Grace- 10 months old!

Our littlest girl is now 10 months old! This was a big month for Gracie- she seems to really understand us now and responds to what we are saying! She has quite the little personality and may be a performer like her sister! Although most people wouldn't know it- she still doesn't like to crack a smile when around others. :) Maybe soon! 

Much to my happiness, Gracie started saying mama this month. And proceeded to start saying it all the time. :) In fact, she often follows me around in the day saying "mama, mama!" And pulls up on my legs whimpering to be held. She may be another mommy's girl in the making, eek! Gracie also started saying baby and bye-bye occasionally.
Grace enjoys making lovely spitting noises as well, and "brrrring" her lips- not sure how to describe that one. But she thinks its pretty funny when she does it!

Here is a side glimpse of her "cheesy" smile- she likes to give her big cheesy smile and show off her little teeth! Missy now has 5 teeth, with the 6th almost through- her bottom two and the top four. She's going to have a full mouth by the time she turns 1!

As I have mentioned, much of her summer has been spent going to the pool- especially since that's the only possible way to be outside during this heat. Thankfully, Grace is a lover of the water as well! I don't normally get pictures of the girls swimming since there is no way I can take care of two kids and have my camera, but I took some when Daddy was with us one day. :)

Such a silly girl. :)

These monthly pictures are getting to be very tough to take- she obviously was more interested in catapulting off the chair! Gracie is very much on the move! I also noticed this month that she knows how to go from crawling into a sitting position. And she really likes to sit on her knees!

The only way I could get her to sit was to give her one of the sacred objects- Bella's toys. :) She still adores sister's toys more than anything and takes off for them whenever she can! Another funny thing Grace does is crawl around carrying the random little toys she manages to steal from Bella- princess dolls, horses, etc. And a major temper tantrum will happen if you try to take them away!

And here is a picture showing what happens when Bella is sleeping- yes, that is Bella's Rapunzel tower- one of Grace's favorite places to visit! Those toys are just irresistible to her. 

Gracie started to really perform her tricks for us this month. She started to clap when we ask, gives high fives, waves bye-bye, and does so big. So she now has a whole repertoire to perform for other people- and she actually does them all most of the time! 

Gracie is also in love with her blanket. Whenever she spies it, she goes and burrows her head into it to snuggle- and her fingers pop automatically into her mouth, just like Bellas. :) Derek and I love to watch them sleep because it's exactly the same way- fingers in mouth, cuddling a pink blanket!

Eating was NOT a strong suit of Grace's this month. It makes me cringe to even remember the past month, so I'll just summarize it by saying nearly every meal she ate in June involved screaming in her chair. Not pretty to say the least. But she seems to have moved past it, hallelujah, and she is now eating awesome again! We started giving her a lot more table food, and she seems to really like it. She has had pasta, chicken, beef, string cheese, bread, pears, waffles, and her favorite- mashed potatoes. She is still eating baby food some too, and I'll probably to continue to do so until she eats normal fruits and veggies well. 

Grace does have her own toys to play with, even if she chooses not to play with them the majority of the time. :) This singing puppy is a favorite of hers though! Whenever it sings songs, she gets a big giant smile on her face- and then she likes to go attack them.

Another favorite activity is banging toys together and emptying objects out of containers- in particular, the food out of our play kitchen! We also have had her in the swing of our playset quite a bit, and she loooooves swinging!

Grace started pulling herself up a lot more this month- still not cruising around furniture yet, but she is close to it! She's definitely not as interested in walking as Bella was at this age, so it'll be interesting to see when she does actually start walking on her own. 

The Life of Bella

June was another fun-filled month for us! Although I can't believe it's already mid-July- summer is flying by too fast! 

Bella's big accomplishment this month was learning all of her uppercase letters! Now she thinks she  is ready to go to school because we told her that she needed to know them before starting preschool. :) We might've exaggerated that a bit, but it was good incentive to help her learn!

