Nine Months

Here we are again...at another month milestone. I feel like I just got comfortable having an eight month old and now here I am with a nine month old and I'll have to adjust again. I know that is probably weird to some of you...I'm just already having a hard time with my baby growing up. I've been scrapbooking pictures from the first 10 weeks of her life within the past two weeks. Sometimes tears come to my eyes because she looks so different and I've forgotten so much. Honestly I don't even remember anything but a few details from her first two days I was so drugged and out of it. That is something I really hate and regret...not that I could have really changed it. Anyway...I do have to admit though that this period in her life has been my favorite...by far. She's so much more pleasant (not counting the past three days) than she has ever been. Her personality is really coming out now and she makes us laugh quite a bit. I think the independence that has come with crawling and pulling herself up and discovering things really fits her. Like I said, she is so much more happy than ever before. Here are some other things about Isabelle right now: (I know it's long...there is just so much.)

• At her nine month check up these were her stats: Height is 28.5 inches and is the 75 percentile. Her weight is 19 pounds 6 ounces which is in the 50-75 percentile. Her head circumference is 18 inches and is the 90 percentile.
• Crawling is no big deal anymore. She not only can do a slow "walking" crawl, she can do a fast "running" crawl. The faster crawl is kicked into gear when she is 1) running from someone chasing her or 2) trying to get to a place she knows she is not allowed to go before Curt or I can grab her...i.e. the stairs, fireplace or bathroom.
• She's totally aware that there are some things she is not allowed to do. Whenever she isn't sure if she is going to be told no she inches towards whatever it is, hovers her hand above the item, looks up at us as if waiting for a yes or a no, and when she isn't acknowledged or told no, she then touches the item. It makes me smile.
• She can put her hands on a slippery item, such as a book, and sit on her knees and/or get up on her feet and push herself around. When she's on her feet, she can only go a few steps, but she can crawl like that for quite a while...really until she runs into a wall or furniture.
• She plays several games... She plays peek-a-boo and will initiate it on her own. It is really cute. She'll go from side to side peeking around corners, people, shoulders or whatever. She also "plays" the pull myself up and sit myself down game a lot. Today she was pulling herself up at the coffee table, just to bang on the table two or three times and then sit herself down. The funny part is that after sitting down, she would turn to crawl away, but at the last second she'd turn back to the table to do it again. Almost as if she was saying, "No, that was fun, I think I will do it one more time."
• She squeals and screams in delight. She's done it for a while, but in the past week she's kicked it up a few notches. She'll be playing with a toy and having so much fun that she can't contain her excitement and she starts screaming.
• She buzzes her lips and tongue...and unfortunately spits everywhere while doing these tricks.
• Within the past week, my mom has taught her how to put her hand to her mouth over and over and do the Indian war cry thing. She does it with the back of her hand and she puts it in her mouth instead of to her mouth. It's adorable.
• She's finally on a pretty consistent schedule. The times are always tentative dependent on when she last woke up, but a typical day goes as follows:
• Wake up at about 9:00-9:30, but no later than 9:45 or Curt or I wake her up.
• At first sign of grumpiness, eat breakfast.
• Play with toys, get dressed and keep busy until nap time.
• Nap time happens when she gets grumpy again...usually anywhere from 11:30 to 12:30.
• Her first nap is anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours. Most of the time, it is about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes.
• She then gets up and plays and at first sign of hunger, she gets lunch. Up until about a week ago, and we are still in transition phase, she was just getting a snack, but now she's getting lunch or baby food instead of just puffs.
• About three hours after she gets up, or around 4:30 she takes her second nap. It is usually shorter than the first, but still decently long.
• Once she's up again, she's up and playing, having dinner and exploring the world around her until bed time. Sometimes bed time is at 8:30...other times depending on how long her second nap was or when it was, it is as late as 9:30.
• When Isabelle is ready for bed it is VERY apparent. There is no disguising it. She can literally be happy and playing one minute and then something clicks in her brain that she's tired and that's it. She starts crying, wants me and is inconsolable until she's laying down. It is like night and day...and can literally happen within a minute. I love it. When putting her to bed, we now use music and it works SO WELL!! It has made a frustrating process tons easier. Sometimes we still have to resort to caressing/rubbing her ears to get her to give in though...
• I almost always know what she wants, when she wants it by her cries and what time it is. It is so much better than me wanting to pull my hair out in frustration when she used to be completely inconsolable.
• She's finally consoling herself back to sleep at night. Curt and I often hear her cry once, probably until she finds her pacifier and then nothing... About a week ago she talked to herself in the middle of the night for at least 10 minutes after getting up to eat...she must have finally fallen asleep because I know I did.
• She loves door stops, spinning tops, books, wooden blocks of some sort, playing on wood or tile floors, eating, playing with Heidi's childhood toys, dolls, Baby Einstein, watching Elmo's song or Ernie's Rubber Ducky song on YouTube.
• She loves drinks. She has gotten pretty good with drinking out of cups. Curt or I can't have a drink without her wanting some. While eating, if we pull out a drink and she sees it, she'll open her mouth and push out whatever food is in her mouth in preparation for the drink. It is rather gross. She doesn't listen when I say, "No." or "That's gross. Don't do that." Much to my distaste...
• She's starting to not be so shy and/or attached to us. She's even warming up to her uncle Andrew. She let him spin her new top for her and even crawled on his stomach while he was lying on the floor the other day. This is a HUGE improvement as she used to cry whenever he would look at her. That was only a month ago too.
• Her favoritest person, hands down, no competition is my dad. No one can compete. It is super cute though. She's totally attached to him and looks longingly at him every time he walks in the room. It's almost like she's saying in her head, "If I look cute enough up at him, maybe he'll come get me." She gets so excited and starts waving her arms when he heads for her. It totally offends her when he doesn't come and get her.

