10 & 11 Months

Bella turned 11 months this week and I still haven't written her 10 month update! Momma fail. I'm going to have to go off of memory as what was by 10 months and what was by 11 months.

Have I mentioned before how much I love this kid? She is simply awesome. So much fun and getting even moreso each day! She cracks me up and radiates sunshine and joy!







By 10 Months

Her top two teeth came in with little fuss. It's funny how those teeth look like they're about to pop through any moment...for about 3 weeks! They actually probably still had a few days to go but she slipped in the tub and bonked her mouth and a corner popped through. Nothing like a bloody mouth to get a momma's heart racing!

Her right eye was almost clear! At 9 months it was still way goopy. And then she got a cold. I have to sincerely thank whoever exposed us to those germies! I hadn't really given her left eye clearing up much thought until the right eye started out and I remembered that she had a cold at 6 months too! I guess the pressure of the sinuses pushed the blockage out somewhat. I had already made an appointment with the eye specialist and she recommended surgery still since it wasn't completely clear. They like to do the before a year old so it's more likely to stick. This was about a week after the cold. She also thought I was a looney thinking the cold had something to do with it. I pushed for re-eval after a month since the clearing was such a new event. About a week ago, Austin was in the dr's office for a virus and I had the dr look at Bella's eye while we were there. She thought the blockage was so slight that she wasn't sure she'd even do the surgery. And she absolutely agreed it was the cold that cleared it up! I knew it! A momma knows these things! We had the follow up appointment this week and she's 100% clear! The specialist was shocked and admitted she was wrong! She doesn't need surgery! Yay for colds!

She's still a pretty easy going kid, but she is definitely developing her own opinions and can be a bit stubborn and cranky now. She has 3 things she has found a hatred for! She HATES to be locked off the stairs. She loves to crawl up the stairs. As soon as she hears someone go through the gate, she beelines for the stairs, hoping to make it through before it's closed. She looks like a little ice breaker ship, just tearing through whatever toys are in her way. And when her hopes and dreams are crushed, she lets you know her extreme disappointment! Lots of shrieks, sometimes crying. Angry little elf! She also hates to be washed up after a meal. Same shrieks and angry face. We're getting better at making it a game so hopefully that won't be a struggle for long. And she absolutely abhors getting changed and dressed. I can only change her with a leg over her chest to keep her from escaping. And once I get to the actual clothes swapping part, she is super pissed off! Doesn't matter if I'm trying to change her standing up or laying down. Really hoping that gets better soon. Thankfully, if you're not doing one of those three things to her, she's really really a happy joyful little thing!

She's starting to get a little naughty. I had these dreams about a kid that actually listens but I guess I was mistaken. She's a tiny bit better than the other ones, but mostly I'm getting creative with how to block her off from certain No-No's. The TV stand, bathrooms, computer (which she already broke a piece off of!) She does not like to be denied!

She does this way cute scrunchie face that I just love! She does it when she's both happy and sad, but her happy one is really funny. She does it at us at the dinner table to get us all to smile at her. Already getting a sense of humor.

By 11 Months

Cruising has become free standing! It's amazing how quickly it goes from that first attempt to being able to stand there and play with toys without holding on. She was even shaking toys while standing yesterday. She took a step the other day. Mostly just a fluke step but it still counts! I'm guessing she will be walking by a year or shortly there after.

She has become seriously attached to her binkie and blankie. When she's tired and fussy, I ask her if she wants to go find them and she does this nervous little giggle and then when she gets them she just melts in my arms. She still does her little tired moan when she has them. Love that sound!

She has so many more words than I thought she'd have at 11 months. She says and signs "Down" and "All Done". "Dadda" sounds more like a "Hi Dadda!" She's figured out "Uh-Oh!" and likes to drop things just so she can say it. Her favorite is "GO!" That's her mantra as she goes up the stairs and also gets substituted in for "All done". She's just now saying "What's that?" as she points to things. Her little pointing is so cute! It's both for questions and for excitement at the sight of different people or things! She also seems to be getting into the immediate imitation of sound phase too. When you tell her to say something, she gets pretty close I think!

