Samantha at 9 Months

This past week was Valentine's Day, and Samantha got to give Daddy the present she made for him.  Here is a picture of it:

I sponge painted the background a light blue color and used a darker blue of the same hue for the handprints.  We did the left hand first, and it turned out a little better than the right hand.  Samantha didn't like having her hands full of paint or us making her press her hand down on the tile.  I then used purple puffy paint to write "Samantha 9 Months."  I think it turned out really well, and it will be a great memento to keep in the future.


Samantha wore a cute new outfit for Valentine's Day today so I took some pictures of her in it.  As you can see, she is definitely pulling herself up onto her knees now, especially on the musical toy you can see in these pictures.  I will even see her up on her knees in her crib when I go get her after she wakes up from a nap or sometimes in the morning.

One of Samantha's favorite things to do is go to her toy corner and pull out as many toys as she can from her toy basket.  We have entered into the role of parents around that world that have to go around the house after their children go to bed and clean up all the toys and books strewn about on the floor.

On Thursday, February 16th, Samantha turned 9 months old!  I can't believe it!  She is growing up so fast.  We had her 9 month checkup on Thursday also, and her height measured at 28 1/2 inches in the 75-90th percentile, her weight was 21 pounds in the 75-90th percentile, and her head circumference was 45 centimeters in the 75-90th percentile.  Her physical growth has definitely leveled off over the last couple months and she has dropped a couple percentile rankings.  I think now that she is moving around a lot more, she is burning off a lot more energy.  The doctor said Samantha is doing great and looks really healthy.  We talked with him a little about what we should be doing now with feeding her, and he encouraged us to start giving her three meals a day (previously we weren't giving her any baby food for breakfast, just for lunch and dinner).  He also said we could start giving her baby food meat so that evening we tried giving her some chicken along with her vegetable, alternating bites.  We thought it looked gross, smelled gross, and tasted gross!  Samantha wasn't a fan of it too much either!

After dinner that evening, we took the traditional monthly picture with a sign.  Now that she's crawling, it's really hard to get a clear picture of her and now she is able to crawl toward and grab the sign, as well as eat it!

On Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa Toll came to visit for the afternoon and evening.  We took them to a local barbecue restaurant, and they got to see Samantha's interactive personality.  She is such a little busy-body!

And to end, here is our cute little girl in a new dress we bought for her.

How can you resist that adorable little face? :)