9 months!

Another month has come and gone! It seems like this one was the fastest too! Reese you are 3/4 of a year old! You are such a funny little girl! You are now laughing when we laugh and really paying attention to what we are doing. I miss you SOOOOO much when I work. I don't get to see you at all those days since you go don't get up until after I leave and go to sleep before I get home. I love our days together and know I am very spoiled to get 4 whole days with you each week! Our monthly pictures are getting harder and harder to capture! Most of them ended up a blur! Here we go for your month 9 stats...

18 lbs 5 oz (45%)

27 3/4 inches (65%)

Head circ: 17 3/4 inches (80%)

teeth count: 2 bottom ones (top two gums are very swollen)

size 3 diaper (size 4 at night)

6-12 month clothing

Down to four 6 oz bottles of pumped milk a day. Takes first one at 7ish, then 11ish, 2:30ish, and then nighttime bottle is at 7 pm and is 7 oz.

Officially DONE with babyfood. You never even really started it though! You gagged up every single bite of baby food you ever had! You have always loved your yogurt so that was pretty much the only thing that was the babyfood consistency that you would eat. You started on puffs, cheerios, ritz crackers, and cheese this past month and never looked back. You wouldn't even try anything coming at you on a spoon unless it was your beloved yogurt. You will take bites from a banana, and refuse it if it is mashed. You love grated cheese, puffs, cheerios, beans, rice, graham crackers, ANY yogurt, ritz, and mummums. You will occasionally take a few bites of sandwich turkey. You also ate a whole pretzel bite from auntie annes, and cried when it was gone! So we are moving on to table food! You have had a few of those lil gerber meals and will pick at them and try a few bites before you request your yogurt and crackers. I been trying to establish mealtimes and you are doing well with breakfast at 8:30, lunch around 12:15, and dinner around 5.

Sleeping from 7-7. The only time you wake up in the night is if you are sick. When you had your first cold over Christmas you woke up several nights in a row. I even had to give you a bottle 2 of those nights to help you go back to sleep! It brought me back to your newborn days! Oh thank you Lord for giving my child the gift of rest since 7 weeks! Being up those few nights made me realize how lucky we are! I did so enjoy rocking you those late nights though just us.

You take a morning nap and an afternoon nap. Times can vary but you usually go down sometime between 9 and 9:30 for your morning nap and sometime between 2 and 2:30 for your afternoon nap. You usually sleep 1-2 hrs.

Now that you are a roly poly you roll all over your bed at night. You are sleeping on your stomach more and more now. It's probably a tie between back, stomach, and side now. You look so cute curled up on your side. Your bald spot is really starting to grow in! Your hair is still a bit reddish but not quite as red as it was a few months ago.

Your eyes are definitely your daddy's color- brownish/greenish.

You have been saying dada on and off for a few weeks but on 12/13 you REALLY discovered the word! And that's all we hear now is DADADA, DADA, DADADADADA, DA DA DAAA! We think you know who dada is too! We still get alot of BABA, MAMA, DEDE, EEEEEE, YEEE YEEEE too, but they don't even touch how much you say DADA!

You love your books. You will sit and flip through them and turn them all around. You are really liking the "Peeka-Who" book we got you for Christmas. It is the only book you will let us read the whole thing to you from beginning to end. You sit so patiently and look at the pictures while we read it!

You still growl MANY times a day. You growl while you play, after we feed you a bite, while we carry you around. It's soooo funny!!!

You have a little pink bath ring that you sit in in the bath tub now! You can really play now that you aren't in your baby tub anymore!

You are very opinionated and did not want to sit in the chair any more!

You are starting to give high fives! Daddy taught you this and he is very proud of you!

You ended the year with a bang by crawling on December 30! Nanny and I were sitting there watching you play. You had just opened a gift Nanny brought over from Anne,and I put the pink barbie wrapping paper a few feet away from you. And what do you know, you crawled right over to it! We screamed and cheered and then moved the paper, got the flip cam, and you did it again! Since then you are getting better and better! You keep one leg under you and use your foot and then you keep your other foot behind you. It kind of looks like you are hopping like a little bunny. It's so cute! Your daddy calls it your peg leg crawl. You still like to roll all over the place but are getting more comfortable with crawling. You can start crawling from a sitting position and put yourself back into a sitting position from a crawling position. You always head STRAIGHT toward any electrical cord or plug. You are like a moth heading straight for the light! We are busy working on baby proofing the house. I have a feeling that we are about to be BUSY!

