9 months old!

I can hardly believe that Everly is already nine months old!

Evy is now crawling everywhere!  She moves from room to room a lot quicker than you expect.  Time to get a gate at the top of the stairs!  I love putting her in skirts and dresses, but they tend to get in her way, so we tuck them in in the back to help her get around.  

 

 She still prefers to stand rather than crawl.  She pulls up on furniture, toys, my legs, anything she can get a good grip on!  She only uses crawling as a means to get to the next piece of furniture to cruise around.  A few times she has decided to just stand up all by herself without pulling up.  Then she will stand there in a wide stance trying to balance.  She stands on her own for a few seconds at a time.  I am thinking she will probably be walking in the next month.  The older kids all walked fairly early too, so it will not be a surprise.

 

Besides eating flowers ;)  she is eating lots of foods.  She loves most fruits and veggies and all kinds finger foods.  She still doesn't really like a bottle, but will drink from a sippy cup .  She would rather drink from a straw though, so we have a toddler cup with a built in straw that she mostly uses.  She doesn't really love juice, which is fine with me, so she mostly drinks water, or occasionally soy milk.  She is most definitely allergic to dairy, just like the rest of the kids.

Evy is our most talkative baby at this age.  She babbles and squeals all day long and she looks like she really thinks she is having a conversation with me.  I love it.  She really seems to listen to what I am saying to her, so I talk to her all day long.  Its nice because I can pretty much talk to myself all the time and no one thinks I'm crazy ;)  She loves to give me great big smiles and laughs at me a lot.  She will sit there and clap at everything I do.  It is like having my own personal fan club following me around all day.  She claps for herself as well, when she figures something out.  It is so cute!  She is so much fun, but also very intense.  She is definitely my most difficult baby.  She is very moody and hard to distract.  She is determined to get exactly what she wants!  

She is still pretty shy with other adults, but she has finally warmed up to Dave.  That has been a huge relief!  She finally has realized that daddy is a lot of fun and wants him to carry her around and play with her.  She cries when he leaves the room now.  

She loves other babies and little kids.  When she sees them she starts clapping and squealing and tries to get their attention.  At church there are lots of babies and sometimes she tries to yell across the chapel to her friends.  One friend in particular is also very chatty and will start squealing back.  It is fun to see their little friendship blossoming!

I don't know her most recent stats, but we have an appointment on Friday so I will add that in then.

We mostly call her Evy, but she has many nicknames.  I occasionally do call her by her full name, Everly, but often I call her Ev, Ever or Evers.  We also call her baby, cutey baby,  or tooty baby.  My grandmother goes by her nickname, Tudie, and now I can see where that must have come from.  For some reason Tooty baby is a natural term of endearment for me to use on Evy. 

Sometimes I do get confused and start to call her Ady, but I correct it right away and end up saying Avy.  I try hard not to mix up their names, but it just happens sometimes.

She knows her name and looks at me when I call to her.  She definitely know who mommy and daddy are and will look at the right person when you say it.  She mostly knows who the older kids are by name as well. 

 We sure love this little girl!  Every day I look at her and I am in awe.  I feel so lucky to have her in our family and to be her mother.  Even though things can be hard and she is very challenging, I would not want it any other way.  I feel so blessed to have her to love and to be loved by her. ♥