9 Months!

Wow.  Time just FLIES when you have a child!  Never in my life has a year gone by so fast. Lia is 9 months old!  Every day I marvel at how big she is getting.  It is so amazing.  Here is the 9 month update.

Lia is getting so independent. She can do a lot of things by herself now.  In the last couple days she has figured out that she can crawl far away from mom and dad.  She used to stick pretty close, but now she takes off.  Last night at our ward party she saw all the kids running around crazy and had to join them, even though she was the only crawler and almost got trampled a few times.  Whenever we play in the back yard she takes off across the grass as fast as she can and I have to chase her around.

Lia wishes she could walk.  She pulls herself up to everything she can and loves to hold my hands and cruise around on her little feet.  She still doesn't have very good balance though, so I don't think she'll be walking for a couple more months at least.

Yesterday she cut her third and fourth teeth.

She is such a dainty little girl.  She has figured out how to use her little bottom teeth to take bites of her food so now instead of shoving the whole piece of food in her mouth she grabs it with her thumb and forefinger and takes little bites.  It is cute. 

Lia makes us laugh every single day.  She is so much fun.  She has so many expressions and gestures that crack us up.  Her new favorite thing to say is "daddy!"  She doesn't really know what it means but she knows it makes us smile so she says it all the time. Still no "mommy," though. 

She loves baths, except when its time to get her hair washed.  She hates that part. 

By the way mom, I can take the lid off this container.

Speaking of hair, I don't know what to do with hers.  She pulls off all her hairbands and bows as soon as they go in, but her hair still isn't long enough for ponytails or hair clips (not even close!).  So usually she just goes around bald headed. It's okay though, because she is cute enough to pull it off.

She finally loves books!  I have been reading to her every night since she was just a couple months old, but she was never really interested.  But now she has figured out how to turn pages and lift flaps on her board books, and she loves it.  She even has certain books that she prefers over others. What amazes me is that she always turns the pages the right direction.  Kids are so smart. Lia can turn off lights and push open doors and find Daddy in the bathroom (she does this every day when he gets back from work).  She has learned that getting her nose wiped isn't the end of the world after all.  She knows she'll get in trouble if she tries to play with the cords behind the TV stand (but she does it anyway). 

Watching football with Daddy.

Lia dances! Every time she hears music of any kind, she stops and looks around and then grins and starts bouncing up and down.  It is so adorable.  I have no idea where she picked this up, because we didn't teach her.  She just started doing it one day.  She even dances to the jingles on commercials.  We love it.

She seems to have the opposite of stranger danger and separation anxiety, even though those are supposed to hit around 9 months.  Usually she could care less about being with me, unless she is hungry or cranky.  She would much rather be with my sisters and even my next door neighbor, who she just met a month ago.  She crawls off on her own all the time.  And she is loving Daddy these days!  I guess I should have known she would do things her own way.  After all, from about 2-6 months she only ever wanted to be held by me, and usually at that age babies don't care who has them.  Not our Lia.  She does things her own way.  And we love that about her.  It is so fun to watch her grow.  Sad at times, but fun.  We love you little Lia!

Classic Lia :)