9 Months

What?! Sweet Adelaide is 9 months old and she has changed SO much over the past month! We are incredibly blessed to have this little girl in our family. She is pure joy.

We go to the doctor in a few days so we don't have official stats yet, but we are not concerned about weight - this girl can eat! She has never turned down food and her mealtime now consists of some pureed food with finger foods (she's had sweet potato chunks, watermelon, blueberries, peas, avocado chunks, noodles, cheerios, strawberries, corn, black beans, and raspberries) and she is doing SO well picking up the food and getting it to her mouth. Though she'll eat anything, it can be challenging to give her the pureed portion of the meal because she loves to practice her ninja moves and swat the spoon away. You'd think we'd anticipate it by now, but she's so quick! We're hoping this "game" will be a quick phase.

Addy's gross motor skills are changing significantly as well. She claps and waves (though still somewhat inconsistently), loves to splash in the bathtub, and is incredibly close to crawling, but so far just scoots, climbs, and reaches. Her biggest accomplishment in this area was pulling herself up onto the coffee table. She has done it a few times - once even without us looking (oops!) - and is thrilled every time she finds herself standing.

So close!

Trying to move is exhausting!

Her newfound mobility has shown us her mischievous curious side. Ads finds everything that she should not have, tastes anything she can get her hands on, and definitely keeps us on our toes.

She found this little duck in the bath toys...

And put the entire body in her mouth! (It is now hidden until she gets a little bigger)

Ooh, what's this?

She tries to put her fingers in outlets, rifles through the recycling, and chews on the chalk from Dax's chalkboard tray if she can get to it.

That tower was looking so tempting.

But can she reach it?

She can!

And she's thrilled about it.

Our favorite development is in her language. Though she isn't really saying words (aside from Dada, which she has been doing for awhile and the occasional Mama or hi), she loves to imitate our tone and, especially, laughter. If anyone laughs, Adelaide starts to giggle, which makes us laugh harder and then she giggles again. It is so funny! The video shows her alone in her crib "talking" to an animal and giggling.

Some of her favorite things include animals (she is enthralled by anything that moves, especially dogs lately), food, and, being outside.

The past 9 months have been our best yet. Thank you, Adelaide, for bringing so much excitement and happiness to our family!

Watch me grow! (Her photo session was challenging this month so I had to include a few of the "outtakes"! And keep your eyes peeled for the toes of our little helper.)

(9 months, 8 months, 7 months, 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, 1 month, and 1 week old)