The Little One Stopped for Busy Nine

As Ariel reached her nine month birthday, I seemed to have lost the energy for her monthly photo shoot. I don't know if recovering from illness has just zapped my creative energy, but there are no photo shoot pics to display. I know, big boo.


But that doesn't mean that Ariel has not been busy. At the end of January, she went to her first friend birthday party. She did great, except when it came to playing with toys. My friend's son wanted a drumstick Ariel was playing with, so he tried to take it from her. Christopher is two and a half. Well, being her father's daughter, Ariel was not relenting and held fast to her treasure. After some forceful tugging, Christopher fell back and started to cry. Eric said, "That's my girl. You make those boys cry." Nice.


This month she also said her first word. Of all the millions of words in the world, she chose "Dada." Really? What happened to "Mama?" I mean, I only spend 24/7 with her. A little recognition would have been nice *sniff*. Ok, so I'm a little jealous, but I shouldn't be surprised, she is such a daddy's girl.


Ariel is trying to crawl and has adopted this frog-hop/inch worm move. She can make forward progress and that 's great, but man is she hilarious.


Auntie Vicki provided Ariel with her first car, albeit a shoe box we call the "Mercedes." Ariel loves to sit in it and have us pull her around the house. Vicki goes for the tour guide approach, pointing out the major points of interest in the house. Eric is more of a whistle while you work and sings songs as he pulls her along. I run things more like a race track, we do a few laps and spin some donuts in the living room while we're out.

But if we stop and Ariel is not done, she'll pull the chain link rope to let us know that our role as her pack mule is not yet complete.


Ariel enjoys eating much better, which is exciting for all of us. She loves sweet potatoes, applesauce with rice cereal (in jar only), and sweet corn casserole. She had a strong opinion on peas, green beans, and rice cereal out of the box. Oh yeah, did I mention that she is Gerber's Puffs junkie?

Of all the things she has accomplished this month, Ariel truly loves the fact that while Pazu is begging for food, she can creep up on him and touch his furry, doggy toes. It really makes him move!

Enjoy the pics and the video about Ariel's big month. FYI: the video is 3:30, a file this big, may take some time. Hope you get to view it. Let me know if you run into problems.

having bday lunch
i see you
tunnel of smiles
say cheese!
looking studious