9 Months...and Mobile!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Olivia's gift to us on her first Christmas was mobility. That's right! Olivia started crawling on Christmas Day! It didn't take her long to get very proficient at it either. For those of you who haven't seen it, here's a video I took of her crawling on the 29th...just four days later.

Baby-proofing the house will now commence. If the crawling wasn't enough, Olivia has also started sprouting her second lower tooth. I have yet to capture the twin gnawing nubs on camera, but I'll get 'em soon enough. Otherwise, Olivia is doing very well. She also had her 9-month checkup today and she's leveled off in terms of her growth spurt and weight gain. She's 17.4 pounds and is 29 inches long...which is more in the middle of where she should be (below 50th percentile in both cases). She still has a big old melon though. Her head size is in the 75th percentile. Here are a few pictures from the past week or so. Happy New Year!!

We See (and Feel) Enamel!

My apologies again for the long time between posts. The last couple weeks have been really rough and draining on me and I thought I better post one today before the next winter storm comes in on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. It's been rather active around here the past couple of weeks with me working, Amanda keeping things in order at home, and Olivia getting a little more mobile and trying to sprout some teeth. In fact, Olivia cut her first tooth last week! We felt the evidence of the first tooth breaking through last Tuesday (December 5th). Since then, I've tried to take a picture of it, but to no avail. I'll keep trying, but I'll probably have to wait until it's a little more visible. The tooth that broke through first was the bottom front left tooth. Of course, dealing with the side effects of that first tooth coming in hasn't quite been a picnic. First of all, there's the drool. How does a baby produce so much drool without becoming dehydrated?? Amanda and I have also come to the conclusion that the slime you see in movies must be made from baby drool. That stuff is so stretchy and stringy!!

As I mentioned above, Olivia is also becoming a little more mobile. She hasn't started crawling or walking yet, but she's doing everything else. She'll be sitting on the ground and bring herself forward to the crawling position, but then she'll get out of her comfort zone and push herself back to the sitting position. Olivia can also go from her being flat on her stomach to the sitting position. She really likes standing up too. She's slowly but surely becoming more stable and balanced in everything she does, but the official milestones of crawling and walking are going to have to wait a while longer.

We were going to take Olivia to get a picture with Santa, but the Santa at the mall didn't look very "genuine" and the prices for the pictures are borderline extortion, so we just took some pictures of our own and they turned out pretty good. Before I show the pictures, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks to all of our friends and family for the love and support we've received over the past year. I'll definitely keep the pictures and postings coming before and after the New Year. Until then, have a great holiday season!

Olivia's First Snow

The powerful winter storm that has had such an impact on the central U.S. also dumped a fresh blanket of snow on the Texas Panhandle. By Thursday afternoon, the sun came out giving Amanda and I the perfect opportunity to take Olivia out to experience the snow for the first time. I first showed her the snow and she was quite perplexed as to what I was showing her. She then touched the snow and you could just see the curiosity on her face as she tried to figure out why this powdery stuff was so cold and why it was getting wetter the longer she held onto it. We didn't stay outside too long because it was still quite cold, but we were out there long enough for Olivia's cheeks and nose to get nice and rosy...and the picture I took of her right after we came back inside is my new favorite picture of her. Here are the pictures of Olivia experiencing snow for the first time.

Looking at the snow

Looking at mommy

Touching the snow for the first time

Trying to figure the snow out

Standing in the snow

Those cute rosy cheeks and that cute rosy nose