Braelyn and the Puppies

Today we had a good afternoon with the puppies (dogs).  Braelyn has started offering just about anyone the thing that she's holding, so she keeps offering Hunter her toys, to which I tell him no because he's already eaten several toys, not to mention the bib he ate (picture on a post a while ago).  She loves the dogs and likes to laugh at them a lot.  Today she had an empty pop bottle, which just happens to be one of Hunter's favorite toys.  It's not a specific bottle that's his, he just likes to chew on our empty beverage bottles.  She likes to play with them too, and I think today was the first time she had one when we were where Hunter was.  Needless to say, everything was fine until she started offering it to him.  He started licking the bottle cap, then tried taking it and she pulled it away.  Then he finally got it from her and we went several rounds of he takes it, she takes it back.  Finally he got it away from her completely and chewed the cap up pretty good...  Anyway, here's some pictures I took on my laptop:

 Braelyn has the bottle...and both of them are looking at me, I think.

 

Hunter has the bottle and she's reaching for it.

And now she's way more interested in the computer...loves to bang the keys.

Howie also came and sat right by her and she pinched him several times...he didn't even flinch.  Maybe he's getting used to her. 

She's being a lot more active, she even tries to walk when she's standing and wants to move herself to get items, but doesn't quite know how to do it yet, other than slow scooting on her butt.

9 months and 5 days.

Braelyn turned 9 months about 5 days ago.  We don't go to the doctor until she's almost 10 months, so I can give you her weight according to the Wii Fit:  18.1 pounds.  I'm sure that she has some height, but frankly I don't want to try to measure it.

Not a whole lot is new except she is getting at least one new tooth (I know the other bottom tooth is coming in, I think the top two are getting ready) and it is painful, apparently.  I'm ready for this teething thing to be over, and we've just begun! :)  Sleep is continuing to be a bit better, but she's waking up a bit more with the teething the last couple of days.

Braelyn has figured out how to scoot a bit on her butt.  She's not very quick about it but she can get to things that are just a bit out of her reach.  Her new favorite thing to do is stand, however we have to be very vigilant about it since she can't balance, even when she's holding on to something.  The getting to things just out of her reach almost was a very bad thing today when Howie was sitting just out of her reach and she was trying her best to get to him.  I still don't trust him to be as patient and good-natured about her pinching and pulling as Hunter is.  Hunter lets her do just about anything to him.  She still doesn't crawl, and dislikes being on her stomach, but she can move herself in circles on her stomach, so that's something.

She's decided lately that she doesn't want us to feed her anything, she wants to do it herself.  Not only that, but she wants to have what I am eating and drinking, straight from my plate.  Tonight we had a lot of fruit and a carrot.  I had to take a bite and give it to her and then she'd gnaw on it or eat it.  I need to start eating healthier, apparently.  She really loves raw carrots...she can gnaw little pieces off of it, but that's about it.  She also found that Hunter really loves it when she drops food.  The best (worst) moment tonight was when she was "eating" the carrot and leaned over sort of "giving" it to Hunter...he licked it and then she stuck it back in her mouth...eewww!  Oh well.  It's good for her immune system or something.  Pretty sure he's licked her hand or mouth before already.

We took 9 month pictures last Saturday.  I tried being smart and scheduling them for after her nap so she'd be in a good mood.  Yeah, she then decided to only nap for 15 minutes and was in a horrible mood for the pictures.  We still got some cute non-smiling pictures.  She wouldn't smile for any of them, but that's OK.  Here's a great one we didn't order...

Love it!  Autumn always says that black looks good on Braelyn, you be the judge if the black background looks good.

Update

I forgot in the Christmas hubbub to update on the sleeping progress.  She did actually sleep all right/better on vacation...she slept for at least two hour stretches, which is great improvement.  At Nate's parents' house they had borrowed a crib, and she would go to sleep in it at the beginning of the night, but when she woke up in the middle of the night she wouldn't let me put her back down, so she slept with us for the rest of the night, which was actually sort of OK, but sort of not.  It makes me nervous because of SIDS, but at least we all got decent amounts of sleep that way.  I was worried she'd want to do that when we got back, but she's been fine sleeping in her room.  I've averaged getting up around 3 times a night since we got back, which really isn't too bad.  Last night was a little worse, but I attribute that to some major gas and I think she's getting close to getting her second bottom tooth.

And she's getting a little more mobile.  She tries to pull herself up on occasion but can only get on her knees so far.  She can also push herself backwards on her tummy.  She did figure out over vacation that she could roll herself places, but she's sort of stopped doing that since she figured out she can push herself backwards on the tile.

