Category Archives: Family & Friends

Jessica turned 9 months old on Friday. We had a well-check Friday morning. She weighed 18 pounds 11 ounces (50th percentile). She measured 28.75 inches tall (75-90%). She had a head circumference of 45.75 centimeters (90%). She also had some blood drawn from her finger to check her iron levels. She did not like that at all.

What Jessica is Up To

Jessica is a very mobile baby now. She still hasn’t mastered the art of crawling on her hands and knees, but is a speed demon at crawling on her belly. She will make a beeline for three things: 1) the x-box game cases, 2) Mommy when she sits down on the floor to play with Jessica (if she’s already been playing for a little while) or 3) the camera (sometimes 2 and 3 are the same thing).

Determined Mover, 6/23/10

She’s Almost Reached the Camera, 6/23/10

Even though she isn’t crawling on her knees. She does kneel at her toys.

Kneeling Over Her Garden Toy, 6/24/10

She will also straighten her legs, so that she is quasi standing over her toys.

Standing Over Her Garden Toy, 6/24/10

Jessica has started pulling up on things, especially her crawl and cruise jungle. Although, she can get into a standing position, she sometimes doesn’t know how to get back down and will get upset.

Standing at Her Garden Toy, 6/25/10

Playing at Her Crawl and Cruise Jungle, 7/7/10

She enjoys playing with her Daddy. She likes to play with his phone case on his belt and can open it up. She also likes to play with the belt, much like she plays with the strap on her carseat.

Playing with Daddy, 7/1/10

Jessica enjoys emptying her box of shapes, but she has yet to put any of them back into the box herself.

Is It Empty, 7/7/10

Are We Sure It’s Empty? 7/7/10

What Jessica is Saying

Jessica is a very talkative little baby. She will say da-da, with some prompting. Everything else is just gibberish.

How Jessica is Sleeping

Jessica still takes two naps a day, although more frequently she fights at least one of them and only takes one nap those days. I guess we were spoiled with Jessica starting to sleep through the night at 2 months of age. When she first started teething, she started waking up. I don’t think she is currently teething, but she hasn’t been sleeping through the night very well. Fortunately, most of the time when she wakes up, it is before we go to bed, but it has been hard to get her back to sleep. We’re starting a tough love approach and hopefully it will get her back to sleeping through the night.

What Jessica is Eating

Jessica now has her front two bottom teeth. You can see them both really well in the next picture.

Jessica and Mommy in the Backyard, 7/6/10

She has excellent grabbing skills and can pick up food and put it in her mouth, as long as the food is not too slippery. I read that you can lightly coat slippery food (like banana pieces) with wheat germ to help aid in picking up and plan on trying that. She also holds a sippy cup and drinks very well out of it. Today, we started using a sippy cup that doesn’t have handles and she used it like a pro.

Eating String Cheese, 7/9/10

Homemade foods she’s tried: sweet potatoes, butternut squash, bananas, acorn squash, green beans, sweet peas, peaches, applesauce, eggplant, pattypan squash, carrots, eightball squash, blueberries, tomatoes with cheese, sweet potato/apple puree, mixed veggie puree (green beans, peas, baby lima beans, corn and carrots), and cheddar quesadillas. Tonight, I made her a Creamed Spinach Puree (although I omitted leeks since I didn’t have any) and she just kept opening her mouth for more. Bananas are still her favorite food.

Purchased food she’s tried: rice cereal, oatmeal, Yoplait Greek yogurt, Happy Baby Organic Puffs (all flavors), Stonyfield YoBaby flavored yogurt, mozzarella string cheese, Happy Baby Mixed Berry Yogurt Melts, cheerios and gold fish.

Jessica has become an eating machine. She really enjoys eating. Yesterday, she tried some new dishes. For lunch, I made her a quasi tomato soup with some sauteed tomatoes  (peeled and seeded) and melted grated cheddar cheese. She had never had tomatoes before and she just ate it up. I hope she continues to like tomatoes (unlike her parents) as they are a good source of Vitamin A and C. For dinner, I made some “Sweet on You” Potato & Apple Puree and Jessica is still not a big fan of sweet potatoes. I thought it tasted pretty good. I’m going to keep trying since sweet potatoes are a good source of Vitamin A, Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, Iron, Calcium. You can find great information about different vitamins and minerals and the food they’re in here.

Here’s a video of her enjoying some banana and pattypan squash pieces. I had boiled the squash and the banana was as is. It was taken July 1st.

We dog-sat for Bella, my brother’s Jack Russell Terrier, starting last Wednesday through today. She is such a good little dog, although the fireworks scared her. Jessica likes Bella, although sometimes I think she’s not quite sure what to do with Bella.

Bella

James’ parents came into town for the weekend. We had a lot of fun.

They arrived Friday night, too late to get to play with Jessica as she was already asleep. Saturday, they got lots of Jessica time. After her afternoon nap, we went and toured some model homes in Falconhead West, a neighborhood in the Bee Cave/Lakeway area. We’re starting to think about moving as we will need more space once we get pregnant with baby #2. We’ll probably move the early part of next year. If we want to build, we will have to decide soon, but for the size of house we want, building may be out of our price range. The houses were really nice though. Jessica did great. I thought she might get fussy, but she only got fussy for a few minutes and that was when James’ Dad, who was holding her, got out of viewing range of James and I. Then we had a nice dinner at Mesa Rosa, where Jessica enjoyed her butternut squash and bananas that I brought for her.

Sunday was more time spent just relaxing at our house. The quality of this next picture isn’t the greatest (I must have moved), but I love the expression on Jessica’s face.

Jessica and her Grandpa

Jessica is starting to pull up on things, especially her crawl and cruise jungle.

Jessica Playing

Jessica with her Nana and Daddy and buddy Bella

I love Jessica’s expression in this next photo. She has some great expressions.

Jessica with her Nana and Grandpa

Jessica with her Mommy

Sunday early evening, we went Aric & Kristy’s house, for their 4th of July party. Kristy wants to make it an annual occurrence. It was a lot of fun. Jessica did really well and we actually stayed until almost 9 o’clock. James’ parents actually left shortly before 8 to hit the road back to Midland. They had commitments early afternoon Monday and didn’t want to get up super early, so they decided to leave late and sleep in.

Jessica and Silly Daddy

Jessica with her Nana

Saturday, Sprouts had blueberries on sale for $0.97/pint so I picked up two pints and cooked one pint into a nice puree. I took some of it along with some butternut squash to the party for Jessica to try for the first time and she loved them. It kinda looks like she got into Mommy’s lipstick, doesn’t it?

Jessica After Eating Blueberries