She's learned what a fishie says and she knows how to use that for giving kisses. Such sweet kisses!

She really really loves ceiling fans still.

Man, can this kid eat! It's awesome. Anything and everything! She easily can out eat the other kids. Her favorite is strawberries I think. She likes so much though, that I'm not sure she actually has a favorite. She gets so cutely excited at the sight of a ritz cracker and her sippy cup. She just recently figured out how to use a straw too and thinks its the most amazing thing in the world to have some of mommy's lemonade. She's getting a little bit of a belly, so I'm trying to limit her, but it's such a joy to have an eater!

She's starting to rough house with the big kids. They still don't quite know how to play with her without hurting her, so it always makes me nervous to let them, but before she gets hurt, she thinks it's so fun to be one of the big kids. She comes at them too and of course they can dish it out but don't like it so much when she pokes them back! It's really fun watching them all interact. Love it!

I now have 3 kids I have to compete with for the iPad. She is obsessed with both it and my phone. It's scary that she already has a sense of how to use it. Her little pointy finger swipes across it just like it's supposed to!

A Three Year Old Princess!

About a month ago, our sweet McKenna turned 3! Seems like just yesterday I was waking up neighbors with my banshee cries and almost giving birth in our brand new minivan! Her flair for dramatics hasn't waned. She is so full of personality and attitude!





Oh, that attitude might just be the death of me though! I joke that she just turned three and we're hoping she makes it to four! The 2s started way rough and then they smoothed out some. And then right before she turned three, she got that little bee in her bonnet again! She has a very strong stubborn streak, that unfortunately she inherited from her momma! Sometimes she is very vocally defiant and other times, when you're asking her to do something, or correcting her, she just subtly sets her jaw and oh-so-slightly narrows her eyes and I know that a battle of will has begun! Thankfully now that we are a month into the 3s, the battles are spreading out again. She's working on having a loving heart and saying sorry when she's done something wrong. And I'm working on keeping my cool when she pushes buttons, cuz losing it only makes her attitude worse. Hopefully we'll get all these struggles out before adolescents, right?!

But despite our battles, she is so much fun. She makes us laugh and I'm so proud of the little girl she's becoming. She is smart and sweet and very loving. Such my good little buddy!

She has a funny sense of humor. She loves to laugh and giggle. My favorite silliness of late is how she loves for me to change the words to the songs we sing. You are My Sunshine now goes "You make me happy when skies are purple. You'll never know moose how much I love you. You have been my pickle today." That just cracks her up.

She is a bouncy little thing. She has to hop down stairs. Not just wants to, has to. If she doesn't get to, it usually starts a fight! She is always running and sashaying through the house. And bouncing on beds and in bounce houses could keep her occupied for hours!

She is going to be our creative one. She loves to color and will spend hours doing it if she could. She's very careful and does a decent job of staying in the lines for her age. Her main quirk is that she usually only uses one color per page. She could be on her way to being ambidextrous. She switches hands when coloring because they get tired, but she seems to have about the same amount of control between the two! She is all about coloring anything girly. Pinkalicious and princesses are pretty much all that get attention.

She loves playing on the computer. She's getting pretty good at using the mouse and can play a few games all by herself.

She loves puzzles! She didn't really give them much attention until just a few months ago. On and off mainly. But now she loves them!

She loves to sing! She is great with lyrics too. She knows "O Holy Night" - her favorite bedtime song still despite the less than wintery weather. And all three verses to "I am Jesus' Little Lamb". All the songs to all her princess movies. No car ride is complete without at least 3 rounds of the ABCs and It's a Small World!

She is still uber shy. She might be getting more shy. I'm not sure if it's played up because she's aware she has the power to be shy or if she really is scared of people. She immediately hides behind me if there is any men around that she doesn't know. She often says "I don't like people!"

