Some fun in October!

Pete's parents were in town visiting for a couple weeks at the end of October and we had a great time!

We took Layla to the Long Beach Boardwalk and she got to ride in a car with Kermit the Frog. She loved it! However, she hated being taken out of it. Opa made up for it with some crazy maneuvers in the stroller, though. =)

We took her wine tasting to Santa Barbara and Solvang. She has already been wine tasting four times in her short nine months of life. Does that make me a bad mother?!?! I just want her to have an appreciation for one of Mommy's favorite things. =)

At the Santa Barbara Zoo, Layla got to go for a Jeep ride, this time with a gorilla, an elephant and a giraffe. This one was a bit jerkier than the Kermit ride, so she was a bit more accepting of getting off when the ride was over.

She absolutely loved feeding the giraffes!!! She was giggling and smiling the whole time. Just like she does at home with her giant giraffe!

Man do those girls have some long tongues!

Getting a ride from Daddy while we checked out the exotic birds exhibit.

This one was so cool, and rather tame.

Watching the snow leopard.

We had a quick, impromptu stop at a local pumpkin patch on the way to Santa Barbara called Pete's Pumpkin Patch. I'm really glad that we stopped. We don't have many family photos, and Layla is looking adorable, even though we had to wake her up for the photos. =)

Now I am not much for Halloween. In fact, I pretty much hate the holiday, at least most of it. Everyone kept asking me what I was going to dress Layla up as. I didn't really care much, so last minute Sheryl and I came up with the idea of dressing her as G.I. Jane. Though she was not in a picture taking mood that day, she looks pretty cute. I do love her in her fatigues.

9 Months Old!!!

Time is flying by these days. I hardly even remember September or October. So Layla is nine months old now and she got a clean bill of health from her check up. She is now 27 inches tall and 17 lbs. My little skinny mini is still wearing a lot of her 6 month clothes. Now her head, on the other hand, is definitely a Heikes dome. Where her other stats put her at the 25th percentile, her head is at the 75th!

She is crawling around everywhere now, getting into whatever she can, and pulling up on anything she can. Nothing compared to what it will be once she is walking, but still, she is keeping me on my toes for sure. She has started taking steps while holding on to things, so I am sure walking will come soon. When Daddy holds her hands and walks with her, she will just cruise! I can't believe how fast she is. She just needs to work on the balance a bit more.

Talking all the time, she has mastered pretty much all of her alphabet sounds, and puts them together to make some pretty hilarious conversation. Her favorite is still dada so she says that a lot or variations of it. She loves to make weird sounds like clicking her tongue, breathing heavy through her gums (which if any of you know me well, you know how much I love that) or popping her lips. It is too cute.

She is cutting her third tooth now on the top right. I'm excited, but I will be sad once it comes in because it will make her seem so much older. I love that giant, two teeth grin that she has. I don't know if it is from the teething or not, but she has had a few rough nights over the last few weeks. She will randomly wake up crying and not be able to sooth herself back to sleep. Our version of the cry-it-out method usually works pretty well, but sometimes she just needs mom to hold her.

So overall she is doing very well. She is very attached to mommy these days, which isn't surprising, but she loves to smile at people when we are out, as long as they don't get too close.

She is my happy little munchkin!

Mirror, Mirror

Layla was entertaining herself on the floor of the bedroom today while I was getting ready. I have to say this was one of the cutest moments I have ever seen!

She also had fun with her reflection. It is so cool to watch how she discovers herself and the fact that it is her own reflection.

Pulling Up In Her Crib

So now that Layla can pull herself up she loves to do it while she is playing in her crib. I knew the moment she first pulled up on something that I had to drop her crib all the way down immediately so she wouldn't fall out. I hate that when she does it she stands on the bumper pad, cause it is eventually going to ruin it, but it is so cute.

So Many New Things

Layla is now almost nine months, and as I haven't been great about keeping up with my blog, there are so many new things to report. She is getting so big and is showing her independence in a lot of ways.

Just recently she has learned to crawl. She isn't tearing around the house yet, but she has the motion down. I think she is more concerned with trying to walk, so when she is crawling she will lift her knees off the ground and stand on her feet. It is pretty funny to watch.

She takes her first crawl steps towards the end


Her silly foot crawl

She has also just started pulling herself up on things. I had to drop her crib down to its lowest setting so that she can't fall out. I am sure that walking is just around the corner, since she loves to be on her feet.

Layla is quite the vocal little monkey too. She loves to scream and stick her tongue out to blow raspberries, and her favorite is to have people echo different sounds she makes. Her sound vocabulary is increasing all the time, too. She now says mama, dada, baba, nana, yeah yeah, blah blah, babo and a plethora of other random noises and sounds.

Babbling and crawling

We are working on teaching her to hold her hands up when we say, "touchdown", which is so cute. She has mastered waving both with her whole arm as well as just the finger wave on both hands. She can also do high fives and clap, which is so funny because she keeps her left arm steady and claps with her right. It cracks me up. She seems to be taking after her daddy and drums on everything. She just started doing the rhythm back and forth with her hands, instead of always banging with both hands together. She is going to be my little percussionist.

Waving


Clapping

She is getting so big and her beautiful red hair is filling in more and more all the time. I can now mess it a bit and get a little curl in the back. She has her two bottom front teeth now, which are the cutest thing ever when she flashes that smile. No sign of any of the others coming through, but she loves to chew on things, so I am sure they are on their way soon.

First Visit to Vancouver!!!

Layla and I took our first plane flight together a couple weeks ago to go home to Vancouver. What an amazing trip we had. I was so worried about her ears on the plane, as I had a horrific experience with that once, and can only imagine what it would be like for an infant to have to endure that kind of pain; but she was a trooper! She hung out and people watched at the airport since we were an hour and a half delayed, then she played with Grandma and me almost the whole flight there, nursed and then fell asleep for the last twenty minutes.

Getting ready for takeoff!!!

She had such a great time seeing everyone. She is pretty attached to me at this point, but considering the mass of new people that she was introduced to, she did great. As always, I wish that I would have taken more pictures, but it is hard to when you are carrying a baby around and having a good time. I managed to snag a few adorable shots of my little munchkin while we were there, though.

Love this picture. Playing in the morning at Grammy's.

At the pumpkin patch with her cousin's Lexi and Mia.

Her boots were falling off, but what a cutie!!!

Looking ever so cool in the Walmart shopping cart!

Teddy Grahams and sparkling water, breakfast of champions.

Telling Grandpa about her day.

Strapped in with Smith and Wesson, her shoulder bears.

Pete's favorite picture!

Chillin' in the ice bucket at the Gores'.

Loves her oatmeal and pears!

Taking a walk with Grandpa.

Sitting like a big girl at Auntie Nikki's house.

Enjoying the fire on a cool fall day.

Someone has learned to pull herself up!

Looking beyond cute at Jenn's housewarming party.

When Mom doesn't let you watch TV, you have to try to see it somehow.

Enjoying the Alaska Airlines cup while we wait for Daddy to pick us up.

Cheese!!!