Merry Christmas

All materials used in the design of our card are Megan Turnidge's Cozy Christmas kit available at ScrapOrchard.com

Baby It's Cold Outside

We've had a busy Christmas Eve...some how. In retrospect I don't really feel like we did tons today, but I felt like we were constantly going. Anyways...remember that beautiful weather post yesterday? Well, that is long gone and we have lots of snow on the ground. It snowed for hours today. Not only did Isabelle experience her first Christmas Eve, she experienced her first snow...and Curt and I experienced our first white Christmas.

Isabelle loves being outside...no matter the temperature. When the wind picks up and becomes really strong, she doesn't quite know what to do and makes really funny faces though.

Grandpa thought it would be better to bring the snow to Isabelle though. At first she wasn't happy to come in the house. She really liked being outside, but then she discovered that she liked playing with the curious cold white stuff.

Isabelle looking at the snow through the window and waving at Grammie...

This evening, Isabelle opened her present from Curt and me. It took her a while and actually the way she finally finished opening it was by crawling over it to get to something more exciting, but she did get farther than ever before. 

This is what she got:

She has a reindeer butt! :) And reindeer feet. So CUTE!!

We finished the day off by watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christmas songs... She was pretty worn out and actually laid her head on my chest. That RARELY happens. I love those moments!

Beautiful Day

I don't know about you, but we had BEAUTIFUL weather today. Amazingly beautiful. All you people that live in the cold...be jealous. Isabelle spent time outside with Curt in the hammock... She loves swinging out there.

Early this evening, my dad took her outside. She seriously has him wrapped around her finger. He pushed her around the yard in the firetruck he found in the creek. She's so cute! Look at how she's holding on the the wheel perfectly. What is even more cute, is that as she is going all over, she's swinging her legs. I can't help but smile at these pictures...

