Ariah -- 10 Months

10 months old! I can't believe it! Ariah has become very fond of opening and closing things...doors, her toy box, cupboards, and the toilet. Yes, it is rather gross. She opens it up and plays in the water! I tried to get one of those toilet seat locks from Babies R Us, but they don't fit on our toilet...so we're trying to come up with an alternative plan.

As of yesterday she is taking a few steps!!! VERY EXCITING! She still doesn't have great balance, but she has the courage, which I guess is enough to get her moving. She will take a few steps to get to me, and even took a few steps to get from one toy to another yesterday.

She is still saying "dog" and we think that she knows who "dada" is now. We're not quite sure though because she babbles dadada so much. She took a break from singing milk for a while, but has revisited that lately. She signs it so much, we just can't figure out if she's trying to wave or practice her "milk" sign! Soon enough...

Another trick she learned this month was how to carry things in her mouth (yes, like a dog). She will put a toy in her mouth so she can crawl around with it!

Here are a few pictures from the month. She is a climber, so one of the pictures is when she climbed into her toy box and proceeded to throw out all the toys!

First word

I've been trying to capture Ariah's first word on video for a while now, and I was finally able to get her saying "dog!" (Of course it is in her highchair since that is where the dogs pay the most attention to her!) Ben and I are still a little hurt that the dogs got recognition before us, but we're trying to get past it and be excited about her first word :-)
(You may need to turn the sound up a bit on your computer to hear her--she says it a few times during the clip)

Ariah - 9 Months

With all the hustle and bustle of the holidays I completely forgot to post a 9 month update! Well, better late than never...

As always, she has grown and changed dramatically this past month. One exciting change is that she can eat almost all grown up food now! So meal times have been much more interesting as she explores all the new foods. She was being pretty adventuresome with her eating......until.....she learned to shake her head "no." Boy, is she proud of her new trick!! Of course, I'm pretty sure we encouraged it a bit, because it was really cute and funny at first....not so much anymore :-) Everything is "no" these days. Okay, so maybe it is still kind of cute. She even remembers the things she is not supposed to get into, and will walk up to them shaking her head with a big grin on her face!

Her signing is getting a little better. She is pretty good with "milk" and is experimenting with "all done." (She does her own version of the sign.)

Her mobility hasn't really changed that much this past month. She can stand for a little while on her own, but only if she is positioned perfectly to keep her balance. She cruises all over the walls and furniture though.

Another exciting "first" this month was her first word! She can say "dog!" When she first learned it, she was so thrilled with herself that she called everything/everyone "dog." But she has gotten better and just says it now when the pups are around.

I think that's about all the updates for the month...We'll see what month 10 brings!!!

Baby sign language

So it turns out that teaching babies sign language is the new thing to do. This allows them to communicate with you before they have the verbal skills to talk. I've been working on a few signs with Ariah for the past couple of months (milk, eat, more, and all done). She has been moving her hands to mean "milk" for a couple weeks now, but didn't really know what she was doing. Now she's signing "milk" and means it! It is so amazing to watch. She is just thrilled with herself (probably because Mom and Dad get so excited :-) She usually signs "milk" about halfway through her meal in the highchair because she knows she gets milk after her food. But she has also signed a few times before she eats, when she's starting to get hungry. Now we just have to work on deciphering "milk" from her waving! Here is a video of her signing milk (her hand opening and closing means "milk")

Ariah's first Santa visit

Santa stopped by Ben's office last Friday, so Ariah and I went to visit. We didn't know what to expect...screams, smiles, giggles? It turned out that Ariah was so intrigued by Santa that she wouldn't take her eyes off of him! We couldn't get her to look at us. So here is the only picture we could get....

Here is a picture of Ariah and I getting ready to see Santa

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year at our house! We hosted Ben's parents and grandparents, my parents, my brother, and Ben's uncle Scott.

The night before Thanksgiving we held our annual family pinochle tournament. (This was our 8th annual tournament, and I was the only one not on the trophy yet!) Needless to say, it was my year! I drew Ben's sister, Stefanie, as my partner and we dominated! It was tons of fun (especially since I won). I proved everyone wrong that Ariah would make it on the trophy before me.

It was great to have both of our families here on Thanksgiving Day. Ariah even sat at the table with us and tried some turkey. She preferred the cheerios to the turkey though.

Ariah--8 Months

So here it is--the first of many blogs about Ariah.



Ariah will be 8 months old on Saturday (wow--where are these months going). Her biggest development this month is probably that she started cruising along the furniture. She's still pretty slow about it, and only cruises when she wants to get to something exciting. Her vocabulary now includes dada, baba, mama, and gggg (along with the thousands of different sounds that she discovers she can make each day!) Her little personality continues to shine through more every day. If I had to choose some adjectives to describe her personality right now, I think I'd choose curious, passionate, active, fiesty, and generally happy. She is sitting up in the big bathtub now, and loves to splash and play. As soon as she hears the water turn on, she comes crawling into the bathroom and pulls herself up on the tub. It is adorable!




We have joined several playgroups, and she really loves being around the other babies. She loves pulling the bows out of the other girls' hair, rocking the younger babies in their carriers, and of course grabbing all the babies noses.


We had a fun time on Halloween. She dressed up as a pumpkin, but never stayed in her costume too long because I'm pretty sure baby Halloween costumes are not made for a Phoenix Halloween. She was a bit hot in her fleece pants and stuffed pumpkin top in the 90 degree October weather. Oh well, we were able to get the cute pictures, which was a top reason for me buying her a costume :-)