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.