Merry Christmas 12-25-08

Today was Rachel's first Christmas. She slept in until 10:00am and that made the whole family happy. Her "big" present this year was a walking toy that resembles a grocery cart. She can stand behind it and hold on wand walk forward. She has already figured it out and scooting around the rooms. Here are some pictures taken from this morning with Rachel trying to eat wrapping paper. The Christmas tree decoration in the picture was given to us by Lisa's sister Tammy and that is Rachel's first ornament.

We all three seem to have a cold and have runny noses. Unfortunately Rachel does not allow us to wipe the constant stream of wetness coming from her nostrils. She fights and turns away and Lisa has dubbed her a snot monster. By last night, Rachel's cheeks were bright red from being chapped due to all the wiping we had to do. They are sensitive to touch and we have been putting lotion and cream on them. It is amazing that someone that size can produce her body weight in snot.

Sunday December 21st 2008 (iPhone photos)

Everything is going great in Virginia. We are getting ready for Rachel's first Christmas and there is nothing of major importance to report. The following pictures are all from my iPhone over the last 5 months. I have cleaned out all the pictures from my phone and these are the best of the best. The quality is not great and they ar e a bit blurry but there are some cute pictures of Rachel. There is no date stamp but these pictures range from her being 4 months old to 9 months. You can tell how old she is by the lack of hair.

Wednesday December 10th

Rachel had her 9-month birthday yesterday. She also had her 9-month check up. She is perfect and is doing great. She is now 28-1/4" inches tall (75% percentile) and weighs 17lbs-9oz (25% percentile). She also has a tooth that has come through and another about to pop. She also is standing on her own for longer periods of time but still no actual walking.

Rachel also is no longer a vegetarian. She had a chicken and apples puree for dinner earlier this week.

Rachel has not been sleeping so well the last few weeks and we attribute it to teething and growing pains. She wakes up multiple times in the night and only wants her mommy. In the night when she is crying, she clearly babbles words that only begin with M and sound like mom. It does not matter what i do, she wants nothing to do with me in the night. But the minute Lisa grabs her, she settles down and falls back asleep. This makes it easy on me and much more difficult for Lisa.

Rachel also waves and claps and points at things now. She is quite developed for her age. She has the motor skills of a 11 & a half month old! (that was a joke for those who could not tell. mostly a joke)

Here are some pictures taken recently.