Sophie at 9 months

Well here I am writing Sophie's 9 months post just a few days shy of 9 1/2 months...it's been a busy September, what can I say?

trying to make Sophie's Ergo-chewing face

This little monkey is into everything and is moving everywhere. 

 

Sorry for the poor quality photos.  I barely remembered to get these 9 month pictures as it was, and it was in the evening so the lighting was terrible. 

Just 2 days before she turned 9 months, Sophie was hanging out with Chris and I in the evening and doing her best to convince us that she deserved a later bedtime than her sisters (read: she wouldn't go to sleep).  She was goofing around and cruising around all the furniture as she had been for a month/month and a half, and then she just decided it was time to stand.  She put her hands up in the air and stood just for maybe 2-3 seconds.  We looked at each other as if to say, "Did that really just happen? Or are we just that tired too?"  And she went about her business.  But about 5 minutes later, she was cruising along the couch and lifted up her hands again and stood for a good 20 seconds before plopping onto her big diapered bottom.  

 

And now she attempts free-standing often throughout the day.  She has even attempted to take a step, but has not been successful on that milestone to date.  When Grammy and Granddad were here last week, she was also working on standing and then squatting down and popping back up again to standing.  She's great at part 1: standing and then squatting for a bit, but usually when she tries to stand back up from squatting, she loses her balance and falls on her bum.  Sophie is also attempting to stand from sitting position and is quite close to that feat.  

 

More awesome quality photos.  haha!

Just after she turned 9 months, I noticed that she had added two new teeth to her collection for a total of 8.  Four on top, four on bottom.  And currently she has the cutest gap between her top front middle teeth.  It's delicious.  I could just eat her up especially when she gives me a sweet, toothy grin.  

Girl can eat!

She still enjoys a good amount of breastmilk, but eats about two meals a day (partial meals anyway) in her chair at the table.  Her favorites these days include soft, sweet cantaloupe, blackberries or blueberries, and applesauce and oatmeal (the big person kind, not that weird baby stuff).  

She also likes avocados, tomatoes, mixed veggies (I throw these in a blender for a quick second) and she is allowed to gnaw on raw carrots (that I cut up) and apple slices if I'm around and watching.  I know many a person who would balk at that, but we keep an eye on her and she uses her teeth very well.  The carrots especially are great because they keep her busy, but they are hard enough that she can only gnaw off a little bit and once.  The apples I have to watch more closely because she can chomp into them more and get more in her mouth at once, which could then potentially be a choking hazard if we aren't there to slow her down and make sure she doesn't stuff more in to an already full mouth.  

You can see that nice gap between her front teeth

Sophie is an expert crawler.  If you turn your back for a second, she'll be across the room.  She likes sand, when people "chase her" (get down and crawl after her), climbing up the stairs (when we allow her to), and giggling.  She loves Mommy best and is in Mommy-anxiety-mode.  If she is tired, she wants me, she gets annoyed when I leave especially for more than a quick trip to the store.  

She is babbling a lot and "singing" to us these days which is totally adorable.  And she smiles and smiles and smiles.  She is a gem.  

We love you, Miss Sophie Rose!

You are such a delight to us all.  So blessed that God gave us you!

Sophie at 11 months....

....and by 11 months, I mean Sophie will be 12 months (yes, 1 YEAR!) in 5 days, so I may be just a tad late in getting this 11 month post written.............

 

Why yes, the pictures are also less than stellar quality.  This just wasn't my month.  haha...... Every time I remembered to try to take the "11 month" pictures, it was evening so the lighting was terrible.  Additionally, she WOULD NOT lay down and let me get a picture showing how tall she is...the two above were the only ones I snapped that weren't blurry because she just kept moving all over the place. 

Technically this post is an update on the time between her 10th and 11th month...so that would have been the 2nd half of October through the first half of November...let me see if I can remember that far back.  ha!

During that time, she worked a lot on stabilizing her walking abilities.  At 10 months, Sophie was just taking steps.  Pretty much right after I wrote that post, she took off in her walking abilities.  She began walking across the room (taking more like 20 steps at a time before falling on her bum).  And when she would fall, she would push right back up and walk again.  This was a month where her diaper saw the floor a lot, but by 11 months, she was already a pretty stable walker.  

No one ever expects her to be walking nor are they looking for a little peanut of a baby when they are walking, so I have to keep a constant eye on her when I put her down because it's easy for people to trip over her.  

