3/4 of a year!

EJB is 9 months old today! My 9 month old babbles a lot. Laughs even more. Crawls at an olympic pace. Climbs mountains (and by mountains we mean Mommy and Daddy). Stands unassisted for long periods of time. Takes a few steps here and there. Entertains herself for hours in the playroom. Dances (bobs up and down) to music. Holds her own bottle. Eats 30+ ounces of similac and 3 meals a day! Loves baby cheetos and sharing popcicles with her parents. Chases her puppy around the house. Loves to hold her baby doll and turn the pages when we read together.

Pictures of Betsy this morning.

She must be getting sleepy! She's tugging on the ear.

Who likes sitting? Not Betsy.


Big girl shoes

She's getting to be a big girl, but she still loves climbing in my lap for some snuggles

Betsy weekend pictures!

We had lots of quality playing time this weekend! Betsy had a play date with cousin Isaiah. I worked on decorating Betsy's playroom a bit. We practiced walking (over and over and over). These aren't the most exciting pictures ever, but you can tell how good Betsy has become at standing unassisted.

See the animals hanging on the chair railing around the room? They are applied with ticky tack so I can remove them when we use this room for parties. I need ideas for something else easy to hang (and removable) to go in the large space higher up. This room needs more color.

I added a cover for the TV table.

This storage unit has been a great way to organize all the smaller toys.

I found these three dimentional wooden animals at Hobby Lobby and hung them around the play room.

Babies shaking hands before the playing commences.

Stop pulling on my dress little dude!

All three of the kids. Maddie has finally gotten comfortable being close to the babies.

PUPPY! COME HERE!

Cousin's playing.

Stop standing up! Sit down and talk to me!

No, don't go Betsy. Let's play!

Classic Isaiah face. "What's that girl doing?"

I think they were both watching the Laurie Berkner DVD in this one.

Hey sweet Isaiah! Cutest cheeks ever. And he has 6 teeth! What a grown up little guy.

Look at those tired eyes! She's feeding herself a snack before hitting the hay.

Another moumental occasion, we installed the convertible car seat in my car! Betsy loves her new big girl seat. She falls asleep in it every time we put her in. And she keeps rubbing the sides with her hands, we suspect she is enjoying the soft fabric. Special thanks to my Nana, this car seat was a very generous gift from her.




I think Betsy's hair falls straight down, so I'm trying to train it to go to one side. Look at the twins in their matching hair bows.




I've discovered how much Ben LOVES Betsy in overalls. I think this is Daddy's favorite outfit.




When we got home from running errands yesterday Betsy was so hot! So we stripped her down to diaper and let her play half-nakie for a while.

Betsy walking

This is a very quick video of Betsy taking steps. It's still so exciting each time she takes a step! I suspect by the end of this week she'll be taking more than three at a time. The most we've seen in a row up to this point is five steps.

Walking! Walking!

It's true! Our little bitty 8 month, 3 week and 4 day old baby is walking! She started tonight, she wanted to hold her hairbrush so I handed it to her. She stood there, held her brush and took a couple steps to me! I put her back where she had been and she did it again. Ben and I took her in the living room and she walked from Ben to the couch several times.

I'm having a hard time believing this really happened. I endeavor to catch this fete on film tomorrow. AHHH!! I am so excited.

Babies and bruises

As I dropped Betsy off today and saw all the other little guys and gals running around the church I got to contemplating babies and bruises. I confess a month or two ago I debated ordering Betsy this helmet called the Thudguard infant safety helmet.



With the help of some mommy-friends of mine I overcame the urge, removed this item from my Amazon.com account, and allowed Betsy go about her business un-thud-guarded.

When she was first sitting up on her own, and when she was first pulling up on her own she was banging her head on stuff all.the.time. It scared me a great deal. Betsy has gotten much better and sitting, crawling, pulling up and even doing a little balanced standing on her own. She's figured out how to fall correctly without hurting herself (for the most part). And she's survived sans helmet.

What got me thinking about this is all the kiddos I saw with HUGE bruises and cuts on their foreheads. One who had a band aid across her nose with two black eyes. Yikes! Kids are resilient creatures. Betsy runs into things, throws her head back into stuff, sits down really hard and we think 'that's gotta hurt!' but she hardly seems to notice. I'm just going to hope she inherited enough coordination from Ben to not end up the black-and-blue kid every day on the playground. I mean, there's always the threat of playground bullies, but little Betsy has a posse to watch her back in those instances.

Type A tendencies

I get a little excited about the prospect of saving money. Especially on diapers. They are non-perishable. I know we're going to need them for another year. AND using my handy dandy growth chart I can pretty accurately guess what size Betsy will be in for a while.

Tax free weekend I stocked up (using coupons of course). Yesterday I hit Walmart and Target for their sales (plus store coupons, plus manufacturer coupons). And this weekend I hit Walgreen's to buy some store brand diapers (to be used at daycare because they change her almost hourly!).

Here's the result.



Also, I start Christmas shopping in JULY. I'm aware that's a little extreme, but we 'do Christmas really big' in my family and I love finding the perfect gifts for our family and friends. Here's the status of this year's Christmas stash.




Call me crazy, it worked out last year to be way ahead on Christmas because Betsy made an early arrival! I get anxious for the holiday season to start and this is my way of kicking it off early.

Baby pictures!!

I thought it was about time I got out some baby pictures and share them on the blog. Yep. Betsy still looks just like Ben. I do see my expressions every now and then. I tried to include pictures of Betsy's different expressions.


Little Ben








Baby Betsy












Little Shan






And for good measure, here's baby LAUREN (my sis) because some people say Betsy looks like she did.