Dear 2012, you have been a really busy year for us and our lives have changed drastically during your reign, but we are ready to say farewell and move on to the new year!
Hello, 2013! Wow. I can't even believe that it is 2013. Time has been flying! Anberlin hit 10 months old today and that means in two very short months she will be ONE YEAR OLD. {Cue the tears...} Where has my baby gone?
Anberlin had her 9 month appointment at the beginning of December and she is still healthy as can be. She is at the top of the height and weight chart for babies her age. She is about 22lbs and 28in. Big and healthy. :) She also now has FIVE teeth! Three on the top that are half way down and then the two on the bottom that I think are done coming in. You can see the bottom ones a lot when she babbles and sometimes if you are lucky you can see all five when she smiles big. It's so cute.
Look at all those teeth!
She is getting really fast with her crawling now and loves to get into everything. She isn't standing or walking just yet but that's okay. I'm in no rush for that, chasing her while she is crawling is hard enough, haha. She can go up stairs like a champ though! We couldn't even believe it when she just started crawling up the stairs at Brad's dad's townhome. She went all the way up and then turned around and tried to go down head first. Haha. So we have to work on that with her. ;)
This was Anberlin's first Christmas! She was so spoiled by us and her grandparents and her uncle Bryan. She has lots of things to help her learn and entertain herself now. We are so thankful that our family got her such nice things for Christmas. One of her favorite items she got is this little dog that sings songs and talks to her (it even says her name! well, it says "Bay", haha). It's so cute. And she also loves her old school Jack In The Box. I thought she might of been scared of it, but she wasn't! She also got her own Audi car, just like daddy! :)
First time meeting Santa.
And then she realized I wasn't holding her anymore.
We tried again and she still didn't like Santa. But how cute is this picture?!
Opening her first Christmas present, ever.
Playing with her new toy.
Driving on her Audi with daddy!
From our little holiday shoot. :)
So cute.
She is babbling a lot more now and we are fighting the urge to babble back and actually start using words to help her learn how to say things that she wants. We are still trying to teach her baby signs but she is still only knows "milk" and she really only says it when she is just about to get some milk. Haha. So it isn't that helpful. She can now clap on command. We do "pat a cake" and she will clap along with me. She can also snuggle on command. It's suuuuper cute when she does it. Like omg, heartmelt kind of cute. She is learning how to say that she wants something by holding her hand in it's direction and sometimes waving or motioning it to come to her. I am trying to get her to point at objects but we aren't quite there yet. She can also put her hands up in the air and then back down on command. And she will also hand you things like her binky, a toy, a book. It's sweet.
Sharing her book with daddy.
That face. Swoon.
Other than that, nothing new with Anberlin. She is such a good baby and we are so lucky to have this amazing, happy little girl in our lives. <3
Now... I am sure you are all waiting on new about out new house. Join. The. Club. No, we are not moved in yet. We haven't even signed closing documents yet. We have been in limbo for the past month, but everything is finally sorted and I think (hope, pray) that we should be moving into our house NEXT WEEK. Yayyyy! It's been a long wait and we are so so so so so thankful that we have had our family by our side through this whole mess and that they have allowed us to stay with them for the past 6 months. So thankful. But we are ready to move into our own place again and give Brad's mom back her house. Haha. She changed her coffee table into a plastic picnic table and the living room is always cluttered with toys. I am sure she will be glad to have her house back to normal again. ;) But the house is done and it is totally beautiful. Next week we will be painting and then moving our stuff in at the end of the week/weekend. So next month we will hopefully have pictures of it put together! Yay!
October is a really fun month. It's the beginning of fall so the weather in the desert drops down enough that we can have the doors to the house open pretty much all day. You get to have pumpkin in everything. Halloween happens. I mean, what is not to love about October?!
October has been a really fun month for Anberlin, too! She is really hitting these milestones now and her personality is showing through!
She figured out how to crawl this month! And boy does she loved being able to go around and explore the house. It took her a while to get used to crawling and we had to entice her at first with my phone. But now she is always on the go!
She is also getting better at waving to people. She doesn't do it every time we wave at her and she doesn't really do it when she is leaving, but it's so cute. She also does a kissy noise with her mouth that can sometimes looks like a fish face. And she has started giving kisses too! They are sloppy and she pretty much just licks your face but it melts my heart every single time. Baby kisses are the best!
We took Anberlin to her first Oktoberfest at her great Uncle's restaurant in Phoenix called Haus Murphy's. She had a lot of fun dancing and singing. We did the chicken dance with her cousin Shanon and watched all the people dance around and "OY! OY! OY!" Haha. We can't wait to take her again next year when she will be walking around and she will be able to enjoy it more.
For Halloween, we dressed Bay up as Audrey Hepburn. I got the idea from the internet, of course, but I made her costume and she looked adorable. She even won second place in a costume contest! We took her out in her costume to a Fall Fun Fair at the park and then to a Pumpkin Festival. Then on Halloween we took her out to main street for trick or treating. And no, she didn't get any candy. Haha. She is far too young for candy. Maybe I'll let her eat candy on her third Halloween. ;)
She also got to enjoy her first parade. We were a little hesitant to take her because it was during her (only) naptime, but she had fun and loved looking at everything and everyone that went by. :)
I was really looking forward to this season because I have seen so many adorable photos that I wanted to recreate with her. We only did one of my ideas but it turned out SO CUTE that I don't even care that we didn't do the other one.
She still only has two teeth and I am not even certain they are all the way up yet. Her hair is growing in really light in comparison to what is still left on her head. I received an email saying that her eye color is pretty much set now. I see green and Brad sees brown, so it's safe to say that they are hazel. We think that she has been losing some weight since she has gotten mobile. She is about 20 lbs now, give or take. And she is getting taller and taller every day. Our growing girl. <3
Our house is moving along... slowly, thanks to all the rain that Vegas has gotten recently. Our move in date got moved to mid-December. Here is the most recent picture of the house:
Time really is flying though. Before we know it we will be living in our own house, and then it will be Christmas, and then Bay will turn 1 year old, and then she will be going off to college.... Haha. Well maybe not that fast, right? I love documenting her life though, month by month. It's so great being able to look back and watch her grow. She is truly a blessing to us and we are so thankful to have her in our life. <3
.JPG)
