9 Month Check-Up

Carly had her 9 month doctor's appointment today. Lucky for her today was shot free.

Stats from today's visit:
Weight - 19lbs 13oz (50 - 75th percentile)
Length - 28.25 in (50-75th percentile)
Head Circumference - 18.25 in (97th percentile)

Our discussion focused on her new found mobility, continuing her transition to table food, and her lack of teeth.

Fingers crossed that we won't go back until after she is ONE!! (SCARY)

A Step, or Two

This afternoon after the food had been put away and the crowd had left Carly decided to take her first few unassisted steps. She was busy showing off her cruising ability around our coffee table (since it was out, instead of pushed to the side like normal) and took two steps past where she could hold onto the table's edge. Unfortunately, she realized it after she was too far to grab back for it and fell forward (in a more graceful manner than I could have done). She repeated her steps a few hours later using our love seat as her walking off point, but hasn't done it again since. She must miss the large audience of family members to impress. Maybe she will deem Dave and I worthy enough to try again soon.

Baptism Weekend

Carly's Baptism weekend officially began on Wednesday with the arrival of her Aunt Julia and David taking the remainder of the week off (sort of) from work. The festivities though did not begin until Friday when more family arrived. Carly got to meet her Great Aunt Kit and Great Uncle Bill, and play with her Great Aunt Bubble and Grandma again. Carly enjoyed showing off her talents and favorite rooms in our house.

On Saturday she continued to show off her many talents (pulling up and cruising in particular) and her toys. David was able to get in two boat rides with his family. His first trip was a cruise of the lake, and the second was for some water skiing for Julia and Aunt Kit.

Sunday was the climax of our weekend. Carly awoke VERY happy and right on time. She played with her Dad and Aunt Julia while I made some final preparations for the party that followed the church service. Carly continued her happy mood into the church, even as she was being dressed. She sat and played with Aunt Kit and Julia during the first portion of service and was very alert while Dr. Cain walked around with her introducing her to our congregation. She was vocal while being baptized and enjoyed playing with her beautiful gown (made by her Grandma Orr) while we prayed for her. We followed up the service with a cook out with family and friends.



Thank you to everyone who helped make this weekend special for her.

9 Months

Carly has officially been in the outside world longer than she was inside of me. It is crazy to think about how we have known her longer than we spent anticipating her arrival. We don't go to the doctor until next Wednesday; however at the moment we know she is over 28 inches long, weighs more than 20 pounds, and is a cruiser.

At 9 months Carly is eating:
~ apples
~ avocado
~ banana
~ barley
~ blueberries (although the skin is hard for her to digest)
~ butternut squash
~ carrots
~ Cheerios
~ green beans (Gerber only)
~ oatmeal
~ peaches
~ rice cereal
~ yellow squash
~ yogurt (mixed with various fruits)
~ zucchini

At 9 months Carly makes sounds that sound like:
~ mamama
~ dadada
~ nana (banana)
~ aa don (all done)
~ a (hey)
~ hi Ake (Hi Jake)

At 9 months Carly's favorite toys are:
~ foam alphabet and number blocks
~ tiger piano and xylophone
~ shape wooden puzzles
~ plastic shapes and their bucket
~ Jake (although he runs away)
~ the stairs
~ the humidifier
~ board books
~ cabinets
~ her hands (she loves to applaud at herself)

At 9 months Carly can:
~ crawl
~ pull up on furniture, walls, people, toys
~ climb the stairs
~ open cabinets
~ feed herself (if she remembers to let go of the Cheerio)
~ feed Jake Cheerios (if she remembers to let go of the Cheerio)

Stair Climbing

Carly began her weekend by crawling over to the stairs and beginning to pull herself up on the bottom banisters. She would also cruise the bottom step, practice her squats, and then move on or be distracted by Jake. Sunday this all changed.

I came downstairs while she and David were playing in the family room. She spotted me and took off in her quick crawl. I started back up the stairs to finish getting ready as she approach the stairs. Out of curiosity David asked me to stop. He assisted her with the first step, then she crawled up the remainder solo. Although, I remained two steps ahead of her and David remained directly behind her the entire time. She then continued chasing me into the master bedroom.

We are in the process of determining the best way to baby proof the top and bottom of our staircase; however, she still isn't quick enough to get up a step before we would catch her.

Playing with the Big Boys

During our recent playgroup at my house Dave and I both noticed that Carly was a little pushy and snatchy. (Take in mind she was the oldest and everyone was playing with her toys.) Now this led to Dave asking a friend of ours who is a preschool teacher if this was a sign of her up and coming attitude, which he was reassured it was not. However, it led me to want to get her with older kids to push and snatch back. Which led us to today's playdate at the train table of BN.

Carly is pulling up and cruising around furniture really well, so I figured a train table would be no problem for her to cruise. This was in fact the case and within 2 minutes of cruising the train table she snatched a Thomas train right out of a toddler's hand. He wanted no part of it, snatched it back and turned away. His mom immediately started to reprimand him for not sharing with the baby (he did have about 1/2 of the table's train cars at this point), and I immediately began the lesson about not snatching to Carly.

