Nine Months

Where has the time gone? In just a few days Stella will have spent as much time in the world as she did in my womb. That's crazy talk! This has been a big month for her. Milestones have been reached, independence gained, and big girlhood is being acquired. It all started when she figured out she could pull down the bumper pads in her crib for a view of the world outside. I thought it was adorable when she fell asleep like that, using the bumper pad for a pillow.

Then, one day, I put her down for a nap. We heard lots of giggles and excited noises, but no sleeping noises. After a few minutes, I went to check on her and this is what I saw. She finally figured out how to stand up in her crib for an even better view of the world outside. And do you see that grin on her face? Do you see how proud she is of herself? Scary and adorable all at the same time. Now she is often standing up in her crib, surveying her room, when I go in to get her from her nap. And always with a huge grin on her face.

She has also figured out how to crawl. She started on June 14th (not the day after my last post like I predicted). I can only assume she was super pumped about it being Flag Day. At first it was just a little bit of crawling and then she would fall back to her tried and true scooting.

But, she's gotten much better at it over the last several days and now it's all crawling all the time. Everywhere. Into everything. Needless to say, she keeps me on my toes.

Don't worry - the DDR mat cords are still a favorite.

As she's been gaining some independence, her little personality has been blossoming. It's been really fun to watch. She is one determined little tyke. When she decides she wants something, there's no deterring her. Again, scary and adorable all at the same time.

She's also learned to pull herself up to things like furniture, me, or this little activity table which is another favorite play thing for her.

This thing can keep her busy for awhile. And it makes noises, so I can be in the other room and know if she is safely playing at her table and not getting into things she shouldn't.

Just look how happy she is.

She's starting to work on cruising, but she's still figuring out how to work those little feet to her advantage when she's standing on them. For now, she's kind of afraid to move them once she's up. Which leads me to this next awesome picture.

She didn't have very good foot placement when she pulled herself up. Her feet were a little too widespread and they slowly slipped farther apart as she was playing. She didn't realize they were slipping until it was too late. Finally she got stuck like this. She was afraid to let go of the table and didn't know what to do to get out of the situation. Just after I snapped this picture, she got brave, let go of the table, and fell softly on her bum. Problem solved. Though she's had her fair share of bumps and bruises this week. I expect that to continue.

She's also just sprouted her third tooth. Upper right front. I expect the upper left front will soon follow. It might take a little while, though, because this one I could see just under her gum for weeks and it finally popped through. The other one I can't even see yet, so we'll see how long it takes.

She's also getting much better about letting other people hold her. She still loves her mommy best, but gets super excited when her daddy gets home from work. It won't be long before she's jumping up and down in excitement just like Scout does when he gets home. And, she does pretty well with familiar people as long as I'm not in sight - and even when I am in sight on a good day. Although, at this point, she a lot of times prefers to not be held at all so she can cruise around and explore.

We continue to be of the opinion that she's the cutest thing around. Can you blame us?

And, in honor of turning nine months old, she took her first big girl ride in a shopping cart, sans car seat.

Captivated by the many different varieties of cheese. That's my girl!

Happy Birthday to Me!

The only thing I said I wanted for my birthday was a steam mop. Mr. Frisby delivered big time. He got me this bad boy:

It cleans and sanitizes the floor with steam (hence the name, steam mop). It also has a carpet glide attachment so you can steam the carpet. And the main steaming unit pulls out (as in the picture above) to become a hand held steam cleaner with attachments to do small surfaces like counter tops, scrub grout lines, and get into hard to clean places like behind toilets and faucets. I used it for the first time a few nights ago and it was love at first cleaning. This thing KICKS BUTT!

Swimming

Today is Swimming Pool Day. I'm not making that up. Mr. Frisby has a calendar that tells him all of the holidays, from the well-known, worldwide holidays to the obscure, unknown, and overlooked ones. So, according to his calendar, today, amongst other things, is Swimming Pool Day. And, it being Swimming Pool Day, I thought it would be appropriate to post about Stella's first swim. There's really not much to say. The pictures and video, I think, will adequately convey her adorableness and how much she liked the pool. Enjoy.

Happy Swimming Pool Day, everyone! I hope you have a pool to swim in today because it's supposed to be a scorcher.

