Rachel at 10 months

Happy 10 month 'birthday' to our Rachie-bear today! Here's what she's up to at this age:

• Weighs right around 20lbs...she's still in her infant carseat (carrier) but we really need to switch her to the other carseat since the weight limit on the carrier is 20lbs. It's just been so convenient to have her in the carrier so we can just set it down on the ground and still have a hand for each of the other kids!

• Sleeping really well - she's (finally - I know some of you thought it would never happen) down to two naps a day, usually about 10-12 and 2-4. She goes to bed around 7 and wakes up at 8 (she's usually up once in between to eat, around 5:00, although the last two nights I haven't fed her at all at night...) She sleeps all nice and cozy in her zipper sleeping bag, with her soother (the only one of our kids who has taken a soother!) and a little fuzzy blanket. She generally sleeps on her stomach.

• Sits on her own well (except when one of her siblings gets right in her face and she leans backwards to try to get away from them!), rolls all over the living room and sometimes the kitchen and hallway, but no crawling yet! She can stand for a couple seconds if I set her up hanging on to the couch, but not for long. We're definitely enjoying her not being quite mobile yet!

• She's still nursing, and usually eats two 'solid' meals a day. She'll eat some things off of our plates if we give her a tiny or mushed up piece, but strangely she doesn't like Cheerios! Gavin and Abby would sit for practically hours eating Cheerios at this age! Rach just sort of looks at them and will occasionally get one in her mouth but doesn't seem that impressed.

• I think 'da-da' is her first word...she says it (sort of) on command. :) Other than that she babbles a bit and is into SCREECHING - I think she' s trying to get her opinion noticed amongst all the other noise here!

• She's starting to wave bye-bye if you ask her to, but doesn't seem to be doing any other signs yet. Well, I've definitely seen her signing 'milk' a couple of times, but not in conjunction with any actual milk, lol!

• She STILL just has those bottom two teeth that came in FIVE months ago! I'd have to look at their baby books to be sure, but I was looking at pictures of Abby the other day, and forsure she had six teeth at this age. Probably Rachel will have a whole bunch of teeth come in at once here soon...

• And the biggest news, ha ha, is that I think she might have curly hair!! No, I'm not imagining it (like I might have been when I thought she had dark hair coming in...). This time other people have even commented on it. :) I took a couple of pictures, but it doesn't quite seem to show it very well. Just take my word for it, her hair definitely has curl in the back!

Another hair first

Abby's first french braids:





I need some more practice, but not bad for a first try! :) (And yes, I had to sit her in front of a Dora the Explorer movie to get her to sit still for long enough!)

First haircut!

Little Miss Abby had her first haircut today! I took her to a hair salon here in town where one of the girls on my youth worship team works so she could cut it - I didn't think Abby would sit for a stranger!

We just cut a little bit off so the ends weren't so raggedy, and then she layered it a little bit as well 'to add body'! Who knew a two year-old needed body?!?

Before:

After:

Hair patrol

Rachel's little bit of hair on top has just about all fallen out now (although the fringe around the bottom stubbornly remains...it's a very classy style). In my continuing quest to have a child with my dark hair, I've been carefully inspecting the new hairs that are growing in and am pleased to report that yes, I think they might be dark. Possibly. It's hard to tell when they're only a couple of millimeters long and fairly sparse. But it could happen.

Stay tuned for further updates from the hair patrol.

Pretty little girl getting ready to go out

Abby getting ready to go to Ladies Morning Out this morning...

We finally did it!

After talking about it for several months, I finally just took the plunge and cut Abby's bangs last night - her first haircut at almost 19 months old! I think it looks pretty decent, and at least we can see her eyes clearly now! I curled her bangs all pretty for church this morning and everyone thought she looked very cute (although of course she totally wrecked her hair by the time she'd been there 15 minutes playing). :)

First pigtails

Okay, they need some work, but it was my first time!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have...

...a hairstyle! Most of you know of Abby's crazy hair, and up until now I haven't even tried to do anything with it. But it's getting longer and she's getting older so I've been trying to figure out what (if anything, ha ha) I can do with her fuzzy hair. Tonight after her bath I brushed a few 'bangs' forward, and then clipped the rest of the sides back with pretty barrettes. Not bad! Hopefully as it keeps growing I can trim the bangs and it will actually start to look like hair instead of a mass of dandelion fluff orbiting her cute little head. ;)