 

She's eating everything these days.  At 11 months, she had 8 teeth, and she knows how to use them.  She can eat apple slices, carrots sticks, raisins, and pasta (not that that is all she eats...).  Her favorites this month included graham crackers, oatmeal with applesauce, avocados, and mac and cheese. 

 

She is a happy little clam for the most part.  These pictures are pretty much the faces she makes for the majority of the day.  She now has a "lovey" which (randomly enough) is an old nightgown of Kayla's.  She is still a thumb sucker and when we give her her "blankie", she snuggles up and sucks her thumb.  It's adorbs (yep, I said it.  THIS is when the use of that term is totally appropriate).  

She loves clapping and dancing (especially to this cute little musical card that Chris' grandmother sent her out of the blue).  And she's smart as a whip.  She recognizes the card and knows that when it opens it makes music.  She's already dancing as she opens it each time in anticipation of the music that is coming...

She loves her sisters though she also likes them to give her some space now that she's on the move constantly.  She doesn't really like anyone to hold her back.  

Still in size 3 diapers, though she should probably be in 4-- but dang it, we are using up that box of 3's I bought first.  

At 11 months, she was busting out of the 9 months outfits, so about a week ago we moved her into 12 month stuff.  

She babbles and laughs and smiles ALL. THE. TIME.  

We love you, Sophie Pants, and can't wait to celebrate your first year of life in just a few short days!

Sophie at 6 months

The Sophinator is 6 months (actually she is getting closer to 7 months now, but you know how I am about posting pictures late...)

She is still a little Mary Poppins--practically perfect in every way.  

Sophie has tried a few bites of food here and there at the table (watermelon, blueberries, pizza crust, beans...), but we haven't made the jump to actually starting the whole solid foods phase yet.  Perhaps sometime in the next few weeks we'll let her try baby oatmeal and see what she thinks.  

She's happy and healthy, and still has only her two bottom front teeth.  

She is still gnawing away on everything.  

like her toes....

A woman I met at the Catholic Blogging Conference sent this teething ring she made to me.  

Sophie likes it - can you tell?

Sophie is not truly crawling yet, though she is up on all fours all the time now and lunging forward to grab toys and spinning herself around in circles.  She makes pretty quick tracks to get where she wants, but no official crawling yet.  I am constantly having to send Kayla over to move her back onto her playmat because she gets around the room so quickly though.  

She also likes to do airplanes, so we know the girl has got some abs!  

She babbles to anyone who will stop to listen.  Kayla especially loves when Sophie "talks" to her.  She giggles and squeals with delight which makes Sophie do the same.  

Sophie is still a most excellent sleeper.  She naps in the pack-n-play in our room.   At night, Sophie spends most of the night in the crib.  She and Ava are roommates.  She usually goes to sleep around 9 or 9:30pm and sleeps until about 3 or 4am before she wakes up to eat and then go back to sleep for another 3-4 hours.  She usually takes some amount of morning nap (often in the Ergo because we like to go to the park or the library in the mornings).  

She loves when Kayla reads to her (but tries to eat the books)

I said she gnaws on EVERYthing.

She likes Daddy 

Who doesn't?

Sophie can now sit up (mostly assisted still) and she also likes to go back and forth between the crawl position (all fours) to the sitting position.  We laugh because she likes to go back and forth between those two, and at this moment in time she's not excellent at either.  She is not quite crawling nor is she quite sitting on her own with confidence.  But she clearly has motivation and isn't going to let anything stop her.  I will be quite surprised if she isn't both crawling and sitting up steadily in the next 2-3 weeks.  We'll see.  

Sophie likes: 

smiles, toes, giggles, her family, sleeping, and her thumb. 

31 Days of Gratitude- {Day 16} -Sophie at 10 months

Oh my goodness; this girl!

I am on the ball this month getting Sophie's monthly update post up here just 3 days after she hit the 10 month mark.  Normally it's at least one or two (or three!) weeks late....

So in her 9 month post, she had just begun free-standing.  

It didn't take her long to figure out that the next step to take was to take a step (see what I did there?) and she tried unsuccessfully for awhile.  She waited until just after her Cincinnati grandparents left and then finally had a successful walking attempt right around the 9 1/2 month mark (so right at the end of September).  

