.: Happy 9 Months Sweet Bella!

Isabella Grace is 9 months old! 3/4 of a year! 3 months from 1! Ok, now I will try to stop panicking about how I really need to get in gear and start planning her first birthday because the holidays are really going to distract me from that and if I wait until after Christmas we will be in big trouble! I also realized I need a lot more pictures of 9 months but, since Bella is napping, that will have to wait until later! We had Bella's 9 month checkup today and she is still our sweet little peanut. She is tipping the scales at 14lbs 7.5oz, what a fatty! Ha! She is still on the charts so we are happy about that and we know she is growing just like she is supposed to be, she is just our teeny tiny little girl! She is 26'' long. She absolutely hates going to the doctors office, she is ok if I hold her but she screams even when she has to be weighed! What a baby! Haha, just kidding! :-) She seriously got so upset anytime anyone wanted to touch her at the doctors office but they wanted to do an eye test today so I figured we were in for some solid screaming after the way the weight check went. Well, my daughter is a weirdo, yes you heard me right, a weirdo. They had to put these sticky sensors attached to cords all over her head and then she had to wear an eye patch while watching a tv with lots of different images and blinking lights and music playing and each step the nurse kept warning me that "ok mom, she is probably going to cry now, all the kids hate this part....", well, not my little weirdo. She LOVED sitting in the dark room with what looked like little electrodes attached to her face and apparently she wants to be a pirate when she grows up because the eye patch didn't even phase her! She sat so well for her test and passed with flying colors! Woohoo! She seriously just cracks me up every day! I love this stage so much and I love that each phase just keeps getting more and more fun! We love having Bella in our lives and are SO excited for the holidays and all the fun memories we will make!

She is still taking her sweet time in the mobility department. Her army crawling gets better and better every day and she is definitely getting stronger but she is still not crawling all over the house.
While she may be taking her time with her gross motor skills her fine motor skills amaze me every day! Today she was pinching my eyelashes. She picks up food so well and feeds herself so well! She is such a good eater and really will try to eat most foods, but still makes a face sometimes on that first bite! She loves all of her baby foods and has been really enjoying eating off our plates! Here are some big girl foods she has had lately: french fries (one of her faves, of course my daughter is a carb lover), mashed potatos, rice, guacamole, bread, pasta, chicken and any cooked veggie. I love feeding her big girl food and seeing her face with each new flavor, she loves spices (we only give her a limited amount of spices and try to give her almost no salt, it's really causing us to watch what we eat! )
She is starting to gain a lot of upper body strength and pushing body up, she will try to crawl over my legs to get to a toy, or a cell phone ;-) It's so funny, she hasn't really figured out bending her knees. She definitely can and is starting to get better at it, I am working with her on learning she has knees. She will just lock her legs instead of using her knees to propel herself when climbing. I think this may have something to do with why she hasn't figured out any sort of advanced crawling. She prefers the good old army crawl for now I guess!
She loves going to restaurants and is such a flirt! She wants to see everyone all around us and wants to make sure they see her! She will crane her neck and move her body to see other people's tables or the servers and will giggle and smile, such a cutie!
She recently started playing peekaboo and it's the cutest thing on the planet. Still working on "how big", waving and clapping.
"Mama" has resurfaced in her vocabulary and, I'm not going to lie, it's awesome! That was one of the first words she started babbling but then it completely disappeared! Lately she has been very "Dada" obsessed! I honestly really don't care what her first word is but I seriously love hearing her babble mama!
She is still our rockstar sleeper! We had our ups and downs early on and I know there will likely still be sleep setbacks but for now, we are enjoying our sleep quite a bit! She is starting to stay up a bit later as she gets older and we are fine with that, she gets so excited when Dad gets home that she doesn't want to go to bed only an hour after he has arrived! She generally goes to bed between 6:30-7pm these days and will sleep until anywhere between 7-8am, usually at least 7:30. It's glorious! Maybe it's one of those blessings of parenthood, new mommy syndrome or just the total brain shut down that comes with sleep deprivation but I have almost forgotten those sleepless nights of the past, and I am happy to put them behind us, for a while at least!
She is one incredibly beautiful, smart and sweet little girl who we love more than anything!!

Sweet smile!