9 months

I'm writing this a few days late, as things have been pretty busy with school starting up, but here we go.

Melanie is 9 months old!! I can hardly believe it. She is the love of our lives, and I don't know what we'd do without her. Our 9 month old Melanie:

Is still the cutest thing in the world. At least once a day I look at her and my heart just about bursts from all the adorable cuteness.

She is getting pretty steady with her standing. Sometimes she lets go of her support for a second or two so she can use both of her hands.

She loves to eat new foods, and she is getting better at chewing things. I try to do one meal a day of all finger foods so I can get some other things done while she is contained.

If I am eating anything, she crawls over, pulls herself up on my knees, and makes a longing face at me with big eyes until I share or it's all gone. If I share she just wants more.

She babbles a lot now. She is usually saying "da da da da" or whispering all sorts of sounds to herself like she is testing them out. She still won't say "mama", but " ba ba" and "la la" are common. She also yells, squeaks, squeals, and growls.

Her favorite game is being chased around on our hands and knees.

She loves her big stuffed unicorn and will tackle it if you make it move toward her. Usually as she squeals with delight or growls.

She loves to walk while holding your hands. She also loves going for walks in the stroller. One day Spencer showed her how to kick the white, fluffy dandelions and now she likes to kick and stomp them when we walk by them.

She has a sweet, cautious, silly demeanor. She always will give me a big grin and like to follow people around. When new people come over, she almost always crawls over and wants them to pick her up.

If you build her a block tower she comes over happily, then reaches out to carefully grab the top block. If she can't reach it, she backs off and tries again, like she is worried about knocking over the whole thing.

She is doing well with daycare, but that is for another post. We love her so much!!

I need to add pictures, I know. Someday, but it's late tonight.