Ben and Caroline's Blog

Emily is really growing up fast. I can't believe that her first birthday is just around the corner! This month she has learned to stand on her own, but she still is not walking on her own. She can only walk while I hold her arms or when she is behind her walker, but she really enjoys doing both! She has also learned to clap and wave and she does one or the other all day long. She will mimic someone who is waving at her, but I am not sure that she fully understands the context of a hello or goodbye wave yet. She has also started dancing when she hears music. She usually bounces up and down to the music, but sometimes she will sway or move her arms around to the beat. It is a lot of fun to watch! At her 9 month check up she weighed 17 lbs and 15 ounces and was 27 & 1/2 inches long. This puts her in the 30% for weight and the 50% for height. We joined the MAC gym earlier this month, which means Emily has been going to the nursery while I work out. I was a little nervous about it at first since she had never been in a day care type setting before, but she didn't skip a beat. We go every day now (the gym has never looked so good) and she is always smiling and playing when I go to pick her up. I am so glad that she does well on her own! In February I am going to attempt to register Emily for mother's day out at MDUMC. If we are able to get a spot then she will start in September. She really enjoys the gym nursery, so I can only imagine how much she will love mother's day out! Here are a few pictures of Emily and Mella over the past month...

[nggallery id=37]

[nggallery id=36]

My dad sent a few pictures of me when I was about Emily's age. I was about 8 months in the first pic and the next 2 pics are of me and Will on my first birthday. I can definitely see a little bit of Emily in my baby pictures!

[nggallery id=34]

Emily is letting go and standing up on her own now!

Mella was groomed today and they put little pink bows in her hair. I couldn't resist the photo op!

[nggallery id=35]

I put Emily's activity table in the kitchen so she could play while I cook. She figured out that it slides on the kitchen floor and now she is playing with the table while using it as a walker. Once the table bumps into something, she walks around the table and uses it to walk in a new direction - all while I cook uninterrupted. Hooray!

Emily has started eating table food and loves it. She is now refusing spoon fed baby food and only wants food she can eat on her own. Here she is enjoying some carrots.

Emily has figured out how to walk around the room while holding on to her walker. She looks like a little old lady!

I'm a week late on the 8 month blog. It was a busy month with all the Holiday activities! Emily's first Christmas was a lot of fun. She loves all of her new clothes, toys and gear! We've had several milestones this month. She cut her first tooth a couple of weeks ago and a second tooth followed a few days later. She now has both bottom, front teeth. They are still just peeking through but soon as I can get a good shot I will post a picture. Emily is also improving her balance and motor skills. She is now table surfing and maneuvering around all the furniture in the house. She stands on her own for very brief periods of time, but she usually grabs hold of something soon as she realizes that she is free standing. If you hold her arms she will walk with you, but she has not taken any steps on her own yet. She now crawls with purpose and speed. If she is crawling to something that is off limits, I will reach down to get her and she will speed up before I can grab her. She clearly understands that when I grab her she will not be able to do what she wants to do. Her crawl is pretty efficient, but not quick enough to escape my grasp! Here are some pictures of Emily enjoying the Holidays.

[nggallery id=33]

Read more →

Caroline has been working on a new trick with Emily. She's taught her to raise her arms over her head whenever you say "Yay!" to her. It's pretty funny stuff. Here's some pics of Emily in her saucer showing off her new trick. It kind of looks like she's on a roller coaster...

[nggallery id=32]

Read more →

Emily just cut her first tooth! It is too difficult to get a picture because the tooth is barely peeking through, but I will try to get one soon. Here she is playing with her Christmas gift from Uncle Jon and Aunt Cassidy. Thanks for the great gift!

I started wrapping gifts today. Emily is very interested!

It has been too long since my last post! I downloaded some pictures from my iPhone to our desktop for my last post, and in the process I somehow lost my WordPress application on my phone. That app is how I normally create posts and without it I have to download pics to the desktop and create posts there. It is much easier for me to create them on my iPhone because I can do it anywhere. Anyways, I finally got the WordPress app back up and running. I should have done it sooner but December has been pretty crazy. Here are a few pics of the highlights so far... I will post more pictures of Emily in the upcoming 8 month post...

[nggallery id=31]