We're still here

I know I haven't posted in awhile. OK...a long while. But I'm here now.

Annabella is almost 9 months old, and I can't believe how big she's getting. I think she's hit a growth spurt because she looks bigger to me every single day. And not too long ago I thought she'd be in her 6 month clothes for quite awhile longer, and now some of the 9 month clothes are pretty snug. Some of the 12 month clothes even appear to fit.

So besides all the growing, what else is new?

Annabella wore her first pair of overalls yesterday. A very proud moment for Momma. We didn't get a pic, but we'll make sure to snap one of her in them soon.

Annabella is SUPER ticklish, something she gets from me. Maybe the only thing she gets from me. Her personality and sleep patterns are all Jason. Anyway, she makes it a habit to fling herself backwards to get a view of the world whenever I'm feeding her and she thinks she's missing out on something important. One of these days she's going to fling herself off my lap. This morning, after she'd flung herself backwards, I was stroking her upper arm to get her attention. Apparently I'd hit a ticklish spot. I hate tickling her too much because it was and is torture for me to be tickled, but her laugh is just so awesome. So sometimes I can't help myself :) She breaks out into giggles pretty much every day from inadvertent tickling though...so much fun!

Annabella scoots. She shows virtually no interest in crawling and doesn't like her knees to be under her, but she can move towards what she wants with this funny scoot. It involves stretching her arms way in front of her, lifting her but up in the air, and somehow pulling her feet slightly towards her arms. The motion she makes doesn't appear conducive to movement, at least not in the right direction, but it works for her.

Annabella still has no teeth. People are all the time saying to me (and have been for a long time), "oh, it looks like she's teething!". But nope. Still no teeth. The pediatrician told us many weeks ago that she'd started the teething process and that you can visually see a tooth beneath her gums if you shine a light on them. But that's as far as the teeth have made it. No bumpy gums, no sharp points, nothing. Lots and lots of drool though.

Annabella finally has semi-official nicknames. I call her "Bullfrog" all the time. This started because we were singing "Annabella was a bullfrog, bum bum, was a good friend of mine..." and she LOVED it. And now she sits in a way that makes her look like a bullfrog; so the name really fits. And whenever Jas and I are reading a book to her with the word frog, we substitute it for "Annabella". We read her "I Love You, Good Night" every night, which says "I love you like frogs love flies". So I say "I love you like Annabellas love flies" and tell her that's what she looks like :)

Ms Kim at daycare calls her BellaBoo. Also too cute.

Jason's nickname for Annabella: "Slobbering Poop Machine". To be fair, he's not exactly wrong. He's even got a little jingle he sings with it.

Annabella is terrified of strangers. For a long time she loved everybody...now it takes awhile for her to warm up. She's especially terrified of Mr John, her music teacher. It might be the guitar, but whenever she sees him she totally flips out. He teachers her every Friday morning, and the past several Friday's I've spent a big portion of music class with her. I think this is going to just be the way it is for awhile.

Annabella sometimes gets really slap-happy when she's tired. She starts laughing at everything. And she's got this awesome belly-laugh (the best sound in the world). And she's just so much fun then. I know she's sleepy, but it's hard to put her to bed when she's like that. I just want to make her laugh.

Annabella LOVES food. Pears are her favorite, but she digs yogurt, apples and blueberries, bananas and mangos, sweet potatoes, and many more. Her food intake has gone way up in the last couple of weeks (another sign of the growth spurt). And even when she's really fussy, she calms down and sits there happily for a couple minutes when you put her in her high chair because she knows that food's on the way.

I'm sure I could go on all day long (cuz I think she's awesome), but I think that's it enough for now.

New Pictures and Update

New picture are up at http://annabellag.shutterfly.com/

We haven't been writing as much lately, sorry about that, hopefully we'll do some more posting soon. Here are a few quick updates:

• Annabella, despite fighting thrush, has been going to sleep much better now.
• At a recent doctor's appointment she weighed in at 15 lbs 6.5 oz which was at the 12th percentile.
  
• She plays peek-a-boo but doesn't quite understand that she needs to cover her eyes. She just lifts something above her head, and then pulls it down and waits for someone to say peek-a-boo.