She is very very into doing her fingernails right now. Her "Po-nailish." When Austin is at school and Bella is napping, we get some good girly time in. We either do some baking - usually cranberry orange muffins, cuz those are her favorite kind, or we do our fingers & toes. She lets me know when they get "all messed up" and she's due for an redo!

Right along with all thing girliness, she is very into her clothes & shoes! She loves wearing dresses and loves having lots of different shoes. She's very specific that her shoes match her outfit too.

She still adores Bella and still talks in an incredibly high, pretty dang annoying nonsense voice to her! I keep telling her to use real words so we don't confuse Bella, but that doesn't seem to help. Bella loves it though!

She adores her daddy too! She usually asks me at nap time if Daddy will be home when she wakes up. (Sometimes he has meetings or bible study) The other day when I answered yes, she said "Oh, that makes my heart so happy!"

I wouldn't say she adores Austin, but I think I can safely say she likes him, most of the time. They can be such good buddies sometimes. He helps her dress up in her dress up clothes and then he's her knight in shining armor. Or they'll play so good in his room with cars or reading. And then sometimes, he just irritates her so! She gets so mad at him when he teases her. I guess that's to be expected! She's starting to hit and kick him which isn't good, although the first time she started wailing on him was a little funny since he thoroughly deserved it!

We did potty training at the beginning of this year and it was an amazingly quick success! I thought it would go awfully since she can be a bit stubborn, but after the first couple days, she got the point and enjoyed her M&Ms and Hershey kisses! It took about 2 weeks for her to be trained and she's only had one accident outside of the house, and maybe less than 5 at home!

McKenna is all about dressing up like a princess. She likes to dress up like whichever princess she's watching. She's very very particular about her details too. She wears the accessories that she's deemed to go with that princess. She has a tiara that she thinks looks like Cinderella's, a necklace that goes with Rapunzel, etc. She has clear/purple Rapunzel shoes but she refuses to wear it with her Rapunzel dress, because in the movie Rapunzel is barefoot. Instead she thinks they look like glass slippers, so until she got some official Cinderella glass slippers, she wore the Rapunzel ones with her Cinderella dress.

She's all about all the princess movies too. Tangled was, and still is, her first love. But Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella (I, II, & III)are close behind. She knows nearly all the lines to each of those. And Sofia the First is right up there.

She is incredibly talkative! Whereas Austin asks about 1,000 questions a day, McKenna has 1,000 things she wants to tell me about. From what she wants to wear in her hair the next day to what her favorite toy is. Every statement or question always starts or ends with the very distinctive way she says "Mom". She kinda draws it out in a odd way. It's hard to explain, but I have video of it somewhere. Bella is starting to call me Mom in the same manner.

My favorite McKenna-ism these days - "Just because". When she answers any kind of "why" question, her answer always starts with "Just because..." "Why did you hit Austin?" "Just because he was being mean!" Sometimes it's included in some circular statements. "I like pink just because I like pink!"

She's still a peanut! A whopping 28lbs at 3 years. I can't find her card to get her exact height but she's still about 70% there. She actually eats better than Austin does when it comes to what she'll eat, but just not a lot of it. Funny enough, the reason she's more adventurous is because she likes to point out "Well, I like it!" when Austin complains that he doesn't like something. Hey, I'll take competitiveness if that's what it takes to get my kids to eat! No amount of peer pressure seems to work on Austin yet though.

Her hair is getting so long now. Just shy of the middle of her back. She is incredibly patient, letting me do all sorts of fun braids in it. And she loves to have a bow or flower that matches her outfit. Her eyes are the most gorgeous blue! She's growing out of her toddler cuteness and is turning into a really beautiful little girl!

Just like I'm trying to remember to do with Austin, I asked her a handful of questions about what she likes at 3. It'll be fun to see how these change over the years!

