9 Months

9 months in. 9 months out. So crazy that this girl has been in our lives for a year and a half now. It feels like she has always been a part of us.

That tongue. It is always hanging out.

Right after her 8 month post she started pulling herself up, on everything. She has now started taking small steps while holding on to things.

 

 

Including me. We're at that stage where it is hard to do anything without a baby pulling up on me. This is my view throughout the day:

Baby destruction is in full swing. The kitchen drawers emptied and bookshelves cleared by the end of the day.

Oh the joy it brings her...Oh and those juicy thighs...can't get enough.

She looooves her daddy. Shae was always quite the mama's boy (and still is to a certain extent) but Belén, she cannot get enough her daddy. I love seeing how excited she gets when he walks through the door, or when we are all on the couch together, she always tries to get to him. 

 She also really likes his facial hair...

Oh the bathroom. It brings her such pure joy. As soon as someone goes into the bathroom, she books it over. Trying to get her ready for bed while Shae is doing his nightly routine in the bathroom is pretty impossible. She tosses and turns until I let her go and then crawls as fast as she knows how to get there before the fun ends.

 And of course she no longer sits in the bathtub when it is her turn to bathe. Standing in the cold rather than the warm water is all the rage these days.

 As soon as she gets in the tub, she is sure to clear the sides of soap, shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. 

Like I said, baby destruction. (Thankfully she has only pulled the Christmas tree down once thus far).

She's at a hard stage to be outside because she just wants to get down and move around. She is not content for very long in the stroller or in my arms and wiggles and wiggles until I put her down. We try to only go to playgrounds with baby swings since she usually seems pretty happy there.

 Can't do a photo shoot without this boy wanting his moment in the limelight.

 Not a very flattering picture of her, but this is the best I could do to get a pic of her 2 top teeth that have been coming in all month.

Those dang teeth have really been messing with sleep this month. I feel like she has completely regressed and I keep hoping it's just the teeth but I'm not sure that it is. She wakes up at least two times per night, if not more, and the past week has been waking up around 6 a.m. instead of her usual 7:30. Sleep training might just become a focus of the 6 week winter break.

 Taking pictures looks a lot like this: (getting videos is so hard because as soon as she sees me, she just comes over and puts her face right in the camera).

She is constantly getting herself stuck in something.

These Sesame Street puppets. Shae loved them around this age too. There's just something captivating about them. She freaks whenever she sees them.

Other things to note:

~She is a growler.

~She can suck out of a straw like a champ.

~She cannot nurse if anyone else is in the room. Really, she seems to have less and less interest in nursing these days which is so weird for me given how Shae was.

~She has ticklish bum cheeks (when we put cream on her she giggles her little heart out, and so do I).

~She's pretty stinking cute.