Nine months.

The little one is nine months old this week. This month has, by far, contained the largest developmental leaps. She went from no teeth, no movement, very little real display of comprehension to crawling {well, one-legged scooting I guess}, two teeth coming in, and understanding words and even signing some!

She’s still my tall {90th percentile} string bean. She’s almost completely recovered from the ear infection and sickness that hit her last week, along with her first two teeth coming in…impeccable timing. Poor thing was a disaster last week, but it’s so nice to see her smile again.

Along with the teeth comes a rash around her mouth from all the slobber, and it’s also probably from the nasty runny nose she had all week too. Just look past the redness  and slobber/snot around her nose & mouth.

She loves to stand up and hang out in her crib – that is, until I leave the room. She’ll pull herself up on anything, the sofa, coffee table, crib, my knee, this girl loves to stand.

Evidence of the two lower teeth coming in…chewing on everything. {PS she just looked at this picture on my screen and started giggling!}

I love the picture below. It captures her joy perfectly. This is one happy girl, folks. I prayed and prayed for a happy & healthy baby, and Praise The Lord, He answered it exactly!

She also is very “in” to pointing. She points at anything hanging on the wall, especially photos, she points at family and at strangers. She’ll point to the dog and she’ll point to say “hi.”

And as you might have seen in the noisy video from a few posts ago, she likes to make zerbert noises…

She’s also pretty focused when it comes to her toys. She’s much more interested in the holes where the screws go than the flashing lights and music. She hold things carefully and then waves her arms to flush them away from her quickly. It’s a silly game to her.

This is the face she makes when she’s doing her other silly noise {the one where she sucks in}. I love how she raises her eyebrows to look surprised/excited. She cracks me up…

I guess I have a thing for hands. I wanted to capture her hands while they’re still little. Someday these hands will do mighty things. I just have a feeling…

Again with the standing. I know this doesn’t look safe {it probably isn’t} but no child was harmed in the shooting of these photos. ;) I think she looks as tall as a 2 year old here, ha!

Along with the hands, at the advice of my sister, I wanted to capture her toothless grin too. Her bottom two teeth are just poking through, and I know that when her teeth come her smile will totally change. With or without teeth, she’s pure beauty to me…

And lastly, I wanted to capture her with the framed JOY art around which I planned the entire nursery. “Joy” was my resolution/word last year, and I just knew that God would use the little one to bring {so much} joy into our lives. It’s been a rough year for my family, but she has radiated joy into us from day one. The print says, “Be Filled with Joy,” and she most certainly is…

The month from 8 to 9 has to be my favorite so far. I’ve loved getting to see her quirky, silly personality emerge, her stubbornness start to show, her preferences develop, and her brain grow leaps & bounds. She is such an amazing blessing. She doesn’t sleep well, up at least once a night still, but I use that time to thank God for answering my prayers. After our loss, I wondered whether God had it in his plans to give us a child. I’m beyond grateful – I’m humbled in absolutely appreciation – that he choose to give us the little one. I pray I never forget how much of a blessing she is, and that I never take her for granted. There’s so many people who would give anything to have their own child, and God blessed us with ours. I am so blessed.