We count the first official steps when she gets 2-3 fairly steady steps before falling down or falling into your arms, but I don't consider her to be truly walking yet.  She hasn't made it all the way across the room or anything yet.  She is up to about 5 steps now before she gets really wobbly and falls down and/or stops and thinks to herself, "I can crawl so fast; why am I doing this walking thing right now anyway?"  haha, on that note, she is a speed crawler and I have to constantly remind the girls to close the lid on the toilet (quickly!) and to close doors behind them when we have Sophie in any of the upstairs rooms.  One of her favorite new tricks is playing in the toilet water when the girls leave the lid open.  

 

Another new milestone: our little Sophie-bean began clapping this month.  

She generally has a big goofy grin on her face and says, "Yay!!" at the same time. It is super de duper cute! Sophie started that somewhere right around 9 1/2 months.  She has also been trying to wave which is mostly just putting her hand up and then saying, "Hiiii!".

Like this.  "Hiiiii!"

She's is eating anything and everything.  Literally.  

The other day she was trying to eat dirt and leaves outside.  Inside I have to keep the floors spotless or she will scrounge for whatever table scraps the kids have dropped.  In other words, she is often found scrounging under the table because I can't keep the floor that clean.  Fortunately it's usually just cheerios anyway.  I have to have the bigger girls do "crayon checks" on the floor every time they color though because that is Sophie's favorite chew toy if she finds one lying around.  ugh. 

I'm so bummed that these were both a little blurry.  It is so hard to get her to sit still AND look at the camera AND not shake while I'm taking the picture too....haha

Sophie got a cold the last few days and is a total sad sack about it.  Her little nose is super runny, but she hates to have it wiped.  Chris has been out of town for several days on business and (of course!) she was up for half the night for several of the nights he was gone.  But in keeping with the theme and trying to find what I have to be grateful for in that situation: I'm so grateful that Chris will be home tonight.  I'm so grateful that there were no hospital visits or other problems other than discomfort and lack of sleep.  I'm grateful for all the precious sick snuggles I got this week.  

 

This girl is full of giggles and squeals and she loves music.  Any and all.  If it's got a rhythm she will be groovin' to the beat and bouncing her little bum up and down.  

Being the 4th kiddo, she is content to be carried around in the Ergo for long periods of time, but she also likes to be free to crawl and cruise after her sisters.  And now that she is getting more steady with her steps, I'm sure it'll be no time before she's full-on walking trying to keep up.  

We love, you Sophsie, and you are such a sweet and joyful addition to our family.  Don't know what we'd do without you.  

 

Sophie - 3 months

Ta-da! Sophie is already 3 months (a few days over at this point)!

Stats from her 2 1/2 month appointment:

Weight: 12 lbs. 3 oz.  

Height: 22 inches

Head circumference: 38 cm

At this age, she is smaller than both Kayla and Elise were at this age, and likely quite similar to how large Ava was at this age.  Kayla weighed 12 lbs. 8 oz and was 22 1/2 inches at her 2 month appointment.  Elise was well over both of them at 13.75 lbs and 23 3/4 inches at 2 months.  Ava was only 11 lbs. 9 oz and 22 inches at her 2 month appointment, so she and Sophie were probably close to the same size around 2 1/2 months.  

    

Sophie moved into 3 month clothing right around the 3 month mark.  Of course, she's still exclusively breastfeeding and sleeps in a variety of positions.  She sleeps best on her tummy, but also sleeps in her little monkey seat/bassinet (we aren't really sure what to call it; we got it from friends just before she was born).  And sometimes she sleeps in my arms as well.  We are now transitioning her to sleep at night with all her sisters.  That should be interesting, but the first few night have been pretty good on her end.  Ava has a cold, so she's woken up crying a few times, but Sophie slept through most of it, which is pretty impressive.

I bathe her in the sink because our space is small here and I don't really have extra room for the baby tub, so it sits up in the girls' closet and she gets her bath the (somewhat) old-fashioned way. 

Sophie loves listening to Daddy play and falls asleep to the music about 5 minutes in.  

She was our "chaperone" when Chris and I went to Valiant for their 2nd Anniversary (more on that in another post).  She took a nice nap in the Bjorn and held onto my crucifix and miraculous medal.  The rest of the time she sat making faces at anyone who walked by.  

She continues to be a very good sleeper.  Her only "fussy" times are at bedtime when she wants to be held facing out and walked around and around the room.  Then she usually drifts off and is asleep for 5-6 hours, so one can't really complain too much.  She often naps on her tummy in the middle of our bed (with pillows along the sides because she can already move forward using her legs).  I have to check her often because it's only a matter of time until that option will not be possible anymore.  

