Our Little Monster

Happy Halloween! I have some pictures of Natalie in her first attempted Halloween costume and in her final costume. While here, I thought I would give an update also.

I suddenly realized that I don't think I ever mentioned that Natalie has teeth! She has two teeth that have come through. Both of them are on the bottom front. The one on her left is actually sticking up quite a bit now. The one to the right has just barely come through. Since having her teeth, she loves to stick her tongue out just enough to feel them. It is too cute/funny.

Since the last blog update, Natalie had another first- her first ear infection. I took her to the doctor because she had a really bad cough/congestion. So I was really shocked to hear that she had an ear infection. Natalie had not really shown any signs of it except for maybe playing with her ear just a bit, but nothing that would signal pain/infection. So Natalie got to have her first round of "pink stuff". It has not been fun to do twice a day, so I am glad that we are almost through it.

Natalie now knows how to pull herself up to the standing position all by herself. She did it for the first time earlier this week and now that is what she loves to do. This gets a bit tiring for us because we are constantly having to spot her as she uses the coffee table, or anything else to pull up on.

That leads to the other thing that has further developed. Natalie can really have a temper. She now will suddenly scream/cry when you take something away from her that she wants, attempt to redirect her in a different location, or when she is embarrassed because she fell over. It can be cute at times, but other times it is kind of annoying.

To explain the pictures- my friend Angela gave us a Monsters Inc costume for Natalie. Unfortunately, she absolutely hated it! Thankfully a friend from school let us borrow another monster costume for Natalie. We were happy that she allowed us to keep it on her for some cute pictures and for some fun.

There will be another post in just a few days when our baby girl turns 10 months old!!!

Another Little Life Update

It has been awhile since we have posted an update. Natalie continues to be an absolute joy. She has added quite a bit of speed to her crawling. She can get across the room quicker than ever. She now gets pretty determined to go after what she wants and will vocally let you know if she is upset because you don't let her have what she wants!
She continues to work on pulling herself up. She can get to her knees, but she cannot get beyond this. I am not particularly in a hurry for her to master this milestone. I can already see many more bumps and bruises once she figures it out!
She loves her puffs and her yogurt melts that she can feed to herself. I have attempted a few other finger foods, but she isn't quite ready for much more. She loves her baby food meals though and eats like a pro. Sadly, we had to go to 1/2 of her bottles are now formula. This was sad for me emotionally and sad for us financially. But at least we got to 9 months without a single formula bottle. I know that is still an accomplishment. I plan on attempting to keep the formula as only half of her feedings as long as possible. We will see how it goes.
Natalie has been blessed with the visit of her Grandma from PA! Grammy Harris will be with us until after Thanksgiving, which gives her plenty of time to watch Natalie and love her more and more. Natalie particularly likes playing patty-cake with her and attempting to chew on her oxygen tubing.
This weekend, Natalie and I went to IC for Natalie's first homecoming. It was fun to show her off to all of my friends and to all of my co-workers from the Alumni Office. We then stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's for some extra lovin'. Next weekend will be another overnight with them. Natalie loves all of the spoiling she gets there!
Enjoy the pictures! Natalie got a present from Vicci and the girls- it was the first thing she has ever opened, which she did a great job! I included a picture of Nattie's determined face, which is so cute. There are several pictures from IC and some pics of Natalie with her grandparents.

Another Photo

9 Months

Wow, I can't believe our girl is nine months old today!! It seems there are "milestones" every day, and it seems Natalie is even cuter, more joyous and melts my heart easier than ever each and every day. Natalie is crawling very adeptly now, with just a few roadblocks here and there. She is learning the laws of physics hands-on. For instance, Natalie was holding a toy in one hand while sitting on the floor, but did not want to let go of it while crawling, so she found that it's not so easy to crawl with just one arm, and rolled to the floor like a little gymnast. I was lucky enough to get it on videotape.

She is now eating meats (in baby food-form) as well. Cutest little carnivore ever! I really don't think it will be long before she's walking, as she took to crawling so fast. It's bittersweet to see her develop these skills so quickly, as on the one hand, it's extremely exciting and pride-inducing, but on the other hand, I want to savor these moments and it almost feels like they are going by too quickly to absorb the magnitude of the living miracle that she is.

Speaking of growing quickly, here is the "Growing" shot, an "outtake" and a couple of other recent photos that are just cute.