Nine Months

This is a picture of Natalie wine-tasting in Napa Valley last weekend. Her palate is extraordinary! She only selects the finest grass to eat.

Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Geoff were here to visit, so we took the opportunity to escape San Francisco in search of warmth. We had such a nice time while they were here last weekend.
And this weekend, Natalie turned nine months old!

Here she is with her friend Connor yesterday (5/17). Isn't he a handsome boy? He's as big as her - but *three months younger*. We think he's awesome. We had the Foys over for a barbecue yesterday.


Natalie still only has two teeth (bottom two) though the top two are close to popping through. She is eating all sorts of food. She likes chicken, O's, mango, kiwi, pears, veggie chips from Trader Joe's, and carrots. She tolerates sweet potato, avocado, egg yolk, watermelon, tofu, and peas- and all sorts of other foods. She has had a little bit of wheat bread and yogurt now and then. In fact, last night for dinner I had a ground chicken burger and salad - and she was able to eat off my plate because she'd tried everything on it before! That was a first for us.

And here is Natalie today (5/18) on her nine-month birthday. You might think that she's truly crawling based on the fact that she's on her hands and knees in the below picture - but you'd be wrong. She pops up onto her hands and knees, then flops onto her tummy and army-crawls all over the house. She makes it from one side of the house to another in a few seconds flat! (Granted our house isn't very big.) She weighs almost 19 lbs and is somewhere around 29" tall. Natalie is also practicing standing! Rose (her fabulous nanny) found her standing in the crib the other day, in fact. As a result, Daddy had to lower her crib again this weekend.
After a serious heat wave last week (95 degrees at our house near the ocean in San Francisco), it has turned seasonably cool. We enjoyed the weather this weekend nonetheless by taking a long walk, doing some gardening, and going to the park. You can tell that she's been building her strength over the last few weeks - all of a sudden she holds herself in the swing differently from before! Doesn't she look bigger? She likes us to push her faster and higher, and laughs and laughs. It's really fun.
Here she is kneeling. This is the new trick she rolled out for her nine-month birthday. Now we just chase her around the house checking what she picks up off the floor, and making sure isn't going to pull things over onto herself.

We are so proud of Natalie, and more in love with her than ever before. It's really fun to see her developing her own likes and dislikes! She stops anything she's doing to watch Reese-the-cat walk by, and one of her favorite pastimes is watching Reese chase toys! We've reached the stage where Natalie thinks Reese's toys are hers, and Reese also thinks Natalie's toys are just excellent. Luckily Reese is an indoor cat so we don't have to worry *too* much about germs (but we do anyway).

All in all, our little family of four is quite happy!