11 months

11 months. Seriously? How in the world has almost a year gone by? She just gets more and more fun every day. She is all over the place right now. She crawls so fast and towards things she knows she shouldn't be near. Like the steps - always crawling towards the steps and squealing so that you chase her. And if she gets too close to the edge? She stops and looks over her shoulder like "aren't you supposed to be stopping me?" Over the past month she has:
                ~ said her first word! Ball! (as you can see from the picture, she's obsessed!)
               ~ she stands without holding on and can squat down, pick something up, and stand back up with no help.
               ~ she's trying to feed herself with a spoon. She gets the concept, but can't get the food on the spoon without some help.
              ~ she walks all over the place while holding on to your fingers, but she isn't trying to take any steps on her own yet. If there's nothing for her to hold on to, then she gets down and starts crawling.
               ~ she looooves the puppies. She starts squealing and clapping whenever she sees them.
               ~ she makes us laugh all.the.time. She makes funny faces and funny noises and when she sees us laughing, she laughs more and it's just a wonderful sound all of us laughing together.

Planning for her birthday party is in full swing. It's going to be pretty low key, but my cousin (once or twice removed - or however that all works) makes invitations and decorations so we HAD to order things from her. If you're on Facebook, you should definitely check her out. Peas & Thank You's is the name and she's amazing. I will definitely have pictures of her work once we have the party next month.

Here are some pics of what Soph has been up to this past month.

10 months

I'm pretty much the worst blogger ever! Soph will be 11 months tomorrow, so I guess I need to do her 10 month update. But first, do you like the new blog design? A friend of mine is so talented that she re-designed it for me. You can check her out at Life is Sweet

Soph is growing so much and is such a happy baby. I remember the first few months when she would cry all the time and we would just walk and walk and walk to keep her happy. Now? She only cries if she's hungry or tired. She's always laughing and getting in to things she shouldn't. It's so much fun watching her discover everything. There will be a better update tomorrow with her 11 month pictures. I promise!

9 months old!

We're having some technical difficulties so I can't upload Soph's 9 month pictures. :-(  The problem is that I take too many and we don't have any more space on the computer!! We're working on getting an external hard drive, so as soon as we have that, I'll be able to add the pics.

We went to her 9 month appointment on Thursday and it went very well. She's 28 inches long (67%), 18lbs 3oz (39%) and her head circumference is 17 1/2 inches (65%). The doctor was very pleased with everything she can do and said that she is a very healthy little girl.  That wasn't the case over Christmas though, when she had her very first ear infection. 10 days of meds and she's as good as new.
Here are her new "tricks": :-)
Sophia is pointing at everything now.
She pants like a dog whenever she sees one (hysterical!)
She can stand on her own for about 20 seconds
She feeds herself puffs
She takes baths in the "big girl" bathtub
She also likes to take 2 toys and smash them together or on top of her toy box
She's squealing and screaming anytime she's excited - and it is LOUD!

We've also started cloth diapering. I know, a lot of people are telling me I'm crazy, but I have a lot of friends that do it and are being really supportive. It is going to take some getting used to, but I think it's going to be really great - and have you seen how cute cloth diapers are?!

Here are a TON of pics from the past month. I could do pages and pages of just Christmas, but I'll try to pick just a few.

8 months old!

In case you couldn't read it in the 1st picture, Sophia decided to show it to you a little closer! :-) It's getting near impossible to take monthly pictures of her because she's always on the go. We sit her down, and before we can press the button on the camera, she's crawling away.
I've definitely slacked on this whole blogging thing, but it's my New Years Resolution to do better. So here are her pictures of what she's been doing and then I can get to her 9 month post and start the year right.
~This month she's learned to climb the stairs ::eek!!::
~She had her 1st visit with Santa (see pic below)

~We started Ferberizing (sleep training) and she's doing much better. Down at 7:30, up around 4, eats and back to bed until close to 7. We're all feeling much better rested.