She's tutu cute!

Hi friends!

Mommy entered me in a "Rock the Tutu" contest last weekend! Wearing a matching tutu and headband was very thought-provoking for me, as you can tell by my expression. Please vote for me to win the contest because I am tutu cute! Go to this website to leave a comment and vote! You can vote once a day for a whole week!

Love,
Elise

More 9 month things...

Just so I don't forget whenever I finally get to this point in the baby book...

She hates loud noises. Like the vacuum cleaner, the sound of a train, etc. Cries and cries. Yet, she has never woken up to the sound of Boss barking. I guess she got used to it in utero?

She has started pointing to things that are interesting to her. So cute.

She can stand alone for up to 5 seconds if she isn't distracted and leaning toward something.

She gets "the giggles" several times a day. Sometimes it is from a predictably funny game, like peekaboo around the furniture, and other times she just starts laughing, which makes me laugh, which makes her laugh harder, etc. Tonight I was nursing her before bed and she looked at me, grabbed my pinky finger and held it in front of her face, and just started laughing uncontrollably.

She has mastered creeping and can get wherever she wants to go in a very short time. She likes to take toys with her as she creeps. If she isn't engrossed in her toys, she will follow me to the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc. She has a lot of fun playing under the kitchen table. Who knew?

She has also mastered cruising. She can walk back and forth from objects that are close enough and rarely falls. She LOVES to do this. I know she is ready for her nap when she gets fussy if I stand her up next to the coffee table. Otherwise, she gets really excited.

She loves to "talk" to Daddy on the webcam or on the phone. She always smiles when she hears his voice or sees his face. We like to walk around the house and look at all of the pictures.

In case you are wondering, her eye and hair color are almost exactly like mine (and Daddy's).

Here are some rare "nothing else is interesting so I might as well look at the camera" pictures.

Happy 9 Months!

I can't believe that Elise is already 9 months old! I weighed her on our home scale this morning and she was 21.6 lbs in just a diaper. I tried to measure her and it looks like she's around 29.5 inches! Mike commented that he thought she looked longer and leaner and that would explain it.

At 9 months, Elise:

*will hold your hands and walk across the room

*cruises around the furniture and back and forth between things that are close enough (she prefers to walk in a clock-wise direction and especially likes to walk laps around the coffee table)

*can put herself into a sitting position (she likes to do this in her crib)

*pull up on something that is low enough to reach while sitting

*continues to creep like an inchworm (takes 2-3 crawling "steps" and plops on her belly... I don't know when she'll figure out that she's doing it the hard way!)

*can identify several things like necklace, ball, puppy, buttons, mama

*continues to talk up a storm... I am pretty close to claiming that 'mama' is her first word. In the last 24 hours she has said it quite a few times when she sees me, turns to me, scoots to me, etc. This morning when I opened the door to her room she was peeking over the bumpers and said 'mama'. She also tries really hard to say 'puppy' and I'm wondering if I should have taught her 'dog' instead... she'll get it eventually :)

*will creep towards me if I am in the room or if I leave the room (she has scooted into the bathroom several times!)

*loves to play tug of war with boss and laughs at him

*has been on the same sleeping/eating schedule since 6 months (sleeps 11.5-12 hours at night, takes two 1.5-2 hour naps, nurses 5 times, and eats solids 2 times)

*waves byebye or hi sometimes (will almost always wave to me in the mirror)

*wears mostly 12-18 month clothes from babyGap and Old Navy (except I bought mostly 18-24 month onesies so that they will last all winter... I just turn the sleeves up if they are too long)

*gets soooo excited when she sees her bath tub that she cries if you don't put her in it right away

*has 4 teeth (2 top and 2 bottom)

*is wary of strangers and takes several minutes to warm up to them... not much flirty smiling like she used to do

*loves to laugh and play

*still can entertain herself for a good while

*loves to play with her toy bucket and leapfrog table

*loves to crawl and climb on mommy

I bought her a push toy/walker a few days ago and this morning she pushed it about 10 feet all by herself! Then, she stopped, turned around, grabbed onto my stomach and said 'mama'(I was knee-walking behind her). My little girl is growing up way too fast.

On a happy note, today marks the halfway point of the deployment and we are getting pictures taken today by Jessica Strom. We get to see Mike in less than 3 months! Have a great weekend!

Giveaway at Jelby's!

My friend Shannon is so creative and talented! She is making Elise's Halloween costume and some teething rail guards (that match my bumper!) to protect her crib from her teeth. I will post pictures of both when she is finished. In the meantime, head on over to Jelby's and check out her burpies and dresses!

Pumpkin Patch

Sarah and I took the kiddos to the pumpkin patch this afternoon. It was so hot! We are going to take them back when they can wear fall clothes.

Who can resist this dashingly handsome young man? Hands off, he's taken!








