April- Week 1

Anna's 9 Month Stats

Height: 27.4in (1.2in increase in 3 months) 50th percentile

Weight: 17lbs (1.9lb increase in 3 months) 25th percentile

Head: 90th percentile

A LOT has happened in the last three months since I posted about Anna's 6 months check up. 

• Started sitting up
• I decided to "sleep train" her using the "cry it out" method, giving comfort/checking on her every 15 mins or so.  I only had to do it one night and she cried a total of 1hr and 15 mins.  Such a blessing to have it go that easy!  She consistently sleeps through the night now!  Started eating lots of big girl food and loved it all with the exception of baby food green beans and peas.  But I don't blame her for that. I now give her canned green beans and she loves them!  She started with sweet potatoes, carrots, peaches, and squash.  
• Very grabby, especially at mom and dad's glasses. 
• Had some eczema dry skin patches on shoulders and thighs.  We ended up getting a prescription strength hydrocortisone.  
• Had a sweet bald spot from rubbing head back and forth, especially when happy!  
• Loved her yellow stacking ring for a while. Nicknamed it "Yellow"...pretty good, eh?  
• Started nodding her head like she's dancing.
• At 7 1/2 months I finally dropped a feeding so she's only nursing breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime.  
• She got her flu shot booster.
• Loves to touch things with her pointers (McKenna did the same.)
• At 8 months, rolling became more deliberate and skilled.  
• Also at 8 months, no more swaddling.  Sleeps on her side a lot.  
• Turned mommy's head to play with my earrings while nursing.  Play with mommy's nose SO much while nursing.  
• She turns when we call her name.  
• Her hair is long enough on top to have legitimate tangles after her bath.  
• Kinda sorta waved. :) 
• Bed time finally moved up to 9pm! 
• She did this cute little guppy fish, lip smacking thing for a while.  
• Took two trips to St. George in March.
• Got her first tooth at 8 1/2 months (bottom right).
• Started to push herself backwards.
• Started clapping.
• Started taking her baths in the BIG bath tub.  
• Got a bad cough and cold. InstaCare doc said was probably RSV. So grateful it wasn't worse.
• Started reaching for people.  
• Gives big open-mouth kisses- especially to McKenna and Ben.

Anna's cute scrunch face she would make when we wasn't ready for another bite yet.

General Conference weekend!  

Dan's phone does this cool picture in picture feature.  He can take a picture with the front and back cameras at the same time.  See the TV in the upper left corner? Cool huh?

I think Dan enjoyed watching Conference with his little buddy. Wonder why... :)

We knew this was bound to happen. ;) 

While the rest of us stayed awake. 

During another session, the girls had a little scream fest.  Such a little copy cat.  

Saturday night, Dan's family has a tradition where the women folk get together and make homemade donuts and have soup and salad while the men are at Priesthood.  Then the men come and eat and give us a recap of all they learned.  This year we held it at Dan's parent's home while the boys watched Priesthood in the Man Cave. A fun new twist to a decades-old tradition.

SO fun, and SO yummy!  

This week in April, the older kids finished up a session of swim lessons.  McKenna usually said she had "butterflies" and that she really didn't like swim lessons.  But she still made great progress, especially on her floating.  She also had a very nice teacher! Very informative and professional.  

She got to do lessons with her cousin Whitney too, which was a great bonus! 

Ben, oh Ben!  What a funny boy he is.  The first day of swim lessons was ROUGH for him.  I had to wake him up from his nap to go, which was the first problem, and he was such a beast!  He screamed the whole 40 mins while a very patient male teacher carried him around the pool trying to get him to cheer up.  The following week, no matter how positive and reassuring we tried to be, Ben kept telling us he wasn't going to get in the pool.  We show up and Ben was super clingy and wouldn't even look at the male teachers.  Then a GIRL teacher comes over to try to get him to come with her in the pool.  He looks at her and almost immediately says, "Ok."  

So, Ben had a little crush on Miss Shelly for the rest of the session!  :)  He went with her every time, no questions asked! 

Anna was a trooper watching all the time.  :)