Happy 9 Months Audrey!

These are some pictures taken lately of my "big girl". I can't believe she's standing already. She's also full on crawling. Cruising has not yet started though it doesn't seem far off as well as walking soon. It's so crazy to believe we're already at this point.

Right now you may also be asking yourself, Hey what happened to 8 months? Well, 8 months came and went and I was not able to get my act together and actually post about it. It didn't seem that there were too many things to talk about except for crawling on her hands and knees... as opposed to army crawling.

She's almost 21 lbs now so she has already tripled her birth weight which usually happens by the first birthday. She's also tall. I think 26 inches at this point but we have a doc appointment tomorrow when we'll know for sure. (UPDATE: She is actually 30 in. tall now. Wow!) She eats solids about twice a day now and nurses as much as before. I don't mind. I really like nursing now and I think I'll be sad when she weans. It's just so convenient. I've been trying to get more green veggies in her, per her doc, and she seems to really like spinach sauteed with some onion...mmm....who wouldn't like that? Broccoli is still not at the top of the list but she'll eat some of it so I'm ok with that. I tried giving her chunks too so she can learn to bite and chew and will eat carrots and asparagus that way but broccoli annoys her if it's not pureed. Oh well, at least she eats some of it.

I've also just gotten our first batch of veggies from our CSA yesterday and am excited to try some new things with her. First off, swiss chard.

Life is definitely getting more manageable, not because it's slowed down in any way, but because I feel more comfortable with my role as mother and wife. Some days are still crazy. Like yesterday when she was really fussy and I was trying to make soaked english muffins and blueberry muffins and handle being a drop off point for the CSA. My mom also came by to help but Audrey just wanted me to hold her. I think she's going through her separation anxiety phase. I've also been trying to leave her in the church nursery and that hasn't been going well either. Then there's trying to keep the house clean and the laundry done and mixing in some creative endeavors here and there. But the saving grace is that I have some down time in the evenings. Audrey goes to bed around 6-6:30pm and usually sleeps til 5-6am. She's been getting up at 5am lately and I suspect it's because of the sun rising so early. I tried to make her room as dark as I could but light still comes through the bottom of the door. It's not terrible though as I can usually put her right back down after nursing and changing and she'll sleep until 7:30-8am. Either way, I love my evenings to just relax. Some nights I still have work to do but I try to keep the nights free to regain some sanity.

Overall, I'm looking forward to all her new firsts. I've been working on having her say "Mama", but nothing yet. Though I have been getting an "mmmm" out of her. Could this be the beginning? It's either that or she wants milk.

I'll post some pictures of all the baking I did yesterday. I know it's not a food blog but it was so much work, I need some recognition =)