Scary Grass

I have been usually busy all week, and felt like I wasn't there for Summer. On Thursday I had an IT emergency and was on the phone all night, and on Friday I worked until 7:00, luckily Kris didn't mind and on Saturday I spent all day with Summer. We hung out a lot, crawled around, took some pictures, went grocery shopping, took a nap together, took a bath, and even shared some food, I gave her some of my pancakes for breakfast (no syrup) and some of my peas for dinner. It was a great bonding day and today I feel like she is my baby! She has started to give kisses on request, well most of the time, ok just sometimes, but they are wide open and slobbery kisses so sometime will work for now. She is also saying bye and starting to wave, I caught her on video yesterday saying bye, you can look at it on youtube, just look up jesca4u to see all of my videos. The photo shoot yesterday was ok, no great photos but I did catch a good shot of Summer in the grass, holding both of her feet up and one arm. I will set her in the grass in a crawl position and she will balance herself on two knees and one hand while holding everything else up. She has crawled in the grass before so I am not sure where this new fear came from, but it is so cute! No plans for today, hanging out together again, probably get some more photos. I just finished the third three month shutterfly book, months seven, eight and nine, and plan on printing that out next month. I love looking back through the books and see how much she has changed, have you seen this kids bangs, her hair has really grown a lot, I have to scoot her bangs to the side so they don't get in her eyes.
I still cannot believe that I have a baby, and that I am a mommy, and that Summer is my daughter. Surely this will change eventually right? At some point it has to stop feeling so weird and seem normal right? I love the feeling I get when I look at my little, or really big girl, and I am so glad I did this. It helps that I have such a great husband to help make me a better mother. I can't wait for my first mother's day, I plan on spending all day with my daughter!

Out to eat

Friday night we went out to eat, a Mexican place, and as we were sitting down at the table, getting Summer situated in her high chair, she manages to grab the two glass plates on the side of the table, hold them up for a few seconds and drop them onto the tile floor, CRASH. It was really loud but only one broke. We continued as normal, Summer was great during the rest of the dinner and the food was delicious. It is darn amazing how quick a 9 month old can be. Not much else happened this week, Summer had a few great night sleeping all night, but last night she woke up a lot and ruined the bragging streak. She is down to 3 bottles a day now, she weaned herself off the 4th, she has a bottle at 6 am, 12 pm and 8 pm. We are still feeding her breakfast and dinner but giving her larger portions, and trying to give her more table foods. Because of her we will probably have spegetti every week now because she likes the noodles. We are planning a trip to the zoo today, the zoo is very small in town but it should be fun enough and hopefully I will get some pictures. This morning I blew up 80 ballons and let Killer loose, he wasn't as excited as I thought and only ended up popping half of them. I used the rest for a photo shoot but the sun wasn't out and Summer was tired so the pictures weren't my favorite, but I still had fun taking them.

