Our sweetest baby is 9 months old!

I was just thinking oh my gosh I am going to have to plan a first birthday party for Chandler...soon!!! (insert teardrop)

Seriously, Chandler just turned nine months old and is still the most precious, wonderfully sweet baby to be around.  She is an incredibly happy baby with an easy going smiley personality.  She goes to anyone and lets me drop her off at the kids club at the gym easy, I am hoping she continues to be this easy!
Here is what our Chandler Rose is up to at 9 months old:
*Still a great little sleeper and has recently changed up her nap time routine.  She used to take an two hour+ nap after lunch, wake around 2:30 and go back down for another nap for an hour around 4:00.  Well within the past couple of weeks she has started taking one huge nap after lunch for three, sometimes four or more hours!  She is usually in bed by about 7:30 each night and wakes up around 8:00 every morning.  She usually wakes up happy and I go in and get her not because she is crying but because she is in there talking and playing.  She has also started pulling up to standing in her crib and luckily has already figured out how to get herself down gracefully.

*When we are at home she just crawls all over the house looking for something good to play with of to put in her mouth.  She tends to spend a lot of her time in the playroom (I think she likes the way the carpet feels on her little knees) but also because there are lots of colorful things to see and eat!  She is pretty independent and doesn't mind one bit being in there alone or not knowing where I am every second.  We often find her crawling up and in difficult spaces where she sometimes gets stuck or just falls out!

*She tends to also like toys that light up and make noise and they keep her attention for longer periods of time

*She is a little oinker!  Weighing in at 17.8#  and eating anything she can get her hands on!  Since we didn't start Chandler on solids until she was six months, we sort of skipped the whole pureed baby food stage and I have to say how much easier it was doing it this way!  She pretty much just eats simplified versions of what we are eating and completely self-feeds except for the occasional yogurt which I feed her.  She really likes to eat though and can take down a whole banana (which seems to be her favorite, she kicks her legs and gets really excited when she sees them) and also will eat an entire half a grilled cheese sandwich which seems like a lot to me!  She is still a great little nurser, now down from five feedings a day to recently only four.

She LOVES her brother and sister and nothing can make her laugh like they do!  It is so funny and sweet!

 *She loves the water!  When we put her in her little baby float in the pool she just kick, kick, kicks!  She also got to experience the beach for the first time this month and definitely enjoyed the water and the sand.

Here are a few more of my faves of this little beauty fro this month:

Nothing a cracker won't fix!

Graduated to the big-girl seat at the grocery store!

Poor girl would probably really like a nice morning nap in her crib but since we are usually on the go she has to catch a snooze in her car seat whenever she can!  

LOVE!!!!

Oh Sterling!

Looking around a room full of kids at a birthday party this morning, I couldn't help but wonder why Sterling was the only child in the room who could make a couple tablespoons of blue icing look like she had been playing in buckets of finger paint all morning.....  Seriously she had icing all.over.herself. and had not even begun to eat the actual cupcake itself yet!

I am sad to say that I was talking with friends and missed watching Sterling smear icing all over her body, but am sure it would have been quite a show!  Looking at this picture I remembered the last birthday party we were at just a couple of weeks ago... Again, girlfriend enjoyed her cupcake but this time less of the beard look and more fu manchu!

I just started laughing the other day going through my camera roll and seeing all of the goofy pictures of Sterling.  Her personality has really started to shine through the past month or so and she is really fun to be around.  Her are a couple of my favorites of our silly girl from the past couple weeks, enjoy!

"Something funny?!"

Stuck in Chandlers crib... 

What are you doing Sterling?  "Going potty" Why not?!  Brayden does it!!!

We got her these sunglasses last summer and since then she has broken them and lost one lense but for some reason has taken a liking to them lately...

She woke up from her nap and I caught her on the monitor search for her glasses, put them on, and lay back down!

I can't leave out how proud we are of her and her self initiated potty training!  She sure does love her "big girl panties" and loves to sing "I a big girl" usually while jumping on a bed or dancing around the house!

Love this little tooshie in these princess panties!

Oh and I just noticed while editing this post that Sterling is wearing pants in almost 0 of these pictures...I am going to blame it on the potty training!!!

Love this spirited girl of ours and her growing personality...

Happy Fourth of July from Port Aransas

We had such a great little getaway to Port Aransas Fourth of July weekend!  We usually spend a lot of time down in Port Aransas during the summer but this was actually our first time to get down there this year.  

We spent a lot of time in the water this weekend.  This is the first summer Brayden has been proficient in the swimming pool and it is so awesome!  Sterling had been hesitant to get off the stairs up until this weekend when daddy got her swimming (with floats) and jumping in the pool repeatedly.   She has been making great gains ever sine and we are so proud of her progress!  

We loved swimming and playing with friends at the pool...

It's so funny watching the littles become bigs!

And especially at the beach!

We got to spend lots of time with GaGa, PaPa and Aunt Christi.  The kids especially liked fishing and going for boat rides on PaPa's boat!

Brian and I got to go out with some friends for a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Port A, thanks to GaGa and PaPa for watching the kids so this could happen! 

The kids enjoyed the bbq but especially enjoyed the piñata!  Brayden has gotten pretty good at whacking the piñata and it seems like every time he gets the chance, he is the one to knock it down! 

The only pic I got of our three in their Fourth outfits!

Patiently waiting their turns! 

Sterling actually connected this time!

Prizes!

We put the girls down but let Brayden stay up late for fireworks this year and he did great!  It is awesome that we are able to watch them on the balcony right outside of our front door and we have the best seats of the fireworks over the water!  He loved them but then at the very end during the finale, he jumped out of his seat and said he was ready for bed (the noise was a little much for him we think!)

Such a fun weekend!