Claire: 9 months

Claire turned 9 months on July 3rd.  This cutie melts my heart everyday.  She is just so sweet.  Here's all about her at 9 months:

Height: 92%

Weight: 75%

Head: 50%

• Eating lot's of table food now.  LOVES bananas, avacados, strawberries, watermelon, and broccoli.
• Waves hi and bye and says it, too. (hi sounds more like a loud "haaaa" and when she says bye bye it's more of a whispered "buh-buh."
• Also says mama and dada clear as day.  Although I hear her say mama the most when she is upset.
• Anything Lucy does makes this girl laugh, even if it is not funny.
• Started bathing her without her baby tub- just plop her in the bath with Lucy.  They thought it was hilarious the other day when they bumped into each other's backs.  
• She got all 4 upper front teeth at the exact same time this month.  That was not fun, but it was nice to get so many done at once.
• Doing awesome at sleeping- two naps a day and sleeps through the night- but still waking up super early!  On average, it's between 5:45am and 6:15am.  
• Moving all over the place and walking along things and pulling up on things.
• Loves to play with toys! Will sit and be entertained for a long time by the right toy.  She loves to explore in our playroom.
• Definitely has a little stranger/separation anxiety, but not much.  
•  She gets SO excited when Ryan gets home from work.  So cute.
• Claire is at that stage where she is fascinated by other babies.  She gets so excite whenshe sees a baby smaller than her.

Claire: 8 months

So I'm about 1.5 months late on this one, but better late than never! She turned 8 months back on June 3rd.  I will try and remember what was specifically for that month.

• Eating a lot more but hate baby food (can't blame her).
• Takes a good morning nap and a good afternoon nap.
• Finally loves going to the pool too.  Will kick her little foot that she always kicks when she is enjoying it.  Will just sit on the side of the pool by me with her legs in and kick that one foot away.
• Still a little cuddle girl.  When she gets tired or sad, especially, she will suck her thumb and snuggle up to me.  I love the snuggles.
• Waking up somewhere in the 5am hour everyday.  It's killing me.
• Just started waving a little bit, but has to think a lot about it before doing it. :)
• Got her two bottom teeth and struggled with it.  Our girls do not do well with teething, and of course that causes worse reflux, too.

We just love this happy little girl of ours!

Trampoline time

Whenever we go to the Madsen's, Lucy books it straight past everyone and into the backyard to jump on the trampoline.  She loves it and I loves these pictures of all these friends!

Swimming

Now that the pool is heated, we go to the pool more days than not each week and we all enjoy it now!

Lucy's hair

I guess since I see Lucy everyday and do her hair, I don't really realize just how long it's gotten.  However it seems like I get comments everyday from friends and strangers about how long her hair is, which makes me look around at other kids her age and realize how true it is!  I'm lucky she sits still and lets me do her hair everyday.  I definitely had to train her to be that way from the very beginning, while using bribes like treats and tv shows, but now it's super quick and easy.  Oh I love having girls!

I have no say anymore

Lucy has a definite and very strong opinion every day about what she wears.  I dread getting dressed for the day just because it could easily turn into a massive meltdown just from the first thing I suggest.  Talk about drama!  So, rain boots to the pool and winter coats on hot/humid days.  Sure.  Whatever!

Family selfie

Lucy in the grass

She seriously cracks me up.  One day while I was chasing her in the grass during Claire's nap, she just stopped, laid down and said "take picture!" and then moved into a few different poses without me telling her to.  She just felt the desire to model it out right there on the grass with her eyes closed. ha!

Memorial Day

We usually go to the zoo during the day while dad is at work, but on Memorial Day he got to join us (along with the rest of Columbus).  It was a lot of fun and Lucy loved having dad there.  Later on that day, our awesome neighborhood had a BBQ potluck and hung out for a while in the evening.  It was great to meet a lot of our new neighbors and hang with our friends that have been here with us for a while too!  Poor Lucy ended the day with a super high fever that lasted an entire week.  Seeing her face in some of the mustache pictures makes me feel so bad for her just remembering holding her later that night as she was sad and lethargic and burning up.  Sick kids is a very sad thing.

A few days prior to Memorial Day, my friend Bobbi invited us over to make the t-shirt with Lucy's handprint that you see in this picture.  It was a fun activity but confirmed that Lucy does not like messy hands (which I am totally okay with!)

Claire

I love when she falls asleep on my lap.  There aren't many things better than a sleeping baby!

 I love how just something new to her, like a pot with a few items in it, can keep her entertained for a while.

Me and the girls!

I love my girlies and their fun, goofy, crazy, and sweet personalities!

We had a family pizza night outside a few weeks ago.  It was so great to enjoy the nice weather outside and spend some quality family time together doing something just a little bit different.

Spring and summer fun

We have such great neighbors, many of which are stay-at-home mom's as well with kids my kids ages. We have really been enjoying the end of spring and beginning of summer!  Here's Lucy feeling pretty cool driving Mason around in his jeep.

 I love the sky in the background.  Such a beautiful day!  Again, playing in the sprinkler with neighbors.

 Claire always falls asleep after drinking a bottle before nap time.  I could sit and stare at her for a long time just sleeping in my lap while I study all her cute features and try and keep it all in my memory.

 Our friends, the Madsen's, had extra guest passes for COSI, so we joined them one day.  Lucy had a lot of fun with Mya and Ty.

Lots of little things

Fun, relaxing family night at the pool.  The heater was broken for a few weeks when it opened and Lucy was the only one brave enough to get in, but Claire enjoyed her time snuggling with dad.

 Literally EVERY time we go to Wal-Mart, Lucy notices this little m&m guy and laughs at it.  One day she was having a total meltdown that nothing could fix... that is until she saw this guy.  I finally made her get out and take a picture with him.  It's only appropriate that her dad works for that company, too.

 I let her watch Curious George one morning while I was making her breakfast and she begged to sit in the high chair and have it pulled to the edge of the kitchen.  I gave in that morning and she was so engrossed in the show after she ate that she didn't even notice me standing in front of her taking this picture.

Lucy cracks me up.  She often comes to me and says "mom! take picture!" and then runs right over to the stairs and lays down on them like this.  No clue where she got that from, but it's funny.

 This girlie holds her own bottle but does it with her fists closed and uses her wrists.  Silly girl!

 She is ALL over the place- one day she even crawled across the couch, over the pillow and onto the table.  She then fell in between the couch and table and that's when I stepped in and rescued her.

Claire loves to suck on shoes (yuck!) and so Lucy kept grabbing them away from Claire and finally resorted to moving them on the stair where she couldn't reach them.  

 She tried so hard to reach the shoes.  Her cute little feet go straight out to the sides when she pulls herself up. Doesn't seem too comfortable!

 This is my view almost every morning after breakfast and getting ready.  We love our morning rides around the block.

 Cute, loving sisters (most of the time).