia as a newborn, and now as an almost-one-year-old!

We have so many things to be thankful for this month, most importantly our family. We were so blessed to have Nana, Grandpa Ben, Aunt Melissa, Aunt Julie, and Great Aunt Ana join us for a special Thanksgiving celebration on November 24th. We were also fortunate to meet Ana's friend Jerry and his daughter Pamela. Please enjoy the pictures and videos below of our little sweetheart!