June is our celebration month- actually more of a week! Bella's birthday on the 2nd, our anniversary on the 3rd, and my birthday on the 8th! Here I am with my sweet girlies on my birthday.

We have made many many pool trips thus far this summer- Bella adores swimming, and thankfully so does Gracie! I got to take some pictures on a day Daddy was with us.

Bella has lots of fun making new friends at the pool. Almost every time we are there, she finds some little girls to swim with and go down the slide with! She especially loves finding older girls to be friends with. :)

Daddy worked on this day though. :)

After Derek's parents and sister got back from vacation, we celebrated part two of Bella's birthday party! Bella certainly didn't mind having another chance to open presents and eat cake. :)

Opening up her presents!

A kitty!

She also received a beautiful new Dora dress, which promptly had to be worn.

Mommy also taught Bella how to ride her tricycle after her birthday party! She quickly caught on and is now pedaling all over. Next up will be a bike, eek!

She still likes her old outside toys though. :) Note the beautiful braid I styled in Bella's hair that day- her first single braid!

An exciting first occurred for Bella in June as well- her first haircut! Not surprising that our bald little baby didn't have her first haircut until she was 3 years old. Here is her before picture....

All those beautiful curls. :) When wet, her hair is actually about halfway down her back.

Bella was very excited to go to the place where Mommy gets her hair cut at.

She sat so still the entire time and didn't make a peep! I know she enjoyed being treated like a little princess though.

Plus, she received a beautiful princess hairstyle afterwards! I am glad we did the first cut now, as it has helped even out her curls and should help it continue to grow.

We went to the Paws and Claws Thursdays event in Pella this month. When we saw the chance for pony rides, we knew Bella would have to go! She took several rides on the pony this year.

She even was brave enough to go around without Mommy!

The other highlight of Paws and Claws was the kitten cages- naturally. :) Bella couldn't take them out to hold them, but she was perfectly content to watch them play around and pet them through their cages.

She is a kitty lover!

We made special treats for Daddy and Grandpas for Fathers Day this year. Bella was particularly a big fan of making the chocolate cake for Grandma. :)

I think she kept saying, "Mmmmm, this is yummy yummy yummy!" I'm so thankful she has a sweet tooth like me. :)

And here is Daddy with his two sweet girlies on Father's Day! Although both girls are a bit attached to their mommy, they love their daddy soooo much. :)

Whenever we play outside, Bella usually wants to sit on the lawn chairs and have a snack. :) Strange because she doesn't ever want to have a snack inside, but she has it in her head that when she is outside she needs a little snack!

Our play has been full of imagination and pretending this month. We play school, restaurants, grocery store- and of course pretending to be princesses. (Well she gets to be a princess, and I have to be the naughty person). It's a little exhausting to stretch my imagination that much everyday, and I often ask her can't I just be mommy and you be Bella? Nope. :) Oh well, she is a creative little girl!
Funny sayings of the month:
"I'm going to dominate this!" Spoken about eating some type of food- she naturally got that line from Daddy.
"My suntan itches." No idea why. Apparently she feels that her tan causes the itchiness on her. :)

Grace- 9 month pictures!

It was also time to do Grace's 9 month pictures this past month! I took these pictures spread out over the course of several days, which worked out well since missy didn't have to keep up her happy smiles for too long. :) It wasn't very easy to keep her sitting still, but we managed to get some really cute ones of her. 

We took a few in our favorite inside spots, so Grace was used to those. :) 

Those baby blues are still as bright as ever!

These were taken in a beautiful outdoor wildfield... otherwise known as an empty lot next to our house. :) Worked well though!

We took a few in the Scholte gardens, which proved to be a difficult spot! Grace was much more interested in eating everything she could grab- grass, flowers, you name it. :)

Grace also wasn't too keen on sitting still for long. :)

Our final location- and one we will definitely be visiting again in the future. Love this bridge!

Our favorite overall. :) It's such a little Gracie smile and expression!

Little baby on such a big bridge! Bella had fun running up and down this!

I made Daddy be a photo prop for a little bit as well. :)