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Isabell and I went to the doctor’s office this past Monday for her 9-month old well baby check.  She is super healthy, and doing well.  She is now 29 1/2 inches tall (90th percentile), weighs 21 lbs and 15 ounces (90th percentile), and her head is 18 1/4 inches around (93rd percentile).  She continues to be on the bigger side for a child her age, and we had a discussion with the doctor about genetics playing a role in her body size.  He suggested that while we aren’t putting her on a  “diet”, we have already started working on healthy eating habits and portion control.  The biggest adjustment, is to ignore previous advice to have her eat solids 3-4 times a day, and instead only feed her when she’s hungry.  She has been averaging about 18-20 ounces of milk a day, and is eating a large variety of fruits, veggies, and now MEATS!!!!!  Nashon enjoyed when she got to eat the potroast off of his plate, he is very excited for her to eat the food that we eat, rather than continuing to prep her meal seperatly.

New skills for Isabell include her increased daringness, which you can see in the video of her walking away from solid surfaces to a waiting parent, using signs for “more”, “again”, and “all done”.  We are still working on “milk”, and she will watch our hands if we start signing it, but we haven’t seen her do it yet.  Today we were playing with a gumball machine and she started to put things “in” for the first time, and then understood the cause and effect button to get the balls back out; it was a lot of fun!!!

Her favorite games right now include “peek a boo” around the corner, “row row your boat”, and taking turns with clapping and banging on surfaces.  She is also taking turns with us saying “lalalala” for “lubba lubba lubba you”.    She still loves her walker, and is a pro at running and turning.  This past week she ran into the sofa table so hard that she left a nice big 2 inch mark on the wall where the table slid against it.  I am sure I am missing something, but we’re having a blast getting to know her and her little personality.  Here are some pictures from the past few weeks.

Isabell is getting more and more brave when cruising. She just lets go of the furniture and hopes to be caught.  Here is video from this weekend of Isabell testing out her legs.

Today Nashon, Isabell and I went to Costco to get baby wipes (and about $200 in other stuff we weren’t planning on getting).  While we were there, we decided to have a cheap lunch at their food court.  This means that Nashon and I both had soda with our lunch, generally a treat for us.  Isabell wasn’t interested in eating the hot dog bun from Nashon, so we offered her the soda, thinking she would just chew on the straw like she has always done.  Turns out the child has learned to drink from a straw, and stop sucking when some liquid gets into her mouth!!!  She was super cute with the straw, so we kept giving her more treats!  We aren’t sure when she learned to use the straw, but I think it was in the last week where we have been putting a “no-spill” top on a water bottle and letting her go at it in an attempt to keep her well hydrated in the awful record setting heat we’ve had.  Turns out she’s a pro at it now!!!  Perhaps we’ll have more success with straw cups than we have wth sippy cups!!!

With my sister-in-law visiting, a trip to the zoo was in order. Have you ever corralled a 3 year old, a 15 month old and a 9 month old into going somewhere. Just getting everyone (and all supporting equipment, there was an ordeal. It wasn’t the longest visit but a nice side effect was that Jamie and I now have a year long membership to Woodland Park Zoo. We can go all year for free. Isabell was a trooper and even slept a bit while we were there.

Over the weekend, Jamie’s sister was up from Colorado with her two kids, Taylor (3) and Jordan (15 Months) as well as Jamie’s grandmother. We all went to Chelan, and the petting zoo there. Isabell was leery of the pygmy goats but the Clydesdales she was fascinated with.

Well, as soon as Isabell welcomed her first tooth, she has a second. Remarkably, there was no crying or fussing. Just some extra drool. Both bottom middle teeth are in, and boy are they sharp little things. I don’t think she realizes that they are there yet. Since they are just barely sticking up, pictures are impossible. When they get a bit bolder and come out of hiding, we will take a picture of the newly minted terror devices.

Last night Nashon and I enjoyed time without the peanut underfoot.  My oldest sister and her family are in town for the week, and they took my daughter over to my parent’s house in Chelan yesterday.  Nashon and I both have to work today, so we stayed here.  It was a lovely night.  We had an easy dinner in, ate on the couch, watched an old movie and cuddled up together.  Then this morning I got to hit the alarm over and over and didn’t have to worry about getting up and ready before Isabell woke up.  It was a good morning.

The other piece of information that made it such a wonderful night was that Isabell cut a tooth yesterday morning with Nashon at home, and we got someone else to deal with the crankies!  Hopefully she had a good night and didn’t get up too much for Ammie!

For the 4th of July holiday we headed over the mountains to some beautiful sunshine!!!  Of course, it was sunny and hot over here as well, but oh well! We took our good friend Shelly over, as well as the Powters (Amy, Tony, and Isabell’s boyfriend, Matty).  We all spent time on the seadoos, on the Powters boat, playing games, resting, and generally having a good time.  We took a boat ride down to a little beach up river to sit in the sand.  Isabell was having a tough afternoon on Saturday, and she wanted nothing to do with the boat until it was moving and she could watch the water splashing, and then wanted nothing to do with the river, or her life jacket, or the beach, or the sand, or her parents, or her bottle, or anything else that might  usually make her happy.  She did get her first ride on the seadoos with me and Nashon when we decided to take her home instead of continuing with the boat ride on the river.  She fell asleep on the way back, and I had Nashon drive about as slow as was possible!  We tried to go to a small parade in town, but 5 adults and 2 babies is really hard to pack up and get going anywhere on time, so we missed the parade, and there wasn’t much of a market to enjoy, so we went home and had dinner.  We opted to skip the fireworks, as they didn’t start till 10pm, and they were about 40 minutes away.    Isabell was a rockstar in the car both directions over the mountains!  Even with holiday traffic and an accident on the freeway, she made the 5.5 hour drive over there in style with little to no fussing.  We were quite alright that she was fussy on the day we weren’t stuck in the car with her.  The biggest downfall to the weekend was that Isabell decided  to change her sleeping patterns, and was up about every 2 hours, which is VERY unusual for her; she has been sleeping through the night for 6 of her 8 short months of life.  This meant that Nashon and I were both tired, and I got up with her before 6am.  I decided to view it as a good thing, since the two of us got to spend some time alone together outside (as to not wake anyone else) at 530am before it got too hot to want to be sitting out there.  It was quite hot over there, and hard to keep the babies hydrated, but we had a wonderful time, with quite a bit of help from Shelly.  She was a wonderful sport and helped out on baby duty so we could all take turns out on the seadoos when our babies were sleeping.  Isabell and Matty are very cute together.  They enjoyed playing, and she was simply fascinated by his mobility (he is now crawling and cruising).  We’ll see if she learned anything.

We’ve talked about the water park in the park behind us. as Isabell gets older she’s enjoying it more and more. When we go she stares intently at all the kids playing in the water and also at all the splashing water. We went tonight and took some pictures.