everything that shines: 9 months

happy 9 month birthday, sweet caroline! how has it already been 9 months since the day we met our sweet girl? she is growing and changing so fast these days that it's hard to keep up!

she is crawling, pulling up, and cruising pretty much constantly these days. she really doesn't ever sit still! she loves to play with things she's not supposed to have - computer cords, trash cans, phones, etc. and she puts everything in her mouth. she also loves to crawl into quinn's room and play with his toys. his blocks, push cart, books, and cars are always entertaining to her. and speaking of the push cart, she pulled up on it and took a couple of steps twice the other night!

she is babbling much more and is starting to recognize things we ask her. for example, if you ask her if she wants more of something she's eating, she smiles and starts bouncing up and down. especially if she's eating puffs...i think she could eat a whole container of those at a time if we'd let her. as soon as you put them on the table in front of her she grabs as many as she can with both hands and shovels them in. she definitely knows her name and responds to it and is learning what the word "no" means.

one of the things that still makes us laugh the most is that when she gets excited she scrunches up her nose, breathes really fast through her nose, and bounces up and down. we call that the "face only her parents could love" (sorry, baby girl!) because it's pretty goofy.she's done that for a couple of months, but she does it more frequently now and she will mimic you and do it back if you make the face to her first.

caroline has started kissing us, which i love. she will grab your face, open her mouth as wide as possible, and then smash her face up against yours while slobbering all over you. and she really doesn't like to settle for your cheek...she wants to go straight for your mouth and usually won't stop until she gets it! conversely, the thing she does a lot that we are trying to discourage is that she bites on the shoulder sometimes when you're holding her. the other day she got excited and bit my shoulder a couple of times, so i said "you better watch out, caroline, or i'll bite you back next time!" and then i pressed my teeth up against her cheek. i didn't even come anywhere close to biting her, but she stuck out that bottom lip, started bawling, and looked at me like i had just broken her little heart. the girl is kind of a drama queen :).

she loves playing with her brother and he is so sweet with her. one of her favorite things is playing in the bath tub with quinn. she crawls all over the tub playing with toys and has no fear of the water at all. she loves it when he splashes with her or dumps water on her head. of course it means that we have to chase her around the tub, making she she doesn't slip or face-plant in the water. but it's worth it to hear the two of them laughing together in the tub!

our biggest accomplishment this month is that she's been in the church nursery 3 weeks in a row without screaming, meaning we've made it through 3 sermons in a row without being called out to come and get her! she's still really clingy and doesn't like to go to the nursery by any means, but she seems to at least be getting to know the teachers a little better so she will tolerate them. funny girl.

happy birthday, caroline grace. we love you and are so thankful for you!