You don't fall asleep during your night bottle as much any more. You are pretty sleepy though and insist on sitting up right when it is done. We always giggle b/c you sit up real quick and then kind of fall back and giggle b/c you are borderline delirious! When you are ready for bed you are ready for bed! You cry to be put down and the minute we lay you down you snag your paci, pop it in your mouth, put your arms under your back and turn away from us as if to dismiss us from your room.

Suddenly you don't want to be held by anyone else if mama or dada is nearby. You will fuss and reach your arms out to us or cling to us if we are trying to hand you off. You are perfectly content to sit in our laps and be around people you haven't seen very much though and quickly warm up.

You tried cheerios for the first time this month and after inspecting them for awhile, decided that you love them! You eat them most mornings for breakfast.

You are very good at drinking out of your sippy cup! You need us to help you hold it still but you can chug!

You love to make spitting sounds while eating especially when you have yogurt in your mouth! It's quite funny, but I'm sure it won't be in a year!

We upgraded your carseat this month. Car trips were getting pretty stressful b/c you just cried the entire time! Well they didn't get any better once we put you in the convertable britax. So one frantic day I ran into Target with you on my hip, picked out a dvd player, ran out to the car, and installed it. It was one of those supermom moments. I don't install dvd players. But this was an emergency. Well you are now happy as a clam watching your Baby Einsteins in the car. We rarely hear a peep from you. You 2 favorites right now are Animals Around the World and Baby Noah.

We took you to Six Flags holiday in the park! You even got to ride a few rides! It was so fun! We took you to a Christmas show while we were there and oh my gosh you loved it! You sat in my lap with both hands up in the air watching the actors dance and sing! You waved your hands in the air and said "EEEEEE EEEEE" the whole time! It was so funny!

You LOVE Baby Einstein! When we play it you just sit and stare at the tv! You will even dance when certain music is on.

You are a pro at waving, and it is one of your favorite things to do. You can wave on command, and you do it on your own alot too. One day we were walking around Firewheel, and you were sitting forward in your stroller waving with both hands at EVERY SINGLE PERSON we passed! I was laughing, random people were laughing, and so were you! It was a priceless moment! Sometimes you wave AFTER we leave somewhere. It's like you are thinking "Oh yea! I'm supposed to wave when we leave!"

You are happy, happy, happy!!!! Aside from when you are not feeling well, you flash us these BIG smiles and happy screams all day long! We love it so much!

We celebrated 2 more big holidays with you little girl- Christmas and New Years! We were all worn out, but had so much fun! You got your first cold on Christmas Day, but are all better now thank goodness!

The laugh and learn door is hands down your favorite toy right now. You love to try to crawl through the door, turn the light on/off, and shut the window on us! If we stand you up to it you will play for a long time with all the different stuff on it. This toy is great! You also love your vtech farm learning walker, your first words touch and feel picture cards, and your fisher price pink blocks.

We are now brushing your little teeth every night before bed! You like to "help".

Jack continues to be your biggest fan. He will now walk over and just plop down in your lap! Sometimes you are like "get off me jack!" He just loves you so much! He loves to put his legs all over you.

You can pull up to your knees. Here you are using this new trick to acquire an illegal paper towel. You continue to LOVE any and everything paper. If we stand you up at something you are getting better at staying up although you will eventually let go and just fall back or to the side.

Baby girl we are looking forward to this new year with you! If you bring us 1/2 the joy you brought us this past year (and I know you will bring us more than double the joy) then we will have a fantastic year! WE LOVE YOU!!!

mama update: Still pumping 4X per day! So proud of making it to 9 months. God willing, I will try to get to a year. I was approved to be a milk donor and have 500 oz bagged up and ready to take to a local drop off spot since it is all about to expire, and we haven't used it. It will be pasteurized and the local NICU's will be using it. I am so glad it will go to good use since it looks like Reese will not need it! Also I have been done with WW for several weeks after losing 22 lbs! I feel great and am looking forward to picking up running again once it warms up a bit, and we aquire a jogger stroller!