Nine months!

Miss Pumpkin turned 9 months while we were in D.C.! (More on that soon.)

She is getting so big, crawling all over the place, pulling herself to standing and eating Cheerios! She is also definitely forming opinions about things, and doesn't like it when you take away, say, the dog's water bowl or Mama's tennis shoes. While she is mostly still babbling, it does seem like she has "Mama" figured out.

At her 9-month checkup she weighed 17 pounds, 3 ounces (25th percentile) and measured 28 inches (75th percentile) and her doctor suggested she may be a basketball player one day. 

We borrowed her buddy's age blocks while we were visiting. As you can see, it's getting hard to get her to sit still for a photo! We've had a lot of fun lately getting her to try new foods and activities. It's amazing how much she grows and learns so quickly!

Baby Shower

Our friends Erin and Sandor are baking up a little buddy for Pumpkin, so she and I were very excited to help with their baby shower.

We came straight from seeing the Easter Bunny, note that Pumpkin still has the egg in her hand ... she didn't let it go for four hours and even dunked it in the dogs' water bowl. (At four hours she discovered the balloons.)

I was excited to make the desserts - mini rice krispie "cupcakes" and yellow buttermilk cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I thought they turned out pretty cute (and yummy!) if I do say so myself ;-)

Erin and Sandor are always helping us out in one way or another and take good care of all their friends, so we know they are going to be terrific parents.

Sarah, Erin, me and Pumpkin

Me, Erin and Julie

We had a great time celebrating the soon-to-arrive baby girl and are looking forward to meeting her!

The Easter Bunny

Pumpkin and I hopped over to a local boutique the weekend before Easter to meet the Easter bunny. Pumpkin wasn't scared at all ... maybe because the bunny had a friendly face, or maybe because the bunny gave her a white, plastic Easter egg - it has been her favorite toy ever since.

Visitor

Our friends Chris and Carlie down the street left their dog Amara with us when they went on vacation a couple weeks ago. They will be taking Scoop for us during an upcoming trip as well. This time, Scoop and Amara warmed to each other much quicker than last year, but Scoop is still far more interested in playing with Amara than the other way around. They are opposite personalities - but I think they both enjoyed each other's company.

First Saint Patrick's Day!

Pumpkin is maybe a quarter Irish, but on March 17 she claimed Irish 100 percent!

In all honesty, on Saint Patrick's Day she came down with the first significant fever she's had, so after a visit to urgent care, we spent a quiet weekend at home. She just had a little virus, and was over it in a couple days. But she didn't have much of an appetite, so she'll have to wait until next year to try the corned beef and cabbage.

Eight Months!

Pumpkin is eight months! And about three weeks ... we're a little behind on our posts.

The big news is the crawling. She went from a couple steps here and there to all of a sudden one day crawling from one end of the house to the other. Chris got the outlets covered and baby gates up just in time! If only we could figure out how to keep her from dumping out Scoop's water bowls ...

She is starting to wave, and saying more things than dadadadadadadada and nananananana. She laughs a lot, which is the best. She picks up the dog toys and teases Scoop with them, but Scoop doesn't seem to mind as she'll bring her ball and drop it in front of Pumpkin. This is a super fun age, and she is such a joy.

Out

I've been out exactly four evenings since Pumpkin was born. Chris and I went to my office Christmas party, we went to an industry award party (Mad Men theme, which explains the candy cigarettes above) with my colleagues, I attended a magazine launch party and a journalism school event. I don't feel like I'm missing out. I spend enough time away from Pumpkin while I'm at work so I prefer to spend my evenings and weekends with her. So would you believe it, after weeks and weeks of her trying to crawl, and getting up on all fours, and then falling back on her tummy and doing the army crawl or the inchworm, the night before she turned eight months she finally figured it out. Up on all fours, knee forward, hand forward, knee forward, hand forward. She took a few "steps," fell down, did it again. And I saw it all ... on a video on Chris's phone when I returned home from a night out. Sigh.