My Brown Eyed Girl...

Is ten months old.

Has four big teeth.

Can climb up the stairs and insists on doing so most of the time.

Sings and bounces along to music.

Lights up when I come in her room in the morning, but gets absolutely giddy with excitement when the Little Mister comes in.

Loves to play with everything her brother is playing with (usually to his dismay), and also his tiny underpants.

Eats EVERYTHING as long as she can feed it to herself:  meats, cheese, fruit, vegetables, rice, even salad - I'm sure because it resembles the grass and leaves that she puts in her mouth whenever we go outside.

Can say "mama" and "dada" although she doesn't know what they mean.  But I think she can sign "all done"...sometimes.

Loves to crawl over things, particularly humans.  Sometimes when she crawls over slightly smaller objects, such as toy trucks or pillows, she gets high-centered and crawls around with said object stuck between her arms and legs until she wiggles free or someone rescues her.  It's really quite cute.

Is getting wispy waves and curls around her ears and in the back of her hair.  I can't wait to put her in piggies.

Check out these adorable photos from our last photo session with Jennifer Rogers!
http://www.jenrogersphotography.com/load/webIIkaren/

So little. So BIG.

Most of the time I still think of the Little Mister as my baby, until he reminds me "I'm not a baby, I'm a boy." And it's true. Without even realizing it was happening (well maybe a little) he has gotten so big. For instance:

A few weeks ago we went to the Greek festival. Brad and I went for the gyros, but the Mister was there for the rides. I didn't even think there would be rides but he was delighted when we got there and there were, in fact, carnival rides. He set his sights on the ferris wheel - a baby ferris wheel with cages. He insisted on holding his tickets and giving them to the guy operating the ride. I thought he was going to go up to the cage, get scared and come back to us like the boy in front of us did. He didn't. He went right up, sat in the chair and even tried to close his own door. He just sat there with a big smile on his face. So big. He did mention at some point before the ride was even really going that he was all done but we cheered him on and as it started to move he sat there nervously looking out.  And then I think he even started to enjoy himself a little, because as soon as it was done he wanted to go ride the train.

The next day I took him to swimming lessons. He walked all around the pool and grabbed a noodle out of the bin. He walked back and we went to the stairs. As I started to help him into the pool he said "no, I will do it myself" and proceeded to spend the rest of the lesson time swimming around with just the noodle. No life jacket, no floaties, just hanging onto that noodle. And if I got too close he reminded me that he was doing it himself.

Last Sunday at church I overheard him and his buddy having what I think was their first real conversation. It went something like this:

Buddy: "You don't take my cars."

Mister: " Ok, I will play with my cars and you can play with your cars."

Buddy: "Ok, I will play with my cars."

Mister: "Do you want to go to nursery class and play with me?"

Buddy: "Ok, but I need to go potty first."

Today he was trying to build a parascope out of letters. I asked him if he knew what a parascope was and he said "it helps me to see through the roof". Yep, that's about right.

He talks, and talks, and talks all the time.  This is not new information.  However, lately he ends his monologues by saying "and that's how that works!"

9 months. 9 months!!!

Seriously where does the time go? This has been a big month for Baby Sister. She learned to crawl on her hands and knees (she spent several weeks doing the army crawl thing), pull herself up to standing and got her first tooth...and 5 more are close behind!

9 month stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 8 oz
Height: 28.25 inches

Favorites: Little Mister's lego guys (she lunges for them every time she gets a chance), bath time with toys, anything she can feed herself, grass (she is constantly putting grass in her mouth).  Dropping things from her highchair and peeeeking over the edge to see where they fell.

Not so favorites: sitting still...especially for diaper or outfit changes.

I can't believe how fast my precious baby girl is growing. I love her to pieces :)

A time to celebrate...

This post is about two weeks overdue...

In order to celebrate the Little Mister being accident free for one whole week (potty-wise) we went to Chuck-E-Cheese (also known as PS Kids.org). We are so proud of this little guy and how big he is getting.


And just because I feel like I need to document some of the funny things he says, here are a few:

"Mom, I say hi to the bee. But he doesn't have a face or a mouth so he can't say hi back."

"Mom, I draw a picture of you. Oops, I forgot your face." It was on his magnadoodle and it was all blacked out :)

"Mom, do you remember my friend Kai-Lan? She lives far away. At Chinese. In the grass. I know, I need my friend Diego to get his Rescue Pack into a helicopter so we can fly to where she is!"

"I can't wait for my birthday block party (?). We are going to have balloons, and streamers, and cake, and presents, and goodie bags!"