Tales from Our Fairytale: And Just Like That, Month Nine

To My Little Monkey,

You LOVE life, and we love watching you love life!! Your little personality just continues to blossom and grow with each day, and there is not a day that goes by that you don't make me and your daddy laugh.

You love to stand up (All. The. Time.), walk around the furniture as you hold on, and bounce (CONSTANTLY). You bounce in your bouncer, you bounce on your knees, you bounce when people are holding you...you just love to bounce (which seems to be the way you "dance" too).

We can also add "climbing" to the list of tricks you do. I'm very proud to say this is something you get from me (until you hurt yourself)!! (Your mimi and pappy will tell you stories someday about finding me hanging upside down from the swing set in our backyard...)

You also love music. If there is a song playing on TV, the radio, our phones, or anywhere else...odds are, you are INTENTLY paying attention! Because of your love for music, you also officially have *favorite* TV shows - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins, and Sofia the First.

Oh...and you also LOVE books. :)

You've also started waving, which became a very quick favorite of mine and your daddy's. Sometimes it's just your sweet little {left} hand, other times its the whole arm. When you are REALLY excited, it's BOTH arms...with a big old grin on your face!

Along with loving to wave, you also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your tongue. You stick it out, you move it around, you play with it with your fingers, and occasionally, you lick me with it. It just might be the cutest tongue I've ever seen...but I also might be a little partial. You seriously make the cutest faces, all the time!!

Your determination hasn't slowed down one bit, but things have seemed to get much easier over the past month, as far as "pulling up" {on EVERYTHING} goes. I've also noticed that you've got much better balance, so your falls aren't quite so clumsy anymore...although you still bump your little head at least 3 times a day!

You made your daddy's day by finally busting out the "Da-Da"! I had been telling him you were saying it, but he hadn't heard you for himself. When he finally did, his face definitely lit up!! (I know the feeling.)

Nine Month Stats

Wearing: Thank goodness for those 9 month clothes, because we have had some chilly days this month! We've still got a mixture of 3, 6 and 9 month in the closet - with 3's being dresses. We also got some new 9 month pj's so that Little Miss can have footie pajamas to keep her little toes warm!

Eating: Eating. Is. TOUGH. These days Bryleigh just doesn't seem to be too hungry, so it makes taking her bottle a wrestling match and feeding her food a time for prayer (Seriously, I must have prayed for patience recently). She would much rather sleep than eat and has missed both bottles and food so that she could nap or go to bed early for the night!

She is on a pretty set routine with 4 bottles a day (8, 12, 4, and 8), along with 3 baby-food meals a day. She HATES peas, but opens her mouth and takes the bite every single time I offer it to her and then gags. It's a little sad, and a little funny at the same time. We gave mangos a shot this month, but she had a worse reaction to those than apples, so we won't be trying those again for a while. We also added mixed berries, and she loves them!

Bryleigh got to have puffs and yogurt bites this month as well, and let's just say, there's a whole lot of work to be done before she can feed herself!! She'll eat them when I give it to her, but has a hard time picking it up and making it to her mouth. (She has gotten a lot better in these last few days of the month.)

Sleeping: This whole sleeping thing cracks me up. I just re-read last months blog, and things have changed from month to month, but they are the same in some ways. Bryleigh is an early riser, or at least early for me, and some mornings it's so early that she has to join us in bed (anywhere between 5 and 7:00...if it's 7:30, we just get up for the day). She's still taking a morning nap and an afternoon nap each day, but some days those could qualify more as cat-naps than anything else. Bed time has moved up from 8:00 to anywhere between 7:00 and 7:30 - because let's face it, the day's I waited until 8:00 was NOT pretty!

Teeth: Still holding steady at 4, but I'm pretty sure one or two on the top are about to pop through! (Tuesday of this week was a TOUGH day - with a whole lot of fussing and tongue-sliding-around-the-gum mess!)

Official Measurements: We had Bryleigh's 9 month appointment this morning with one of Dr. Wallace's partners since she's out with her new baby girl. The appointment was a little more difficult than usual with a fussy baby, but she's as healthy as can be! She weighs 22 pounds, is 28.5 inches long, and her sweet little head is 47.5 centimeters (although it has only grown a half a centimeter since her 6 month appointment, it's still measuring off the charts). She also got one of her vaccine shots and her flu shot...that was the worst part of all, and it took a little longer than normal to get her calmed down! She came home, ate her breakfast, and took a THREE hour nap.

Nine Month Highlights

We cheered. A lot. For a lot of different sports teams! We had fun watching the Rangers finish their season on a high note, watched the Nationals go on a crazy run at the end of their season, only to be eliminated in their first series :(, watched the Cowboys, Broncos, Bears, and Sooners...and because Brad is Brad, we watched a whole lot of other games that we didn't necessarily have "loyalties" for - but Little Miss doesn't seem to mind!! She's starting to "cheer" with us!

We celebrated. Olivia Lynn, Bryleigh's older-by-3-months cousin turned 1 year old, and we celebrated her birthday with family and friends (and a precious princess cake!) in Canton. The next weekend was my 10 year reunion, so we headed to Sulphur Springs for the Homecoming football game, a party on Saturday, and church in the park on Sunday morning.

We also spent some fun time with family! There are no pictures from the fun night with Aunt Erin and her boyfriend Luke, but Little Miss B kept going to Luke over and over all night (she tends to like the guys...especially the tall ones!), and we all got quite a few laughs out of that. We also had some fun times with DeDe & Poppa B and Mimi & Pappy!

And we survived. Brad's job is in consulting, and we knew when he started that there were serious chances for travel (like a LOT of travel). We've been so blessed for the past two years (which included a tough pregnancy, the birth and first weeks of our baby girl, and three surgeries/home health for Brad) to have time at home together, but Brad has been placed on a new project for work. It is an incredible opportunity for his career, and I am SO proud of him...it just happens to mean flying out on Tuesday mornings and flying home on Friday afternoons each week for a {long} while. So once again, we'll be living for the weekends and enjoying lots of FaceTime!