On a side note (for the baby book), Elise has decided that the crib is for sitting or kneeling. I am sure that standing will come in the next 24 hours. She practiced walking around her crib yesterday while I folded clothes in her room. She woke me up crying at 5 a.m. this morning because she was sitting in her crib. Thankfully, she went back to sleep until 9. Then, about 5 minutes into her afternoon nap, she started fussing and I went in. She was kneeling holding on to the side of the crib. Her cruising has improved immensely since the video I took on Saturday. She pulls up on her Leapfrog table and cruises around it, the coffee table, the couches, etc. I feel like my job is now to walk my daughter. She also creeped across the living room to get to Boss... past the coffee table and in between the couch and end table. She even tried to follow him onto the tile and thought better of it. This is happening too quickly!

Cruising on video

Elise has been taking steps around the coffee table/entertainment cabinet/bed frame/couch/etc for a few weeks. She also will walk holding on to someone's hands. Another note for the baby book: On Thursday, she started trying to climb out of the bathtub. Tonight she pulled herself to a standing position in the bathtub briefly, and then almost face-planted into the side of the tub. Mommy has to be much more vigilant now!

I had trouble uploading a cruising video to this site but I was able to post one on Facebook for your viewing pleasure :)

Cruising

Elise has been experimenting with cruising (taking steps while holding on to furniture) for the last two weeks. She's started to instinctively take steps forward while standing and holding someone's hands. She does a little diagonal side step move to cruise along the coffee table, entertainment stand, and my bed frame. I got a GREAT video of it today, but as luck would have it, my loaner computer isn't cooperating and I can't upload it. I will try again soon. Today she also let go with both hands for a few seconds, held her balance, and then grabbed on to the coffee table again.

She's also waving more and talking all the time. If I say "mama, dada, baba, or gaga", she almost always babbles back at me.

On an unrelated note, here are some pictures we took in the backyard yesterday. It is getting much harder to get her to look at the camera. Here she is smiling at Boss...



Yay, I have 4 teeth!


Elise and John love to play together and take walks together...


Happy Thursday!

Elise update

Her fourth tooth popped through today, so now she has two on top and two on bottom. You can see the right one in this picture. She looks so much older with them! She's been getting better and better with walking along the coffee table, though I stay close by just to make sure she doesn't bite it. Even though she isn't crawling on all fours, she was creeping fast enough to be kicked out of the infant Sunday School class this morning. She is excited to join her buddy Josiah in the crawlers' class next week. She will take up to 2 crawling "steps" at a time before she plops down to her belly and scoots like a little inchworm :)

She is extremely talkative and loves to babble and just make noises. Here is a conversation we had on Saturday:

Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ma ma"
Me: "Good girl! Ma ma!"
Elise: "Ma ba ba"
Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ma ba ba"
Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ba ba ba ba ba ba BA BA BA BA BA"

I'll take what I can get.

Pet Peeves

Please take no offense to this post... these are just things that drive me crazy and I thought that I might post about something other than my daughter.

1. Spelling errors

I just passed by a banner outside a building on Trimmier Road in Killeen. It advertises weight loss with "no excercise"... seriously? Someone had to place the order for that banner AND someone else had to print it and neither of them caught it... really? My mom says that I've always been like this. I remember how names are spelled after seeing them just once, even if they have an unusual spelling. I never had to study for spelling tests and I don't think I've ever used spell check. Now, don't worry... I don't scrutinize emails, blogs, etc for errors... I just tend to notice them. I don't remember if you are supposed to underline or italicize book titles, so I may even be committing a grammatical error with the next sentence. I stopped reading the book Babywise II because it had so many spelling/grammatical errors in it. I really want to write a letter to the editor of that book and offer to edit it for them for some $$$ :)

2. Weeks/months calculation errors

This is a weird one and I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does. Maybe it is the math teacher in me? Pregnancy and early babyhood are both counted in weeks, so this has been a big pet peeve in the last year and a half. It drives me crazy when people only count 4 weeks in a month. Not all months are created equal. February isn't quite as cool as January because J has 3 extra days and also happens to be mine and Elise's birth month :) What about the 2-3 little days on the end that get left out? Not a big deal at one month, but they add up when you talk about multiple months. For example...there are 12 months in a year. Let us do a little math:

12 months = 52 weeks, so
6 months = 26 weeks and
3 months = 13 weeks

If you are 24 weeks pregnant, you are about 5.5 months pregnant, not 6 months pregnant.

Pregnancy is 40 weeks long. This is not equal to nine months or ten months (I have heard this a lot!), but if you deliver on your due date, you have been pregnant for 9 months and 1 week because...

9 months = 6 months + 3 months
9 months = 26 weeks + 13 weeks
9 months = 39 weeks

So, you are not nine months pregnant until you are one week shy of your due date. It seems like a lot of people complain about being 9 months pregnant for a month or so before the baby is born (I assume because 9x4=36). Yes, it is true that you are in your 9th month of pregnancy starting at almost 35 weeks, but you are not 9 months pregnant until you've reached the end of the 9th month. Similarly, I am in my 28th year of life, but you better believe that I'm not 28 years old until I've reached the end of it. Elise is in her 9th month of life, but she won't be 9 months old for several more weeks.

Again, please don't take offense to this post... but do make a comment and share your pet peeves :)