Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the cutest babe of all?

Part of our nightly bath time ritual with G-boo has been to indulge her blossoming interest in herself. In particular, we've been allowing her to sit in front of the bathroom mirror and talk to herself. Recently these interactions have taken on new humor as our budding narcissist now kisses herself in the mirror. We captured it tonight....enjoy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JfY1N7J4jT8

Nine is so fine....

So a few things have happened since our last post.

Firstly...my brother's father in law passed away suddenly at the end of September. Greta and I flew down for Joe's funeral and afterwards we stayed in Florence for a week. The celebration of Joe's life was both difficult and meaningful. We were honored to pay our respects to such a well-respected and well-loved man, but it was hard to see our family in such pain. Cousin Evelyn's presence definitely gave great comfort and happiness to her family. We did manage to take a picture or two of the cousins together in which it appears Greta-boo is terrorizing Evelyn already. Sigh. The week with Bamagrandpa & Bamagramma was good. They enjoyed watching her crawl in person & agreed with Greta's momma that she is definitely a busy girl!

Now that we are back in MN, things are starting to get back to normal. Greta is really getting around and getting into everything. Even daddy's guitar & the oven door seem like interesting playtoys to G-boo!

We just got back from Greta's 9 month appointment and her stats are as follows:

height: 28 1/4 inches (80th percentile)

head circumference: 44.8 cm (75th percentile)

weight: 18 lbs 14 oz (60th percentile)

I was shocked...I thought for sure our peanut was going to be maintaining her 80th percentile weight stat and be well over 20 lbs. The Doctor said this was normal and said that I should be grateful that she's got long & lean genes: thank you to the Morse/Christiansen ancestors! Dr Busch was very impressed that Greta is pulling up and cruising about and thinks she will be walking very soon. Ahh....we've always known she's advanced! To top off our visit, Greta decided that filling 4 diapers with poo might be just the right way to really show off for Dr Busch. Awesome. Enjoy these pics of our growing girl!

New Video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w8A79ffBs54
&
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KnHQUEHccjE

Enjoy our giggly girl!
xo
preacher & the p.w.

Sleeping Beauty or Booty?

Just a quick blog on this the most magical of magical days (my birthday- of course!).... Now that Greta can stand and sit up by herself, she uses these new found skills to protest bedtime/nap time on a daily basis. This morning was nothing new in that regard...but we persevered (and giggled a little bit-watching her in our monitor) and G-boo did finally fall asleep. When we went in to check on her, look at the sleeping position she had assumed.....pitiful & funny all at the same time. The preacher won't let me put up my favorite picture (think plumber pants), but this one will give you the idea. Maybe she's going to be a yoga instructor....or a gymnast?

Fall fun...

So we're back & unpacked from our trip to Bama. We've had some fun over the last 2 weeks...like a fun family day at Grandma Marmo's house. You'll see a picture of Greta with the cute Starr girls from that Sunday posted above. The girls were great with Greta and we all enjoyed some of the best crisp fall weather Minnesota has to offer. In other news.....our girl has 2 teeth as you can see in her smiley picture. And maybe more even more exciting: Greta is crawling! Tyler is attaching video proof here too (see youtube link below)! She's not winning any races yet, but she's officially mobile! We're currently pondering what Greta (and Jersey) will be for Halloween....feel free to post new and exciting ideas below! We'll write more soon... (click on the picture of Greta to see a close-up of her teeth).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=noqQuoURvtI

A few more Fruits of Our Labor Day pictures

A Family Affair

Well we are back from our weekend in AL. We had a great weekend with my folks & we were thrilled to get to meet our brand new niece/cousin Evelyn for the first time! Evelyn was born in June, but with our move & the preacher's new church, we haven't been able to meet her. That is until this last weekend! Greta was VERY interested in Evelyn, and occasionally it even appeared that Evelyn was interested in Greta (ok, maybe just once but we have it on film!). We had to keep encouraging Greta to "be gentle," much like we have to do when our dog is around, but overall she did a pretty good job.

New stuff to report on G-boo: she has TWO bottom teeth now (wow were the last week and a half a bit short of sleep), she can get herself into a sitting position from a prone position, she can pull up into a standing position using hands or stationary objects, she can feed herself finger food (and really likes watermelon we discovered in AL), she can clap & play patty cake (another trick learned in AL) and finally she can make the "Florence Face." You may be wondering, exactly what is the Florence Face and what inspired Greta to pick it up? I posted a pic of the scrunched up nose face that is Florence Face (she appears to be asking..."does something stink in here?" or "I am ferocious...just look at my new teeth and scrunchy nose"). It is not mom's favorite, but of course everybody laughed at it so it is now part of her daily repertoire. Great. The Preacher swears that he saw Bamagramma making that face not long after G-boo was spotted making Florence Face for the first time so we're attributing it to her. She's not pleased, but that's life. We have to have someone/thing on whom to blame Greta's foibles!

Enjoy the new photos....can you believe our girl is 8 months old?