Overall we had a fabulous time playing at the train table. The toddlers learned to push their trains past her quickly and then walk around her. If they used enough force and ran quickly enough, they could get back to their train without her getting her hands on all of it. They may have lost one car, so then they just took the one she originally had and added it to their collection. I think we will continue to play with the big kids so Carly will learn lessons about sharing and playing nicely with others quicker.

A Game of Cat and Mouse

Carly has enjoyed petting Jake and is really quite fascinated by him. Unfortunately now that she is mobile and he is recovering from surgery (and no longer on pain medicine) he is not interested in her. She will crawl towards Jake, pet him for a few moments, then when it is safe he BOLTS. This lasted all afternoon, and was a blast to watch. Jake did get smarter as the day progressed. When Carly got into his non-peripheral vision(the head cone currently limits his vision) he would immediately leave and go into another room.

So all afternoon Carly was the cat, and Jake was the mouse. And their game of Cat and Mouse kept them both entertained until the afternoon thunderstorm hit.

Clever Suggestion

This post is for nursing & pumping moms...

Yesterday during Carly's playgroup another mom mentioned a storage method for pumped milk that I LOVED!! Instead of freezing and storing her milk in the plastic milk storage bags, she poured the milk into ice cube trays. Each ice cube section is 1 oz; therefore she was creating ounce cubes. Then when the tray is frozen she dumped the cubes into a zip lock bag and labeled it. This allowed her to easily pull out the cubes as needed. For example - when Carly was 6 months she drank 5oz bottles, now that she is 8 months she is drinking 6 - 7 oz bottles and uses 2 oz in her cereal. However, my milk is all frozen in 5oz increments. I also think this would save a lot of money, those freezer storage bags are expensive.

Fun Times

Carly hosted a play date again today. This time we had 5 girls and 2 boys, which resulted in a lot of fun, a lot of noise, and a huge mess. Everyone seemed to have a fantastic time, Carly expressed her enjoyment with an afternoon nap.
Thank you to everyone who made it out, we had a wonderful time!!

New Tricks

On Saturday evening Carly demonstrated a new trick for her Daddy and I while we were preparing dinner.


So on Sunday her Daddy showed her a new trick of his own by installing cabinet locks.


We really have quite the little mover and cruiser now. She is more interested in pulling herself up using different furniture and walls than her toys. Occasionally she will crawl to a spot with a toy in her hand, pull up, bend down and pick up the toy, and play with the toy on the elevated surface (coffee table, love seat, sofa, etc).
She is also very interested in opening and shutting doors and cabinets. During our story time at the library we sing a song to start and end this time. During the song we sing "open, shut them..." and open our hands and then bring them together to shut them. We have also been singing this song at home and Carly will mimic the hand motions on occasion. I'm thinking there may be a correlation between the two events; however, if there isn't then I'm trying to help her develop this connection.
Luckily she is currently not interested in the items in the cabinets and closets; however, I do know it is only a matter of time.

Wordless Wednesday (literally)

I can't hear you. Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

Happy Birthday America!!

In "my world" birthdays are celebrated for longer than a day, maybe a weekend or two or over the entire month as you celebrate will different family members. So it makes a lot of sense to me that we would celebrate America's birthday for at least 4 days. Our celebrations started Friday with Dave working the afternoon from home and dinner out at our favorite pizza restaurant in town. I then ventured out to Wal-mart (nothing is more American than that store) for a restock the pantry shopping trip.

Saturday, Dave washed and waxed the boat for majority of the day in preparation for an evening cruise with more good friends. We boated to many of our favorite spots, while Carly took a nap in my arms and played with our friend Jason. Upon arriving home we had a yummy grilled dinner and headed out for a firework show. Carly really enjoyed the firework show, although I think Dave and I enjoyed it more. Two blocks away from where the fireworks were going to be is a yummy ice cream stand. During dinner we made the plan to go to the ice cream stand right before the show was to begin and eat ice cream while watching the show. Many others seemed to have the same idea, so we didn't look out of place with our chairs, blanket, toys for Carly, and water cooler for us. Carly continued to play waiting on the show and then watched the show intently in the beginning. Then she decided to multi-task by playing and watching the show.


Sunday got off to a slow/delayed start thanks to Saturday's fireworks show. However, once we were up, we were up. We watched our neighborhood's Fourth of July bike parade, although there were lots of wagons, motorized bikes, scooters, walkers, and two firetrucks!!


Following the parade we strolled down to the pool for a yummy hotdog (or two) and to celebrate.

A short nap by Carly was followed by a trip to a friend's house for a cookout and yummy smoked ribs. Carly also was able to make a new friend who is only a few days younger than she is.

Today was more relaxed. We made trips to both home improvement stores, had slow cooker BBQ, did some planting, cleaning, etc.

Happy Birthday weekend America!!

Helping Mom