Favorite show - Sofia the First, the kite one (trolls)
Favorite food - Watermelon
Favorite Breakfast - Waffles
Favorite Movie - Tangled/Beauty and the Beast/Cinderella
Favorite thing to do with Mommy - Snuggle and say I love you
Favorite thing to do with Daddy - Play and roll around, Bat Tent Covers
Favorite thing to do with Austin - Play Super Why
Favorite color - pink and purple
Favorite song - O Holy Night
Favorite Toys - Princess Stuff
Favorite Candy - Rolos
Favorite Drink - Cranberry Juice
Best Friend - Sofie (Robinson)
Favorite Snack - Fishies
When she grows up - Wants to go to school. Be a big mommy

I think that's it! Can't wait to see what the next year has in store for our little princess!

9 Months

It was bound to happen. I missed a month! I had it basically done, just couldn't get my act together to put the pic in and post it!





Last month she crawled. This month she started cruising! At 8 months 3 days, she pulled herself up and now she's everywhere. She can't stand unassisted but she is holding on with barely one hand. She's even did a quick transfer from the couch to the coffee table. She's getting bold! She's also figuring out pushing her walking toys. They still move a little quick for her but she's getting closer to zipping around the house!

No new teeth this month, but the top two are getting mighty close.

She's picking up clapping, but doesn't really do it too often. She loves giving high fives though and thinks it's so funny!

Her first word was Momma. Her second word is Hi! I was shocked when I walked in to get her up from a nap and she started waving at me and said "Hi!" Okay, it's not a really clear "hi", it's more like a "aaiiiiiii" but it is intentional and she does it only with waving. It counts!

The poor thing just wants to play with the big kids oh so badly. They are constantly trying to keep their toys from her. She's officially the annoying little sister, I think! She gets pretty upset when they take stuff away from her.

I love her running crawl. When she's excited she goes so fast that she can't quite crawl right and usually falls down a few times. It's horribly cute!

Just like her older siblings, she has discovered the sure-fire way to get me to come in when she's supposed to be napping. She chucks her binkies out of the crib. Austin would chuck it and then laugh! She chucks it and then cries because she needs it to sleep. So me, being the big softy that I am, comes in and gives it back. Thankfully, unlike her older siblings, she only does it once and then is grateful to have it back.

I LOVE watching this kid eat! Oh my gosh, it is so fun! I am totally amazed at how much and what she eats. She gets so excited when you offer her food. Her face lights up and she starts kicking her little feet just by showing her a ritz cracker across the room! She doesn't appear to have a bottom to her pit though! I cut her off when it seems like a decent amount of food, but she'd probably keep going. Sometimes she out-eats the big kids. And there is still nothing she won't eat. I thought she didn't like oatmeal, but the 2nd time I offered it, she chowed down. She's had steak, eggs, chili, pizza, hot dog, and when we were at a party the day after she turned 9 months, she ate a curry potato ball. I offered her a bite and after she got a taste she grabbed my hand and shoved the rest in her mouth! And when you think she's done eating, because there's a lull in the two handed shoveling action and you go to clean up, she will frantically start picking up food again! I'll have to watch that she doesn't turn into a little tubbo, but for now I'm just loving having 1 out of 3 kids that eats!

She's starting to get the signs for "more" and "all done" down but mostly she just bangs on her table and yells to get my attention if I let her plate get empty for too long. Which is about 3 seconds after I put food on it!

She's got a great pincer grasp. That makes eating a lot easier this month. She doesn't drop a lot of food unless it's crumbly.

We started her on a sippy cup of water. She's not great at getting it out, but she loves that thing! She will NOT let you take it away once she gets her fingers on it.

I think her eyes may be starting to turn blue, but Brian disagrees. She definitely has my eye shape. Small! Her right eye is still super goopy from the plugged tear duct. Her left eye cleared up at 6 months but there hasn't been much change to her right. Maybe slightly less green goopy. :( It's getting really irritated around the eye too. So we have an appointment with an eye specialist in a few weeks to see what the plan is. Very likely it will be surgery. Which is a bummer, because obviously I don't want to have to put my baby through surgery! But I'll be glad to have it cleared up. It bothers her and it's a pain to keep clean!

She loves playing hide and seek with me. If I cover myself with a blanket, she "runs" over and bonks me on the head to make me uncover. Then shrieks as loud as she can with joy that she's found me! There is very little this kid does without smiling from ear to ear!

