It's Baby Girl

Last week Lissy turned 10 months, so it's probably time for her 9 month update. And wow, she is a different kid . . .

Lissy became a mobile little woman just before 9 months. She approached it differently than the boys. Instead of going from a creep to a crawl, she stretched out her sitting more and more until she did an effective bum scoot, and now a crawl. At her well child check (9.5 months) she weighed 18 lbs 11 oz, was 27.5 inches long,  and was well. Well except that her iron is way low, so we'll see how these delicious drops do as far as helping.

Elisabeth gets around fast, and has now added climbing up the stairs to her skillz. She's so little and our stairs are so steep, it's scary. She loves dancing, and when some music comes on she will start bobbing her head and waving her arms. She even knows if she crawls over to the stereo and bangs around on it, she will get music. It's hard to stop her from doing that during the prayer. She has 8 teeth, and it looks like numbers 9 through 12 are getting ready to pop through. She waves night-night and good-bye, and babbles mom-mom a whole lot. Coincidence? Hard to tell. She pulls herself up on stuff, and when she pulls herself up in her crib only her eyes stick out at the top. Gary says that's why he doesn't take her seriously. He also ran upstairs to buy a new charger for our Flip camcorder when he watched Lissy trying to walk (while holding my hands). She actually balanced on her two feet by herself for the first time a few weeks ago . . . AAAH, she wants to be big! Cute, but come on girl, you are my baby . . .

This is Lissy at just about 7 months, right before the camera went wacky. When we  found the camera, I found a few pictures . . .

Yes, the camera went nuts, but see how excited she was to be in this pillow palace . . .

Right before 9 months, making her first mess! 

I tried to get some good shots of Lissy around 8 1/2 months. I took a lot of pictures, and I am showing restraint by only showing these . . . I know there are a lot, but they each show different little facets of Lissy.

The kids in the neighborhood were very interested in me taking pictures of Lissy, and wanted to be a part of it. Good. We never get pictures of these kids who are always running around outside our house with my boys.

This is a good shot of how she approached crawling. No army  crawls or belly scoots like the boys.

And finally some more recent photos showcasing the skills. 9 and a half to 10 months.

She's officially a real kid - she loves to get into the dishwasher. And so proud, too . . .

Just in the middle of pulling herself up . . .

From Gary's cell phone - on her way up the stairs . . . we're scared, but she loves it.

Celebrating the summit.

We love this little girl! I was a bit scared to have a girl, if you recall, and was totally fine with all boys. Obviously, Lissy changed that. She squeaks and squeals like a girl and hugs a fuzzy, pink baby doll. She is also much smaller than the boys at this age. The other day I was cooking dinner, and had on some music. A slow song came on, so I thought I should do some ballet with/for her. I was just being silly, but she LOVED it, and did some movement of her own. She was just standing there so petite and cute . . . IT'S A GIRL!

Unrelated to any of the rest of this post, let's end with Andrew since this picture was with the stair crawling. He didn't want us to forget him! He calls this, "Spiky fingers."

Fire Truck Museum

One summer day, we went with some friends to the fire truck museum. Just look at the pictures - yes, the kids were in heaven!

There was one firetruck they let the kids play on, and play they did!

The babies were funny - just observing everything.

Baby Steps to Being Michael Phelps

Future Olympians can't just practice swimming, they have to get themselves in the superhero mind-frame. The thing I love about having my kids with me at home on beautiful summer days is that they can run out into the back yard and do just that. Mornings in our backyard are perfect. The afternoons are horribly hot, but this is about superheroes-in-training. Behold.

Okay, state of mind is down, next is swim lessons. Josh was very pumped to be in level 2, while Andrew was pumped to not be left out this year. As I mentioned, Kayla visited us mid-swim lessons, so we got to do some extra swimming with her.

Josh with his class. His teacher told the kids they were supposed to bring muffins for him, and they believed it. I almost really brought him muffins because he was so good with the kids, but ran out of time.

Andrew and Noah were in the same preschool-swimming class.

This babe likes Aunt Kayla.

The boys loved to look for fish in the lake after lessons.

The next thing you should do to prepare for the Olympics is to find a comfortable position from which to study the Olympics.

Josh, in the perfect position to study the Olympics.

Check out that concentration.

Graduating from Level 2 and preschool-swim is a big step along the path to success.

Freshly graduated and rewarded with popsicles.

Of course, practice makes perfect. On the last day we all went back later that night with Gary. My heart feels content just thinking about being with my family at the pool on that perfect evening. Sigh. Love it.

Could this picture sell Target swimsuits?

He smiles like a champion, anyway.

Noah properly fetched the diving ring 

Josh was very proud of this "dive."

It's suddenly-no-fear Noah!

Andrew always wants Gary to tie his towel like Dad's.

Can't go home until you use your towel as a cape while running down the hills a few times.

Winning formula?