Eight Months

Stella is 8 months old today and life has drastically changed in the last few days here in the Frisby home. My little baby who would lay there and play with her toys, rolling here and there, staying fairly contained is no more. She has now figured out how to scoot and it's game on! All of a sudden, she is here, there, and everywhere. And fast. She hasn't figured out how to crawl quite yet. I expect she'll do that tomorrow since she seems to always hit a major milestone the day after I blog. For now, she just pulls herself with her arms while pushing a little with her feet to help the process. When she's on the kitchen floor, which has no carpet, she moves pretty fast since she slides so easily. But, she's learning to get around pretty well on the carpet, too. With her newfound mobility, the possibilities for discovery are endless. She's particularly interested in what's under the couch. There isn't much really. The DDR mats for the Wii and a lot of dust. But, to her, it's a whole new world. Yesterday she scooted over to the couch, pulled a dust ball out from under it, and popped it in her mouth before I could stop her. And her favorite thing to do is pull out the cords on the DDR mats and eat them. I figure it's okay since they're not plugged in to anything. I did Swiffer under the couches yesterday after the dust ball incident. All of a sudden I find myself vacuuming all the time and cleaning in places that I wasn't worried about before - like under the couch. And I told Mr. Frisby that I want a steam mop for my birthday. The times, they are a-changin'. Sing it Bob Dylan.

Scout, bless her heart, is beside herself now that the baby can get around and into things. In fact, she's a pretty decent tattletale. If she thinks that Stella is getting into something she shouldn't, she usually lets me know. And she's very aware of what's hers and what's Stella's and she does not like Stella getting into her stuff. She's okay if Stella gets one of her toys because she thinks maybe she'll play with her. But, the other day we were at my parents' and we had a bag for Scout with some of her things in it. Stella was cruising around checking things out and decided to investigate Scout's bag. Scout did not like that at all. First, she tried to take the bag away from Stella. But, that didn't really work because she couldn't get a good hold on it with her teeth. So, she tried to swat Stella's hand away with her paw. But, that didn't work either. Finally, she went over and started nipping at Stella's ponytail and just generally freaking out until I went over and took the bag away from Stella. It was hilarious. Scout and Stella remain good friends and it will be fun to see how Scout reacts to Stella crawling and standing and getting into more trouble.

Besides her increased mobility, Stella has also branched out in her eating this month. In fact, she had her first meal at a restaurant. We went to Marie Callendar's on Saturday and when I looked at the menu, I saw that kids eat free on Saturday. So, I looked at the kids' menu, decided she could eat some pasta and garlic bread as long as we cut it up really small for her, and ordered her first meal. And she LOVED it. She could have sat there eating for hours, but I got bored with it. Her meal even came with a free slice of pie. I got her Apple because she loves apples and I gave her a couple bites. She would've eaten more, but I decided that wouldn't be a good idea. She does love to eat and is learning to feed herself a little bit too. I give her some freeze-dried yogurt drops and cereal puffs that she can pick up and eat herself. It took some practice, but her pincer grasp is improving and she's getting really good at getting things in her mouth. And she loves being able to do it herself. Scout also loves it when she feeds herself because she misses or drops things a fair amount, too.

In my last post, I mentioned that Stella was spitting up a lot less. This was, apparently, a lie. She must have just been having a good couple of weeks. She is now back to her usual ways, spewing spit up wherever she goes. And, it's even more fun now with all of the different foods she's eating. Here's some photographic evidence. She spit up over my shoulder as I stood up with her from this chair. And this is only what made it past my shoulder and back. I think twice about buying red, orange, or purple food and I think twice about buying her white clothes.

She has her bottom two teeth now and I think she may be working on another one. We'll see if anything pops up soon. Her favorite toy right now is probably her Fisher Price Xylophone. She LOVES that thing. She's still figuring out how to bang on it and make noise, but it keeps her busy for awhile. Like, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. That's awhile for baby, right? I feel like it is since her other toys keep her occupied for, like, 15 or 20 seconds.

She's a very busy little girl and we love watching her discover the world around her. She continues to be happy in general and very easy going. She's even showing signs of getting over her anyone-except-mom-anxiety. If you feed her, she'll probably let you hold her.

I was looking through Stella's baby book the other day as I was adding some more information and I was looking at some of her newborn pictures. Those first days with her seem so far away and so long ago and, yet, 8 months really isn't a very long time. It amazes me how much she has changed and how quickly those changes happened. I won't lie and say I enjoy every minute of it. I enjoy most minutes, but not all. I could do without all the minutes of changing diapers, cleaning up spit up, etc. But, I try to savor the far too few minutes of being able to just sit and watch her be her. And, with that, I hear her stirring and waking up from her nap. Time to see what she'll be getting into this afternoon. We love our little Stella!

Stella's New Do

Stella got a haircut on Saturday. I figured it was about time since I couldn't even feed her without pulling her hair back first since it was so in the way. I was getting my hair done and figured it would be a great time to get hers done, too. Here are a couple pictures of her right at the beginning. You can see how long and out of control her hair was.

Overall, she was a champ. I held her so she wouldn't freak out and she was distracted by my picture and video taking. She squirmed a bit and was pretty curious about what was going on, but all in all, it was a raving success.

