Lydia - 9 months!?

Lydia is 9 months old! How!? I can't believe that she has now been out as long as she was in! The 9 months I was pregnant seemed to go so much slower than the 9 months since she was born! I guess that's how it will be for the rest of my life, so I should probably just get used to it. Right?

Anyway, here are a few updates on Lydia. It's been awhile since I've had time to blog about her, so there are quite a few updates.

Her hair was kind of getting out of control. It was getting so long on the sides and on top, and she was in bad need of a haircut. We decided to make good use of the long hair for one day, when we put her hair in a little pigtail on top of her head. Thanks to my sister-in-law Amy for the help with the hair! She did Lydia's hair, and I don't think I could do it again if I tried. 

Autumn was so excited about Lydia's hair. She kept telling everyone she saw, "Okay, you HAVE to come see Lydia's hair! It is soooo cute!"

I called her my little Pebbles all day long. Like Pebbles Flintstone.

She's cuter than Pebbles though, don't you think??

She had her first haircut a little bit after these pictures were taken. My aunt cut her hair, but it took 4 of us to do it! One to hold her, one to cut, one to hold her head, and one to document it. Whew! Here is the progression:

 She got her first owie the same day of her haircut. She was playing by my mom's fireplace and lost her footing and slammed her face into the corner. It was so loud and hard and she was SOOO sad. It took awhile to calm her down, but after that she was fine. I was so sad. I may have cried too. Just a little.

Her poor little cheek. I was almost as sad as her.

She had her first trip to Lagoon! She rode on the carousel and the ferris wheel. The line for the train was SOO long. Too long for us to wait. But she loved the ferris wheel, and wasn't quite sure about the carousel. Next year she is going to LOVE it.

She had her first trip to the park! We went with Steph and we rode down some slides and went for a swing in the bucket swing. She just LOVED the swing. She would kick her little legs and just laugh the whole time. It was so fun to see her so excited.

She is getting a tooth!! Her first one started to come in a few weeks ago and is getting a little bigger each day. She still only has one. We are waiting for signs of number two, but we haven't seen any yet. She has been a CHAMP with this teething thing though. She's been maybe a little bit more whiney, but that is all. She hasn't really been harder to handle, and hasn't seemed to be in too much pain. Thank heavens!

She is getting SO incredibly busy! She is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up onto everything. She has to grab everything she sees and she tries to eat everything. I swear that sometimes she has more than two arms and hands, because I can hardly keep up with all of the things she grabs and gets into. She has to be involved with everything we do, and she is the most happy when she's right in the middle of whatever we're doing. 

Here is a video of the first attempt I could catch on video of her crawling. Her crawling is way better now, but here is the first glimpse of it! It basically happened over night.

She has to be right in the middle of us while we exercise in the morning. Dave will be down on the floor doing push ups and she is trying to climb on his back and pull his hair and climb over his legs. She thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.

She can get herself into the trickiest places, and then cry because she can't get out. She couldn't get out of this one because she couldn't figure out how to duck her head. I have no idea how she got in in the first place!

She LOVES to take the DVDs off of the shelves. I'd say it's her favorite pastime. It takes her awhile to get them all out and then to play with them, and it takes about 10 seconds to clean up, so I figure it's worth it. I never thought I'd be one of those moms, but I totally am now. Anything to keep her entertained for awhile!

Sometimes at night she gets so rambunctious, and the only way we can keep her happy is to get on the floor with her and let her play with Dave's face. It is by far her favorite toy. She was just attacking him in this video, and I was dying as I was filming it.

She also loves taking out all of my fuzzy socks. She takes each one out and looks at me and smiles as if she's just won the jackpot! It's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

She had a hard time figuring out how to get out of this one too, Haha. This pose just cracks me up. 

She's really into licking things lately. She will lick anything she sees. The floor, toys, shoes, hair, food, bottles, anything. She's recently figured out that it's fun to lick people. I couldn't stop laughing as she was trying to lick me.

For Father's Day, we gave my dad a coupon to take him on a date to the Natural History Museum at the U of U. We had gone there earlier to the chocolate exhibit and had seen the section of rocks and minerals and thought that my dad would love it. So, we went to the museum the other day, and Lydia was having so much fun. They had a horse exhibit, and she wanted to touch everything on the saddle so much. She had so much fun just sitting there playing with the saddle.

We got a few good laughs from her at the museum too. She thought Dave was so funny that night.

She does this thing we like to call the Monster Baby. She is constantly saying, "Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma" all day long, but sometimes she says it in "Monster-Speak". It is the funniest thing ever. When she really gets into the monster mode, she will ball up her hands into fists and squeeze them as hard as she can as her face gets all squished up and red while she's growling. It makes us laugh SO hard. This video shows her doing a little Monster Baby.

Speaking of funny noises, she also makes a fun "flubber" noise, with a little assistance from Dad!

Being a mom has been the adventure of a lifetime for me. It has definitely been the hardest thing I've ever done and also the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Lydia makes me so incredibly happy that I can hardly handle it sometimes. She is the sweetest little baby anyone could ask for, and I feel lucky every day that she is mine. I hope the next 9 months are as fun as these first ones have been!