She's starting to dance when you put music on.

I don't want to jinx myself, but I might have gotten a good listener this time around! By 9 months, the other kids just laughed when I told them not to touch something. She actually stops touching! Crossing my fingers!!!

Eight Great Months

I am LOVING every moment with this darling girl!! I am the most blessed mommy in the world because I get to be her mommy!




Lots of new stuff this month!

Crawling! She is oh-so-mobile! A week after she turned 7 months she figured it out. Sunday night she couldn't crawl and I was trying to teach her by enticing her with my cell phone as a prize. Monday she took a few "steps" and Tuesday she was off! It still amazes me how quickly they perfect something once they get it! She also learned how to push up to a sit on the same day. So now she's a happy girl! She can get to what she wants and then can play with it as she wants to.

And now she is into EVERYTHING! I have to watch her like a hawk and really keep an eye on what toys get left out. Day 1 of mobility she almost choked on both a cardboard tag from a stuffed animal and little doll dress at the same time. Actually the only reason I realized she had a whole tag stuck on the top of her mouth was cuz I discovered it when retrieving the dress! But I do love that she can decide what toys she wants to play with on her own. She's less frustrated because of that. Her favorite spot right now is the kitchen pantry. I've put the plastic spices on the bottom shelf and she takes them out and rolls them all of the kitchen. Seriously hours of entertainment!

She loves bath time oh so much! If you put her down on the floor of her room, especially if you don't put clothes back on her, she BOLTS to the bathroom, thinking it's time for a bath. When the big kids are in the bath, she insists on sitting next to it and watching them.

It's hard to believe, but she may be our loudest child yet. Maybe it's just me blocking it out, but while I remember the others going through a shrieking phase, I don't remember it at this volume! She shrieks happy, sad, hungry, bored or excited and sometimes, just for the heck of it. I tend to tune it out a fair amount but it drives Brian nuts. I'm hoping our neighbors aren't bothered too!

She still has yet to turn down a single bite of food! It's so fun! She gets very excited for mealtime and I swear she's yelling/shrieking "more" if I wait too long between bites. We've done fruit pieces, small chicken pieces and salmon in addition to all the usual purees. And we just added yogurts in too. She still is a little bit of a spitter, so no my carpet has a whole array of little colored stains. I'm constantly scrubbing it! I guess that makes up for not having to clean out quite as many diaper blowouts thanks to the solid foods!

In fact, she likes food so much, if it's near mealtime and you ask her if she wants to eat, she tries to eat your face.

She's already picking up on signing! She is really fascinated when I show her "milk", "more", or "all done". Almost from the beginning she would practice "milk" when I'd show her. And just before she turned 8 months she was hungry and fussy and started signing milk for me! I think "more" and "all done" will be along shortly. I know Austin was over a year before he signed at all, but then loved it and I can't remember how old McKenna was.

She's just picking up giving high fives, head bonks and kisses. And she's just getting waving hello at people. She usually will do it if you move her arm for her the 1st time. But occasionally you'll get an unprompted hello!

She's in what I like to call the puppy dog phase. Everything goes in her mouth. But she also loves to crawl around the house carrying things hanging out of her mouth. Puzzle pieces, socks, dolls, etc. She looks so silly.

She's starting to actually get a little clingy. She's been such a low maintenance kid which has been a blessing when I have to give the big kids attention or discipline or prepare meals or get them ready for bed. But now she wants to be in the mix and wants to be up in my arms more than usual. She can still be distracted by toys when its necessary, but since she's not much of a snuggler, it's nice to get some extra holding in!

She got her first two teeth this month.

I'm pretty sure her eyes are going be blue. It's still kind of hard to tell, but that's the way they seem to be leaning. Hopefully they're just as beautiful as her big sister's!

Two-fer: Happy Half Birthday, Sweet Bella & One More

Woops! 2 months got away from me. So this post is a two-fer!

