10 Months Old! Wowsers!

                Can it really be that 10 months of her life have past already?  It just doesn’t feel like that is possible.  She is growing up nice and healthy with just a few hiccups.  With being out of town for the holidays last month, we didn’t make it in for her 9 month check up until this month.  At 9.5 months she weighed in at 19lbs 6 oz and 29.75inches long.  The doc said she is developing on/or ahead of schedule and is looking great.  The only hiccups were that she now officially is taking after her mom and mamaw and has eczema and she also has an ulceration on her hemangioma birthmark.  The eczema has just meant more baths and creams, but unfortunately, along with the creams, her hemangioma has meant a lot of pain for her, but I think it is finally settling down.  (and supposedly that is just part of the process of it going away) She is still eating 3 solid meals, nursing 4 times a day, taking two 30 to 45 minute naps, and sleeping 11 hours a night.  This schedule is working well for us so I am not sure what I will do when she changes it.

A little harder to get monthly pics

Maxin' and Relaxin'

                She is quite the great little eater.  At this point, she really eats very little pureed food.  I only make her pureed veggies for her to eat when she is not too interested in the finger food type.  She has been able to eat a lot of what Mommy and Daddy eat for meals, but just cut up in small serving sizes.  Kiwi, bananas, zucchini, squash, beans, and cheese (lots of cheese) are a few of her favorite finger foods, but she really does great with most.

                This year we put up our Christmas tree for the first time in 3 years (since we usually are gone for two weeks over Christmas) and she loved it.  We decided that the only reason we wanted to put it up was for her to experience it, so we let her enjoy playing with it to her heart’s content.  We do fake because I can’t stand the smell of real and Ben has allergy issues too.  We just put several ornaments down low that she was allowed to play with and she did very well with the tree overall.  So fun to see her excitement over it! J

investigating the ornaments

She loves this ornament, but she can't quite get it off the tree.

                A few fun things from this month are that she had her 9 month photo shoot at the beginning of the month and we love how they turned out.  Our friend Anna did such a wonderful job capturing the cuteness that is Alethea.  She also knows how to make kissy noises/faces which is super cute and she does a fun lip smacking thing imitating her daddy.  So cute!  Her curls are starting to show up more and more, especially when she gets done with a bath or gets sweaty.  I love it!  One of the things that I have loved about this month is that she has really started to enjoy interacting more and more with other kids.  She has so much fun with her buddy Molly (especially) who is 5 months older than her. We have also switched her to the convertible car seat finally (probably well overdo).

9 Month photo shoot fun

I love this one!

Bath time fun with Daddy

convertible car seat for the first time on the way to church

               At the beginning of this month, we were in KY for Thanksgiving and she had so much fun spending time with all of my side of the family.  And she thoroughly enjoyed all the attention.  Our family tradition is to have chicken and dumplins for our Thanksgiving meal and Alethea got to try them for the first time.  She loved them!  (Too bad there isn’t much health benefit in them for a little baby.)  Then at the end of the month we traveled up to NY to visit Ben’s family and she has had fun meeting lots of new people since his mom and sister were the only ones who had already met her.  Lots more celebrations for Christmas still to be had.

Helping unpack at Mamaw and Papaw's new lakehouse

Cheering for Kentucky!

Yummy Thanksgiving dinner

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Early Christmas presents

Walking around at Grandmas in NY

Reading with Grandma

                This month has been quite the transformation in mobility.  She has been walking between things for a few months now and at the beginning of this month she started talking 6 to 7 steps without walking toward anything.  We knew walking for real was just around the corner and on December 12^th she wowed us all.  We were at our church small group bible study and she just started walking all over.  Then she didn’t walk hardly at all the next day so I thought it was just a fluke.  However, on the 14^th, there was no turning back.  She is officially a walking and pretty much doesn’t crawl anymore.  My baby girl is WALKING and she started just a little over a week shy of 10 months.  Crazy!  And we thought we had our hands full before. J 

Walking around all bundled up to go for a stroller ride in cold NY

This is from her first day walking...she is much better now, but I haven't videoed it again

                A last little cute tidbit is that she has begun bobbing up and down whenever we turn music on and a lot of times it seems like she is trying to sing along with me when I sing.  I love it!  I am really hoping she loves music as much as me…I can see that being a ton of fun over the years.

                She keeps growing up so fast, but we are doing our best to enjoy every minute of it. I could go on and on about how much we are in love with our sweet little girl and how she wows us with pretty much everything she doesn’t, but I think that is enough for this month's update.

her first baby doll from Granpeg

A little fun with 41 weeks and 3 days out

helping Daddy drive at the festival of lights

Who needs toys when you have a laundry basket

Frisbee golf family date and she loved it