9 Months

Summer is 9 months today!!! We have no doctors appointment until she turns 12 months so here is what I measured. 22.5 pounds (and I rounded down) holy CRAP she is huge. I thought she might be 21 pounds, I didn't realize she gained so much in one month, and 29 inches tall- which is the same for the past 2 months, unless I measured wrong, which I probably did, using a measuring tape isn't easy at home but I guess that is still pretty tall. She is crawling, pulling herself up onto everything, and as of yesterday, started opening drawers. Last night Summer opened up the bottom drawer in the bathroom and was playing with all of my hair items, clips, bows, rubber bands, and this morning she learned how to open the drawer with all of our spoons, here is a video. After Cliff saw her in the drawers he decided he needs to baby proof more, so he went to Lowes to get some clips to fix the cabinets. I thought we had more time, apparently not. I cannot imagine how difficult it will be once she starts walking.
Summer is drinking 3 or 4 (8-oz) bottles a day, on some days she only has 3. She eats a large breakfast of rice or oatmeal and fruit and a plastic 4 oz container of vegetables for dinner. I think I will start introducing a regular lunch around 10 months. I am slowly introducing table foods, last week Summer has spegetti and ate them just fine, she has also had some pancakes (no syrup) and lots of soft veggies. When she wakes up from her nap I will give her some baby yogurt, only half so I can eat the rest. Summer will drink from a sippy cup if we help her, but she hasn't figured out that she has to tip it up to get the water yet. She has her two bottom teeth and one on top, the left, but his morning we noticed the top right is very white and puffy so I expect that one to poke through real soon.
For her 9 month birthday I bought her a tutu from walmart for $8.00. I tried to get a few photos today, some were cute. I tacked one pink blanket on the wall and laid another one on the floor and tried to keep her centered, as you can probably imagine, she doesn't like to stay still anymore, so I will take more photos again later, the tutu is really big so we have a lot of time.
She is still such a great baby. She is talking all the time, making all kinds of crazy sounds. We pretend we know what she is saying, and she thinks she is saying something and keeps going, it is so cute.
We went to a pet-a-palooza yesterday and I can honestly say I have never seen so many dogs in one place, it was amazing. Not any of the dogs fought. My poor little guy was exhausted, and twice rode in the stroller, once I held Summer while he rode up top and once he rode in the bottom basket underneath the stroller. We stayed about 2 hours and had to leave, I was fried from being in the sun all day. Summer did great, she just rode around in her stroller looking at all the dogs, never making a sound. I actually was watching Killer more than Summer because I had to keep his leash from getting tangled around himself, her stroller, my legs, other dogs, etc. Luckily when I got home yesterday Kris watched Summer while I took an hour nap to recover.

and then there were three

Friday night I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked if Summer had any new teeth, to which I replied no still the same bottom two. As I was saying this I was feeling Summer's gums (she was in the bathtub next to me) and sure enough the top left tooth had popped through. I am amazed that Summer has not been cranky, feverish, no diarrhea, or have any other teething signs, besides the constant slobbering for the past month. I am glad she has another tooth, I was so excited, as excited as her first. I hope the top right comes in soon so she looks balanced.
I took some photos last week, I love the way the farmer hat look turned out, Summer barely let me keep the hat on to take pictures, but it was long enough to get a few great shots. Notice the rash on her chin from slobbering, we bought some cream and it seems to be working, which is good because I just went to k-mart and bought a bunch of new outfits! K-mart had about 3 or 4 sale racks with $2.99 on them, so I found a few 12 and 18 month outfits and I also found a really cute little hat, of course I picked up some every day outfits too. Grandpa also bought Summer two new very nice activity toys that should keep her busy during the day while she is in her room. You should see her room now, it looks like a big room full of baby toys. There is so much room because her crib and her changing table are down in our room, Summer has the entire floor to move around. She is still pulling up all the time, which is another reason for the new activity toys, it will give her something to pull up on.
This morning Summer woke up at 6:00 am and had her bottle. She normally goes back to sleep but this morning she decided to be a stinker. Kris and I put her in bed with us and for 45 minutes she played. We finally turned on the TV and she started watching Disney. At about 7:15, in the middle of the Wiggles, she plopped over onto her side and was fast asleep. It was hilarious, Kris said the Wiggles put her to sleep, but she wasn't really to get up so early in the first place. Of course Kris nor I could go back to sleep, so I am really dragging today. Kris served me french toast in bed while I flipped channels and at 8:00 Summer woke up for the day with a big smile on her face.

