10 Months for Grace!

The day she turned 10 months!

Happy 10 month birthday, Grace! You are a super smiley, funny girl that already at 10 months, will not let William get the last say - easily. We think you are going to give William a run for the money as you get bigger and more able.

Pretty girl!

10 month smile

Grace is still the sweetest girl and she smiles the biggest smile at everyone. She does the funniest things too... like when you come in after nap time, she sometimes peers over her bumper waiting then as soon as she spots you makes a very dramatic dive to hide beneath the level of the bumper. When you appear over the side, she smiles and laughs very hard. She loves to be chased and play peek-a-boo. So funny! A fun spot to hide is underneath furniture or in-between someone's ankles.

ALWAYS getting into something. She likes to hide!

Diaper on the head is funny!

Hi there!

Grace is down to 3 bottles a day and looooves her food. She wants to eat everything for the most part. Same as before - if there was a bottle in front of her or spaghetti, she'd grab the spaghetti first. Or any food for that matter. We were saying the other day we feel like we skipped the whole baby feeding purees stage with her. It was mostly a time issue and a mess issue, since William eats when she eats, but she's been great at picking up her own food and feeding herself. In fact, if you try to feed her something now, she moves her head and grabs it with her own hand to feed herself. So it's been a lot of small, mushy bites for Grace, and it's usually whatever we're eating. She has 8 teeth already and she's very good at taking bites already! William would smush as much as possible into his mouth to the point of gaging, but Grace takes a bite and tears food all the time. Must be a girl vs. boy thing!

Gets the reading from William. She was flipping the pages.

Grace naps twice a day and the third nap is really gone at this point. On the rare occasion she is very moody then we put her in her bed a third time during dinner. But for the most part, she's happy to make it until 6:15ish then gets a bit cranky... ready for bath time and bed time.

Speaking of the nightly ritual, she loves bath time. When the water comes on in the tub, she comes a running! Not literally running, but will grab the side and try to throw herself in. She tries to climb in and we have to quickly get her undressed and ready to bathe. Her and William take baths together and that makes the process very easy.

Hugs for dadadada

Still a great sleeper and wakes up at 7:00/7:15a every day. She hasn't had any sleep in days really... but she is happy to sit and play with her favorite stuffed animals till you're ready to get her out. The pink fluffy bear and the pink flower bear are the two faves! She also still has an affinity for the white Little Giraffe blanket - same type as William's.

This post is two weeks late and at 10 months to the day, Grace was taking steps. Her first steps were at 9 months old! And I'll have to add another post with more details, but since then she is now officially walking. She has made the conscious decision to get back up after falling to keep walking instead of reverting to the crawl. It was after the 4th of July that the desire to walk full-time seemed to kick in.

Standing and walking in the mountains

One of her first standing pictures in June - clapping at the same time.

Grace loves William and playing with other kids. At the Y daycare, the sitters tell me she tries to get into everyone's business and they have to move her into a smaller area to protect her because she's prepared to get trampled in order to play with the big kids. She needs to get better at walking and then she can hang with the older kids!

Waiting on William's swim lesson

May I read this book, William? She probably snatched it 2 seconds later.

Well she's almost 11 months now! Who knows what she will be up to in the next two weeks. Likely running! We are waiting for first words, though she says dadadadada and mamamama. Sometimes I think I hear her say "Hi there" and we do say "Hi there" a lot to her, so maybe she is imitating the sounds. Till next month!

Happy 10 month, Grace!

Grace is 9 Months Old!

I'm 9 months!

Grace is now 9 months old! Time flies even more quickly with the second child and looking back at pictures from 9 months ago when she was born, I feel like it was only a couple days ago. Now, we're looking at ideas for her 1st birthday party! She is incredibly active and busy. Last week she even stood up from a sitting position. Since that time she's done it a couple more times. We're having fun putting her into a standing position and letting her balance herself too. She's getting pretty good at it! She's walking with the walker cart all the time, walks along furniture constantly, and with the help of a hand can takes steps. I can't imagine it will be too long before she's walking right next to William!

This past week standing and balancing alone

Loves the playground

Standing up a few weeks ago with the help of the chair

Grace eats 2-3 times a day and loves food. William is always sneaking her something. I have to watch out because she will gladly take anything - a large carrot that William is snacking on for example! She likes peas, bits of cheese, blueberries, anything! Dropping bottles will be extremely easy for her. She loves bottles, but seems to LOVE food even more. She's still at 4 bottles a day - around 28 oz total.