And, here she is after it was over.

I didn't realize it would make as big of a difference as it did, but it was a pretty awesome change. She's cuter than ever and no longer has hair constantly in her eyes.

Easter 2012

Happy Easter, everyone! As I mentioned before, we took lots of pictures on Easter. It was Stella's first Easter. What choice did we have? We started the morning off by going to my new nephew's baby blessing. I didn't take any pictures of baby Hank because I didn't know they were taking them right after Sacrament Meeting. But, he was super cute and the blessing was beautiful. After the blessing, we headed back to my sister's house to hide eggs and get the food ready while the kids were still at church.

Since we were in a rush that morning to get to the baby blessing, we decided to wait until after church to have Stella check out her Easter basket. I think she liked it.

After she checked out her Easter basket, we went outside to take some pictures.

I had envisioned some beautiful pictures of Stella sitting on the bright green grass in her cute Easter attire. The pictures would have evoked feelings of happiness in the lovely spring weather. Then we set Stella down on the grass and she started screaming. This is when we learned that she is terrified of the grass and does not trust it one bit. Cute grassy pics were out and we moved on to Plan B.

We just held her for pictures.

Obviously she's still cute, but the grass would've contrasted with her dress nicely. She did enjoy checking out the springtime blossoms on the tree, so I decided that would make cute enough Easter pics.

When everyone else got home from church, it was time for the Easter egg hunt.  We didn't get many pictures because I was helping Stella get her eggs and Mr. Frisby was doing something inside for most of the hunt.  But, he came out with the camera just in time to catch Stella striking it rich by finding the 10 dollar egg.

Her daddy had to help her get the egg out of the tall tree, but she knew that money was hers! After that, we ate and relaxed for the rest of the day and enjoyed lots of time with family.

Happy Easter from the Frisbys!

Road Trip

As I mentioned in my last post, Stella went on her first road trip.  Since the wee one is growing up quickly and has lots of family yet to meet and my brother was going to be blessing his baby on Easter, we decided it was time to head out to the Jell-O belt for a visit.  We headed up to Idaho first and spent a few days in Rexburg with the Frisbys.  It was a good visit.  Stella got to meet family and be showered with love.  She also tried out a jumper for the first time.  She loved it, as you can see from the pic.  I know the picture is blurry, but I chose it anyway because I love how excited she looks.  She jumped and jumped and jumped.  Apparently she wore herself out because when I looked over at her after she had been quiet for a few minutes, her little head was slumped over and she wasn't jumping anymore.  I thought she must be getting drowsy, but when I walked over to get her, she was full on asleep.  I got her out of the jumper and walked her upstairs and laid her down and she never woke up.  It was awesome.

Just when you thought things couldn't get more exciting than that, we headed down to Utah.  We spent one night in Logan with Jared's brother.  It was fun to see their house and visit with them.  And their dog, Griz, enjoyed pilfering Stella's rice cereal - cardboard box and all.  Haha.  Joke's on you, Griz.  Good luck getting that out of your beard!

From Logan, it was on to SLC.  We met my parents (who were also there for the baby blessing) and my sister at the Conference Center.  Jared had arranged for a friend of his who works there to give us the backstage tour of the media stuff there.  It was pretty awesome.  After our Conference Center tour, we checked out the new City Creek Center.  It's a very nice mall.  And, after we were done there, we stopped on Temple Square on our way back to the car.  I decided we needed a money shot of the family in front of the temple.

While taking pictures, I convinced Mr. Frisby to pose for some cheesy shots with the wee one.  He was reluctant when I told him what I wanted him to do, but I told him it would be so cheesy that it would be awesome.  I was right.

The rest of the week was great.  We caught up with some friends that we haven't seen for awhile, we spent time with family, we bought a nightstand for Mr. Frisby's side of the bed and a rug for our entryway, and we even enjoyed a pretty good snowstorm.  It was both Stella's and Scout's first time seeing snow.  Stella didn't seem to notice as much, but Scout was completely caught off guard.  She woke up in the morning and stepped outside to do her business and stopped when she looked around and saw the snow.  She didn't know what to do.  Her grass was totally covered, so she didn't know where to go.  Mr. Frisby went out with her to try to convince her that it was okay, but she wouldn't go on the snow.  Finally, he picked her up and set her down right on it.  She immediately ran back onto the patio.  So, he did it again.  He had to do it several times before she figured out that it was okay to walk on and do her business on.  Then she had a great time running around, digging in the snow, and getting little snowballs caught in her fur.

And, of course, Easter and the baby blessing were great.  But, I have far too many pictures of it to add to this post, so that will have to be a separate post.  It was a good trip, though.  Stella was a great little traveler and we had a good time with family and friends.