Benjamin 11 months

On August 24th Ben turned 11 months!! Holy cow! Only 1 month until he's a year AND a big brother!!   Over the past couple of weeks he has started taking a couple of steps at a time and the last few days he has starting walking more and more. By the time his baby brother or sister arrives I feel certain he will be a full on walker!
He is FINALLY saying "mama" but it's usually when he's mad and wants me to do something so it's not as sweet as I would have hoped but it's a start :)
I've been doing better at feeding him more "real food" lately. He's had chicken, green beans, fish, potatoes and bananas. So far he has liked it all except the bananas - which will make him the first Allen baby NOT to devour bananas! We're also starting to wean him off of formula and I'm attempting to move him off the bottle but he still likes it best for his milk drinking. Hopefully by the time baby arrives I can have him transitioned so I'll have the bottles for the baby :)
He is in to EVERYTHING and puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Probably the hardest thing for me to do right now is bend over with this big ol' belly but it's pretty unavoidable with an on the move 11 month old in the house :) It's funny how much less I "rearranged" things for the older 3 and was very diligent to teach them not to touch certain things but now I just empty out entire bottom shelves so I don't have to go behind him and pick everything up when he has pulled it all out when I wasn't looking :) Luck of being the 4th in line :) #5 may be wild :)

See - empty bottom shelf of bakers rack :)

Walking to mommy - so proud!

Hanging out his buddy Ali - she is only about 2 or 3 weeks younger than Ben. Her oldest brother Zach is James' best buddy and they are only 3 months a part - hopefully these two will be tight too :)

Nosy, Nosy, Nosy - climbed up on his push car and checking out what is in mommy's diaper bag!

This last pic is of John-Mark at exactly 11 months when he was just starting walk - CAN. YOU. BELIEVE. how much alike they look!?! They even have the exact same gap tooth grin! The other night we were looking through old videos and just could not believe how much alike these two look at this age. Ben's hair and complexion is a little lighter and some of his mannerisms are different and remind us of James but just looking at them they look like twins! Handsome, handsome boys if I do say so myself :)