9 Months and Counting

Three months until Elise's 1st birthday!!  I'm already starting to plan her party...so much fun!

So, here we are at 9 months old with many more firsts that we have experienced since the last update.  Elise is growing leaps and bounds!  I just want to share some of the fun things she's doing right now:

• Has had 3 teeth come through and a 4th just about ready to break through any day now.
• First said "bye bye" and waved.
• Standing up with our help or by holding onto something.
• Celebrated her first Christmas and opened a present for the first time.
• Started clapping her hands.
• Daddy taught her to give high fives.
• Eating other table foods beside baby food - She has tried Cheerios, bread, bananas, yogurt, ice cream, cupcake, etc.
• Tries to dance along to music while she sits.
• Speaks baby talk all the time.
• Went swimming for the first time.
• Loves to play with her toys and listen to music.
• Still sleeps 10 - 12 hours each night and takes 2 or 3 naps a day.

We love her so much! She has brought such joy to our lives, and each day always brings something new and exciting!

This is the way we clap our hands

Just this week Elise started clapping her hands on her own -- it's so adorable!!!! I think her daycare is helping her learn to clap to songs and nursery rhymes, but we just noticed this week that she is now doing it on her own without help and without us asking her to!

Here's a cute short video of this:

There's so much more that she is starting to do at this age, but I will share more when I post her 9 month update soon. Stay tuned!

2009 Photo Shoot

Well, better late than never!

We have been "hiding" the photos we had taken of our family at the end of October 2009. Plus, we also had 6 month pics taken of Elise at the same time. We planned to give the photos as Christmas presents as well as use them on our Christmas card, so I didn't want to spoil it for them by posting online before they received them.

First, here are the photos we had taken of our beautiful girl Elise at 6 months old!! She was just starting to sit up on her own at this time, but she was a little unsteady still. OK, I have to admit I am such a girly mom....but I just absolutely LOVE the outfit we picked out for her pictures -- a cute, colorful sweater dress, with tights and matching shoes! This is definitely one of my favorite clothing finds! :)

Next, we have photos from our family shoot! Elise was getting tired by this point, so we don't have quite as many smiles out of her, but she still did very well. Logan always does so well smiling for the camera! The kids really interacted well in the photos of just the two of them as well!

Hope you enjoyed them! Next photo shoot will be for Elise's 1st birthday! Can't wait!!! :)