On that note, Sophie rolled over (from back to tummy) for the first time on St. Patrick's Day. We had just arrived back from our St. Paddy's day picnic at the park and I put her on her floormat (borrowed from a friend) and she just rolled over.  

Here she is thinking about rolling over.  I didn't catch a video of it, but I will. 

She holds her head up well and is very alert when she's awake.  Most of the time she's "talking" (loud coos) as well.  It's especially cute when she talks to her sisters.  

Can't wait to see what she learns and accomplishes this month!

Kolbe 10 to 11 months

I kept meaning to write this post in mid-June as Kolbe approached 10 months, but with the move and packing and everything else we had going on, I just never got around to it.  So now it has turned into a post telling about Kolbe's last 2 months or so.  

The first video in his exersaucer is from early June just after he turned 9 months.  The other videos are from early July just after we moved into our new house and just after he turned 10 months old.  They are cute and show a few snippets of where he was at during that time.  He took his first steps at our rental house sometime in June, and began standing for various lengths of time, usually 5 seconds or less.  Part of me kept hoping he'd start walking before our move just to slow him down a little.  He crawls so quickly and has a love affair with the staircase, so I was at my wits end trying to keep him contained and pack.  Luckily, Kayla was a pretty big help in the Kolbe entertainment department.  

       

  Just after we moved in and he hit the 10 month marker, Kolbe began standing for long periods of time and was able to steady himself and hold the standing position when he began to fall.  He also began taking more steps and by the end of July ( 11 months) has taken up to 11 steps.  

       

       


        

These videos crack me up because he was needing a nap and was totally tired, but despite his tiredness he was still standing and balancing and showing me his 10+ months skillz.  ;)  Plus he saw the graham crackers and wanted them bad.  haha.  

        

 

In case you hadn't noticed, our son rarely wears pants.  His thighs are enormous and it's summer and he's a little guy.  A million reasons why it's just not worth it.  

During the 10-11 month phase, this little guy started devouring everything in sight.  I couldn't put the groceries away fast enough and he'd find things to stick in his mouth.  He also discovered his intense love for graham crackers during this time.  He still loves applesauce, but also enjoys many other fruits cut up in pieces, crackers, bread, and pasta.  

 

The picture on the right is to highlight Kolbe's amazing hair.  It's always been thin and light, but now that summer is here, it is totally blonde. And it blows in the wind.  It's the cutest thing in the world when he's outside or near a fan to see his little wisps of hair blowing and that smile with his tongue hanging out.  

 

He is his father's son.  He grabbed Chris' empty beer bottle one day and knew exactly what to do.  Smart little guy pays attention!  Honestly, he just knows how to drink his beverages.  He grabs cans of sparkling water and holds them correctly as well as sippy cups and normal cups.  And he loves when Chris plays guitar.  He wants to join the fun strumming, clapping, bouncing, smiling.  

 

He is constantly smiling.  He loves people, though he sometimes plays this little game of shy, smiley peek-a-boo when he's in my arms and someone new says hello.  He is a social butterfly especially with other little kids.  He always wants to join the fun and give them big smiles and grab their faces.  haha.  

My favorite thing is his little nose scrunch smile.  It is just the sweetest thing in the whole world.  

He loves bathtime now, and he enjoys the pool as well.  In fact, everytime we go, he splashes around the wading section for a few minutes and then constantly tries to crawl deeper and deeper and drown himself.  Ack!  Needless to say, going to the pool with both Kolbe and Sophie is NOT my favorite activity of the summer.  

He says mama and dada and bahbah and nahnah.  He still loves clapping.  He can now crawl over the bins that we set as barriers to block the staircases.  He just grabs ahold of the top of them and pulls himself up and over.  So now we are desperately trying to teach him to safely come down the stairs.  So far, he's not into that at all and only laughs and tries to go back up.  

Yet another reason why he hates wearing pants...they limit his abilities.  haha.  But he eventually makes it...

              

I laughed when he started going over the barriers to this soundtrack music (so dramatic!), but he totally gets stuck in that box and because of his pants, so it's kind-of hilarious.  

              

He finally started sleeping longer periods at night.  He usually gives me about 7-9 hours before he wakes up for a little snack and then goes back to bed for 2-3 more hours.  He still has his bad nights though where we are up 2-3 times and I look like death in the morning.  I have learned to make it on little to no sleep, but the switching back and forth is giving me a run for my money.  

And that's about where he's at.  I can hardly believe that in less than a month this little guy will be ONE!!!!!!!!!!!