As far as food goes, she's started to be able to pick up small items, so she can eat cheerios and those little processed Gerber puffs.  It's my theory that she now wants to feed herself everything because she won't let us feed her much using a spoon.  That's going to stink since we have all this pureed food in the freezer.  I sort of feel guilty giving her those puffs since I don't think they are "real" food.  Just another thing to add to my list of "Mommy guilt".  They should have postpartum therapy sessions on guilt.  I never knew how much guilt moms can have until I became one.  That could be a whole 'nother blog post though, so I won't go into all the guilt I have over various things.  At any rate, meal time is also quite amusing as she's starting to "talk" and she only does it when she's upset at us during meals.  She will sit there at say "BABABA" in this funny little voice...but she opens her mouth really wide so we get a spoonful of something in there when she does it, which she isn't too fond of either. :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Here's how our Christmas trip went:

Before we left we had Christmas for our little family.  It was lovely.  The morning started off with finding a dead mouse in our garage.  For about a week or so I had noticed what I thought were rodent droppings under Nate's car after he left in the morning.  So we got some mouse traps and baited them with peanut butter.  In one day, the peanut butter was gone on one trap.  The next day it was gone on the other trap.  Then the first trap was sprung and moved under Nate's car.  Then the second trap was sprung and moved under my car.  Finally, I put peanut butter on them again and sprayed them with bug spray as our garage is prone to crickets and I thought maybe that's what ate the peanut butter.  The next morning (our family Christmas) there was our best present, a dead mouse.

It was big.  With a long tail.  Gross.

Then we did Christmas.  Braelyn got some books, a stuffed dog with a squeaky thing in it, the little rings, and some stacking cups.  We added the books to our three gifts as we found a good deal at Barnes and Noble. Here's the best picture we got of her with all her gifts that morning.

Then we packed.  Braelyn's all ready to go!

We caught the bus to the airport and flew to Nebraska.  That flight was a little long, but Braelyn did well, sleeping on the take off and landing.  It was a full flight and a serviceman sat next to us, not sure if he was in the National Guard or what exactly.  He was nice though.

In Nebraska we went to church to show off Braelyn's Christmas dress...

Then we went to have dinner with Nate's aunt and uncle and his grandma.  Braelyn got to meet her Great-Grandma!

Looks like they made friends with each other.  Braelyn loved Nate's aunt and uncle's dog, a huge lab mix named Simon.  We then went to the Bartels' Christmas at my cousin's house, where she wouldn't let anyone hold her.  That became a theme throughout our Christmas travels.  I suppose it was all the change and the fact that she really WAS teething!  Who knew?!?  More on that later.

The next day we went to my grandpa's house to have a Christmas dinner with him and my brother and his girlfriend Kiley, who is wonderful.  Braelyn warmed up to Great-Grandpa a bit, letting him hold her for a while.  She had a great time playing ball with Uncle Christian, she thought it was hilarious.  We also got a three-generation picture...

The next day we flew to Nashville, via Chicago and St. Louis.  We weren't supposed to have to switch planes, but in Chicago we did, because we think someone got sick all over the bathroom and they had to sanitize things.  The flight to Chicago was fine, a nice young man sat in our row and Braelyn kept him entertained.  The flight from Chicago to St. Louis was the best...we got an empty seat in our row, but Braelyn slept the whole time, so that was less exciting than it should have been.  From St. Louis to Nashville a very nice Southwest captain sat in our row.  Braelyn was a little tired of flying by then, but here's a great picture of her before we took off in St. Louis:

Overall she's a good little traveler.

We made it to Nashville and Nate's parents' house.  On the drive to their house I discovered that her bottom tooth had erupted from the gums, a Christmas miracle!  We had Christmas with them and I'm sure she was really overwhelmed at that point, but she warmed up to them after a day or so.  Nate and his dad and brother went to the Music City Bowl

And the whole family (except me...Braelyn was sleeping and very crabby) went to the Opreyland hotel to see the lights there, which are apparently amazing.  We didn't really get any pictures with Braelyn, but here's one from New Year's Eve

I have a Nebraska snuggie too but I was asleep at this point, I believe.

Then we came home.  We had a delay in the Nashville airport because the plane was broken.  Then the new plane came from Florida and they had to take the bathroom door off midflight because someone got locked in it (it was a brand new plane), so they had to fix that before we could leave. The flight from Nashville to Las Vegas was really long.  We were very blessed as the flight was very full but no one sat next to us, so we had lots of room, which was good because she barely slept.

Now I want to do this.

Maybe later.

A good time was had by all, but I don't think we'll try this particular trip set-up again in a very long time.