Tonight I was working on a project for my sister and I heard Curt saying, "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue." It made me smile. It is so cute how he gets down on the floor and plays with Isabelle. A little while later I came into the gameroom to find this:

Sorry for the blurry picture...I was trying to take it far away as to not disturb those hard at play. About two seconds after I took the picture, Isabelle knocked Curt's tower down. I guess that is a benefit of having Isabelle play with older kids' toys: Curt likes to play with them just as much as Isabelle. :)

Waking Up

All through Isabelle's life, her happiest times have been right after waking up. It isn't uncommon for Heidi to even ask to get Isabelle out of her crib after she wakes up. There is always the small chance that for about three seconds she might be cuddly. Often times, when you open the door, she's standing there staring at the door waiting for someone to come and rescue her from her "baby prison." Today when she woke up she started talking. I was in our room and I started knocking on the wall we share...which is also the wall her crib is on. Curt  peeked into her room assuming she'd be staring at the wall, but she wasn't. She was staring at the door...waiting to be rescued. Apparently we weren't coming to her rescue fast enough though...she was trying to escape. It's my mom's fault. She jinxed Isabelle by saying she was going to be a climber. (Isabelle is seriously the most jinxable baby EVER!!) This is what we found:

Curt and I couldn't stop laughing while watching this and snapping pictures.
After we freed her we let her play on the floor. She immediately went over to the changing table and started pulling herself up. She likes to pull herself up and then sit down...and do it over and over and over and over...you get the point.

She loves playing with her shoes. When we are in the car she loves to play with her shoes. It has been know to entertain her all the way to Trophy Club...about a 25 minute drive. I don't know what is so entertaining about them, but hey, I'll take it!

Christmas Time and the Gaylord

We went to the Gaylord Texan hotel again this year since we go every year. This year was a little bit of a let down for a couple reasons, but we still had fun. We both really like taking Isabelle to do different things...especially when she is happy and enjoys the time out. We think she really did enjoy going and actually had a reaction to some things.

We started the day out meeting the reindeer. She wasn't quite sure what to think of it and wouldn't touch it for the longest time, but she eventually warmed up to it...

She loved the gingerbread people and dog...

This year the gingerbread house design was different from the last two years. I liked it better because of the colors they used. Yeah...we had a hard time getting a good picture with her here.

Her second favorite thing about the day were the trains. She was so cute. She'd watch it go by and once it was out of sight she just kept staring in that direction until it came back. She'd get really happy once it did come back too. Yay for reactions!! :)

This was her favorite thing there: the water fountain.We sat there for easily 15 minutes. She was totally mesmerized. It was so cute to see her trying to get a good look through the fence that was just too tall for her to see over. Once again, she had a reaction. She loved it and would get really excited. We were just so happy she had a reaction at all, that we stayed there for quite some time.

We finished our visit with standing in line to take a picture in the sleigh. She really was way too concerned this the braided texture of the sleigh to look at the camera. We did get the one below, but after much coaxing.

Overall we did enjoy our time out, but we were sad that there wasn't reindeer or even Santa and/or Mrs. Claus like they've had in the past...

Family Pictures

We came home from church today and tried to take family pictures. Here are the results (for your laughing pleasure):

Yeah...they didn't turn out so well. This is the best one:

Strings Attached

I don't know why... I can't explain why my daughter is weird... She just is. :) Currently, while playing with Heidi's doll house from back in the day, she always finds the ironing board. Why you ask? Well, because the iron is attached with a string and fits perfectly in her mouth. Of course this means that the iron hangs from her mouth...but what does she care? It is so funny though to see her crawling around with an ironing board hanging from her mouth. We may not get it, but for some reason she loves it.

Find the ironing board... Seriously, Isabelle has a radar for the thing...

For as much as she plays with the thing, she still has a bit of a hard time actually getting it into her mouth...

Isn't this funny?

Mashed Potatoes

Last week while making dinner, Curt made a TON of mashed potatoes. Isabelle was in hog heaven for the next few days eating the left overs. She seriously couldn't get enough in her mouth fast enough. It was so funny to watch her try and feed herself. It may have taken ten times longer than if we would have fed her, but it wouldn't have been so cute...

They're so good, she had to use two hands...

It was hard work...she had to take a break and rest...

Yep...I ate them all. I am my father's daughter... :)