Loves to watch the action

Scrunches her nose up a lot

Wrestle mania with these two

Big laughs with big brother

Napping twice a day and sometimes a 3rd time if her 2nd nap doesn't go later in the afternoon. 9a and 12:30p are the two nap times. If she does a 3rd then it's around 5/5:30p for a very short amount of time. She gets so cranky at dinner time if she didn't get a late 2nd nap. Same issue from last month... I should probably push the 2nd nap back, but it's nice to bring her and William upstairs for nap time at the same time.

Her favorite stuffed animal is a colorful flowery bear that was a gift. She sleeps with a white blanket like big brother's (I wonder if she'll grow as attached as he is to his blanket). She's always chewing on William's die cast cars. A rolling ball that makes noises and sings songs is another fun toy recently. She even picked it up and stood up with it this past week! Matt watched the whole thing. She loves to bounce up and down and shake her booty - too funny! She's waving "hi!", shakes her head "no!" and clapping her hands together. She will play peek-a-boo with a blanket and pulls it up over her face... too cute. She thinks it's hysterical if you pretend to chase her. She turns the other way and tries to crawl super fast. Climbing the stairs is a piece of cake. The other day when I turned my eye away for a minute, she climbed up to the landing... eesh. We pulled out the baby gate to block the way from now on. Miss Independent even likes to crawl back to the playroom by herself. She knows where the good stuff is!

She loves her flower bear!

Her hair is getting longer and gets messy if you don't brush it!

Sipping water from the baby pool

Animal watching at the Animal Kingdom

We had her 9 months wellness visit as well. She did great and nothing big to report. Right on track with growth and all her milestones. She had one shot.

Weight: 18 lbs. 14.5 oz. / 63%
Height: 29" / 92%

She plateaued at 6 months a little, but apparently spiked up at 9 months to where she's been all along. Must be all the food she's stealing from William!

Oh and she has a big noggin! 95% for her head circumference.

She's clear to eat everything, but honey and whole milk. And we won't be going back until 1 year! Knock on wood, but we haven't had any fevers or big sickness from her yet. Pretty wild considering William has caught a few bugs this past year and he's constantly exposing to her to germs. If his cup is laying around then she's going after it. Only runny noses and a cough for Grace so far. Nothing we would need to see a doctor.

Always smiley and always happy, Miss Grace! Looking forward to the next month!

Sitting to Standing to Walking

Over the past week William definitely wants to walk more and makes more a point to walk than crawl. Yesterday whenever he fell he would pull himself up to a standing position. I've seen him go from sitting to standing on a few occasions, but this was repeated over and over last night. It cracks me up to see him push himself up without the help of a piece of furniture or a nearby leg. Here he is standing up a couple times. Notice the gate in the doorway. William has done a pretty good job trying to maneuver the step!

Walking attempts

12.12.12 marks the day William made his first walking attempt. We were sitting in the family room that evening on the ground with him and he was standing by Matt. I held out my hands sitting a couple feet away and he took 3 steps wobbling toward me! So funny and I wish we caught the big moves on video! Then at Gymboree the next day I think he was inspired by the majority of walkers in the class. He kept taking 2-3 steps here and there! I wonder how long it will be until we have a walker. He's so fast crawling that I'm not sure I see walking taking #1 mode of transportation for a little bit of time... but we'll see. Go William Go!

He's very good at standing by himself and he'll pick up pretty heavy toys, shake them and still be standing all alone. The balance thing is pretty much down pat. I guess continuing to balance while moving forward (or backward) is another thing though.

Here's some pictures from William at Gymboree. He LOVES that class!

Look Ma! No hands!

William has been caught standing by himself several times. He lowers himself gently to the ground once he notices he's standing. He's walking along objects he can hold onto - the edge of the tub he goes from one end to the other or the ottoman in our family room. When will he walk? He hasn't pushed the limits though of stepping without support. Crawling seems like a great mode of transportation at the moment.

The standing or supported walking happens so quickly it's hard to get a video or picture of him, but I caught this one over the past weekend when we were at the beach. For some reason the way he has his hands I hear "La Cucaracha" in the background... ha! I'll try to get a video of him walking along the tub or ottoman later!