Eva is a little lady on the move. She has perfected her own version of scooting which falls somewhere between a crawl and a butt scoot. She gets up on one knee and one foot and scoots along. Eva is really fast. She also loves to pull up on things, the couch, chairs and her favorite - Mom's legs. Eva and I spend a lot of quality time like this making dinner, washing dishes, doing mom's hair and make-up...
Eva has five little pearly whites now. They are so cute and a little goofy at the same time. This is Eva's baby which she loves. She will grab her and hug her and grin. Eva is a good little hugger and will pat mom and dad's backs when we pick her up. She also gives the sweetest open mouth kisses on cheeks but is much more thrifty with those. Eva is also a good little babbler. I've heard her say "Ma Ma" before but when I coax her to say "Mama" she grins and says "Dadda." Little Stinker.
Eva's little teeth are perfect for biting. At 9 months Eva refuses to let me feed her baby food anymore. She is insistent on feeding herself. We sweep our floor at least twice a day. Eva loves bananas, pancakes, cheese, apples, yogurt bites, puffs, peas and more. The one thing she will let me feed her is ice cream. Just like her mommy Eva loves ice cream. Eva also learned to clap and can cheer for herself. We say "Yeah Eva" and she claps her little hands together. She is developing quite the sense of humor as well and has both a social laugh when everyone else is laughing and a real giggle when something is funny to her.
Unfortunately naptime and bedtime got thrown way out of whack around nine months. Eva had a bad cold, and then teething, and then another bad cold to where I had to hold her in a semi-upright position so that she could breathe while she slept. After 3 weeks of horrible sleep habits Eva would not got down for naps and bedtimes anymore. It took a hair-pulling week and a half of crying it out (Mom and Eva) and sleep training but I think we are finally getting back into our groove. This picture is of Eva and Kris catching a little catnap after a day of lots of crying, grumpiness and only one 20 minute nap. But today I am thrilled to report a morning nap of 2 1/2 hours, afternoon nap of 1 hour and easy bedtime. Hooray!!! but no bets for tomorrow.
The winter snow seemed to leap right over us. But finally on the 29th of February we had enough snow to take the little girls out for a sled ride. I just pulled them around the yard for a bit and let Leah do some snow painting with squirt bottles. By late afternoon most of it had melted. We never did get to truly go sledding down a hill this year. Maybe next.
This year Tal and I put more effort into making our cake delicious than beautiful. We were successful. Our Cherry and Cream Cheese Frosting Topped Devil's Food Target Cake was divine. After several people asked for my recipe, I had one mom confide that she thought we had bought the cake and just stuck an arrow in it.
Abi's GATE Night project featured the Declaration of Independence. She learned all sorts of fun facts about our declaration, including that not one of the signers was born in the United States. :)
