9 Months Old!

Our little girl is 9 months old today.  Last night we rehashed her truly original birthing story - right down to her being born on Skype.  It's funny how very little I actually remember of that day and of being in labor in particular.  I guess that is our body's way of protecting the species -if I remembered everything, I probably wouldn't ever do it again.  But I don't, so once Leyton is weaned, we will given version 2.0 a go.  Until then, we have our hands full enough with this little one.

Leyton may decide to crawl after all.  She gets on all fours quite often to get to things that I could have sworn I put out of her reach.  She is also pulling up on her activity table and she will stay there and play for awhile.  She also likes to sit up in her crib and untie her bumper instead of taking a nap.  She has tooth #5 coming in on the top row.  And my favorite new thing - "Mama" and "Dada."  She said Mama first and says it much more often :-)  She also knows who we all are - when you say, "Where's Daddy?" She'll look at Daddy.  Same with Mommy, Sasha and Panda.  We are working on giving kisses right now.  She will kiss her books, but not us, which is okay for now because she sticks her tongue out when she does it.

She doesn't go to the doctor until August 10th, so we won't get a true height and weight until then.  But we weighed her with our scale and she was 17.4 pounds.  Not sure how tall she is either, but I did have to wash her 12 month pants because 9 months were getting short.  So she is still tall and lean and more beautiful every day.

In other news, we are moving.  We only signed a 6 month lease on our duplex, and it is up in August, so we've been looking around and found a great house.  We will still be on Coronado, further from the beach, but very close to the bay and a huge park.  It is a 4+ bedroom (there is a fifth room with a closet, but no window, so it isn't technically a bedroom), 2 bath house with a fenced in yard and no more stairs for me to climb.  Over the next month, we will be moving things over there so feel free to come visit and help (Thanks Poppy and BB.. hehehe.. this is the first you are hearing of this).  We love our little duplex, but Panda was upset about not having her own room.

After her nap, but before she fed herself lunch and got food in her hair, we did Leyton's 9 month photo shoot.  I forgot to put Tigger in there with her for comparison.  

My Favorite!

Love this face!

Got My Toes in the Sand

The 'May Grey' and 'June Gloom' days are behind us.  Back to the sunny weather and warmer temps (low 80s) that SoCal is known for.  What a great time to live at the beach!  And we had a few extra visitors joining us - the Howard family is down from Oregon for a few days, and swung by to say hello and to get a little sandy.

Catchin' my first wave

Woah... Where did my feet go?

 Hold on tight, Daddy!

Daddy getting the sand out of her mouth

FYI - the water is COLD!

Howard family - Sonya, Ben, McKinley and Baby Girl Howard 

Cousin photo op

Leyton took the opportunity to eat more sand

Family Shot

 100% adorable!

 Another cousin shoot:

 (no captions needed - these faces say it all!)

Leyton still isn't crawling.  We are thinking that she may skip it all together and be a bottom scooter.  I don't think she'll be walking any time soon either.  Her Mommy didn't walk until she was 16 months and I think she's taking a page out of that book.  She is working on pulling up on things though, and going from lying down to sitting up.  Mostly she just sits and spins in circles.  She doesn't say Momma or Daddy, but she does growl and clap her hands.  She is an expert Cheerio eater, much to Sasha's dismay.  And she has figured out that crying and screaming will get her picked up.... so guess what she does when she's had enough of her toys or she doesn't want to take a nap.  Bloody murder screaming and real tears - which she immediately turns off once she gets what she wants (No, she doesn't always get what she wants either -at least not when Daddy's not home).  Guess we have officially entered the Drama Queen phase, which will last for the next 25 years or so.

Happy Independence Day!!

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Grammy and Papa Greg came to visit us all the way from VA and we have already had an enjoyable time with them. The city of Coronado usually doesn't hold back when it comes to the 4th of July festivities and line-up. I was up this morning at 430am to secure us a front row spot on the parade route on the main street (Orange Ave). There were already plenty of people camping out and all set up by the time I arrived. Luckily I found us a nice spot. There are concerts in most of the parks, road and water races, and the grand finale is the evening fireworks where 6-7 locations around Coronado launch their fireworks in unison. I don't know if we will make it to the fireworks, but I'm sure we will hear them. This week, we plan on hitting up SeaWorld, the SD Zoo, and other fun places around San Diego. Ben, Sonya, and McKinley are also in town and we are very anxious to see them.

LC loves chasing after Sasha's tail.

This is what LC wore to church yesterday. So Patriotic!

This is Orange Ave where the parade went down. We had a prime location due to my early morning craftiness.

This is right before the parade stepped off. As you can see, the whole parade route was covered with people sitting, standing, grilling, and having a good old time.

This is looking down Orange Ave towards the beach.

This is looking up Orange Ave towards the Bay.

Parade goers loving the mid-70's temperatures.

I love my Dad and Parades.

Papa Greg and LC

Grammy and LC

Our crazy and cross-eyed kid.

We bought LC a little kiddie pool so she could play around in it. She loves the water and had a blast. We had to take her out after an hour or so because she was turning into a prune.