Sleeping on the Back

Summer did not want to go to sleep last night, and she is getting a little attitude about laying on her back, I mean come on kid, you slept on your back for the first six months of your life, what is wrong with your back? I mean, I don't mind if you want to sleep on your stomach, but I have to lay you in your crib on your back and you can roll over and get comfy, you don't have to do it in a way that says, mommy you are an idiot, and immediately fling yourself over onto your side and act like I don't know what I am doing .... SHEESH

Easter

Happy Easter everyone! Another great weekend is almost over, great, very great, Summer slept in until 8 each morning, and was in a great mood all weekend. On Saturday we met Casey and Ana and headed to the park to meet other mommies for Easter weekend. All the kids had a blast, they hunted eggs and did egg races, it was fun to watch. There were a lot of babies at the park this time, at least 10 of us sat out on the grass on blankets watching our little ones try to play with each other while they ate everything they weren't suppose to put in their mouth. It is always nice getting together with other mommies and babies to compare notes and see how different each baby is, I look forward to these days. After the park Casey and I hit up a Mexican restaurant, we were both starving and exhausted. Unlike me, I didn't take very many pictures at the park, but we still had a fun day, the weather was beautiful. This picture is Summer, Ana and two other little girls, one was 12 months the other was 10.
Earlier today Cliff and I took Summer to church. It was a special Easter service and the choir sang a lot of songs. Summer enjoyed the music and was overall quiet. She did talk 2 or 3 times and ended up getting a nice loud case of the hiccups, but that is to be expected during church. This is a photo of Summer and I before church, all dressed up and ready to go.
This week Summer has really started pulling her self up and for a brief moment, standing. I don't think she is ready to start walking, she needs to work on crawling some more, but she loves to stand up, and if she can do it on her own, it makes her really happy. We sat outside a lot this week, the weather has been beautiful, and Summer loves to much on leaves. Of course I try to take them all away from her but I bet she slipped in some fiber when I wasn't looking. We tried frozen mangos earlier today and she loved those, has the stains all over her collar to prove it. I am making stew in the crock pot right now and for dinner I want to give her some of the veggies (green beans and carrots) and see how she does, they are really mushy so she should do good. Kris and I think Summer is starting to talk and repeat what we say. I think she is saying Baby or A B C and Kris thinks she might be saying Paci, she has really started speaking a lot more this week and it seems to be clearer and actually sounds like words. She was grumpy one day last week while I was at work and Kris called me and she was wining "mama" and I wanted to come home so bad, she is so sweet when she talks. Right now Summer is on the floor crawling all around my desk. Earlier this week Cliff saw how good she was crawling and we had to go to Lowes so he could buy a gate for the upstairs, and I am glad, she is really all over the place right now, in fact I don't think that plant stand is safe anymore ... where am I going to put it. Till next week!

8 Months

On Thursday Summer celebrated another monthly birthday and turned the big "8 MONTHS". Daddy took some photos and I updated her weight/height (20.5 pounds, 29 inches) and her baby book. I also printed the photos and updated her monthly photo frames. Only 4 more photos to go and she will be a year, it is crazy how fast time flies. We went to walmart this morning and as I was looking through the baby section I saw a preemie outfit and told Kris that I missed some of Summer's "infanthood". He said I was there every day and I didn't miss anything, but she is growing up so fast, of course she was not a preemie, but I can't remember her wearing clothes so small, especially now that she is wearing 12 months + it seems she is even older than she is.
Easter is fast approaching and we started taking the easter photos. Daddy did some great photos in the yard, this one is probably one of my favorites.
Earlier today Summer and I went and visited with Casey and Anastasia and we had so much fun. Both girls are getting so big it is amazing how they are doing everything around the same time. We decided to take photos and got some awesome shots, I like the way this one turned out. We had a great day together with the girls, they were wonderful together and it is always fun comparing notes with each other. We are going to get together again next weekend and head to the park for some easter fun.
While visiting with the girls, Casey gave me a pack of mums for Summer. I grabbed a burger on the way home and decided to give Summer the mum to distract her. She loved it and ate the whole thing and didn't even make a mess with it like I thought (thanks Casey) so I will be buying some of these next time I get to the store!

Summer has started really crawling, not just scooting, she is really able to get around wherever she wants to go, and she is beginning to really push herself up onto things. She is also babbling all the time now, and we can't understand her but we make words or short sentences out of the sounds she makes, it is so cute. Soon she won't be my little baby she will be a little girl that can walk and talk and think all on her own.