I started writing Bella's 6 months post on the day she turned 6 months! Obviously my life with three kiddos is a lot more busy than I thought it would be! But oh so worth it though! What a fun 7 months it's been! I swear Bella is absolutely the best baby ever! She is so much fun and I'm so blessed to be her mommy!

Every time I write a month post, I open up Austin's & McKenna's posts for their same months so I can see how the kids differ and how they are the same. When I did it this time I was surprised, because while I thought Bella was hitting milestones earlier than the other kids, I could have copied and pasted most of each of their posts here instead!





As of 6 months...

She loves to shake her head. One day she just started copying me when she was a little loopy tired and now she just thinks its the funniest thing to do. She has an amazing knack and shaking in response to appropriate questions. Auntie Suz asked her if she could be any cuter and she correctly shook her head "no", with a big smile on her sweet face!

She is so proud of her tongue! She constantly has it sticking out. She is also incredibly fond of blowing raspberries and clicking her tongue.

She loves her toys! She gets so excited when she sees her toys and is amazingly content to play with them for as long as she can reach them. And when she can't reach her own, she happily gets into all of the big kid toys!

She's a sitter! Not completely, but getting better everyday. She can sit without supporting herself with her hands for short periods too. She loves to sit with her toys because she can get at them even better.

She is learning volume control from her brother & sister! She is sooooo loud when she gets shrieking! While I'm glad she wakes up happy in the morning, 5am is not a time to enjoy shrieking! I suppose it's better than crying but a good ol' fashion fussy whimper would be much more preferable! Brian has to endure the shrieking in his ear while he tries to sleep because I have to bring her into our bed so she doesn't wake up McKenna.

The poofy hair is mostly gone. I'm sad! I miss it! Every once in a while it makes an appearance after a good hard nap.

She loves giving kisses! It's like being attacked by an octopus!

We had to quickly adapt to unswaddled naps. She was strong enough to roll over swaddled but not strong enough to really be able to keep her head up while swaddled on her tummy. I felt so bad doing it though! She was such a good napper swaddled and really had a hard time figuring out how to settle down unswaddled. The first time I every really had to let her fuss to sleep because she couldn't even settle while being rocked and it broke my heart to see her struggle. It took a couple weeks but she finally got it and is back to a great napper!

Her plugged eye ducts are resolving! I was fairly certain she'd need surgery eventually but I was wrong. The left eye is clear and the right eye is so much better than it used to be. The dr. is good with waiting and giving it some more time! Praying it resolves completely on its own!

6 month stats - 17lbs 1 oz - 65%, 27.5" - 95%. Still a chunk! I affectionately call her my Squishy!

7 Months!



As of 7 months, she still wasn't officially crawling but man, could she get around! I'm actually not sure how, exactly. When you're watching her she stays in one spot, but when you walk out of the room for about 15 seconds and come back she's across the room! She rolls and scoots and turns and rolls more. She's a determined little girl!

We started solids about 6.5 months and I can't tell you how great it is to have one kid in the house that actually eats! She loves food! Has yet to actually turn down a single bit of food. We run out of food before she runs out of appetite. Not a single shudder either or scrunched face until we busted out the puffs. I'll give her that they're banana flavor, which I find pretty gross, but what baby doesn't like puffs? They're baby crack! Gonna have to try another flavor, I guess!

She loves loves loves bathtime. She graduated to the ducky bath and couldn't be happier. Now she gets to splash around and gets so excited trying to catch her floaty toys. I have to watch her really carefully because she gets so aggressive, she dives for them!

She's figured out how to "blabble" her lips and mine with her fingers. It's her favorite thing to do when I'm attempting to rock her to sleep!

And boy, does she love her daddy! I love watching her face light up when she sees him! She'll stare him down until he looks at her and then flashes him the best smile. They have some pretty good rounds of peek-a-boo that are just too cute!

She stares strangers down for smiles too, just like Austin would. She makes friends everywhere! While shopping for Christmas presents with the girls in the stroller, I got more "Wow, that is happy baby!" comments. Love that she's got so much joy that it spills out on other people!