An Everz update

Eve just turned 10 months old. We took her to get her 9 month well baby check-up yesterday. Yes, I know, we are a month behind. Things kind of got hectic around the holiday season, not to mention it was also Jason's finals week. So we scheduled our appointment kind of late. No biggie. We didn't have any health concerns for this little girl. And I really do mean "little". She weighs 14 lbs. 4 oz and is 25.5 inches tall at 10 months. I really thought that she would at least on the growth chart by now. I mean, this girl eats so much food! I thought that maybe she would have reached the 3rd percentile or something. But no, she hasn't. Thankfully my doctor is no longer worried about her like he was in the first couple months of her life. I'm glad we don't have to make any extra appointments to track her weight like we used to. He just told me that since I'm small, she's small.

Well, there's no denying that she's healthy, this girl is very active. She is a very fast crawler, check out one of my favorite recent pictures:
Obviously not an action shot of her crawling, but still cute.

This isn't recent news, but she loves pulling up on everything. She can cruise around furniture, but she has figured out that crawling is much faster, so she prefers that method of getting where she wants to go. Here's a picture of her pulling up on her daddy's foot (I thought it was so funny that she was using his shoe to stand, so I had to take a picture)
So she's been pulling up for several months now, and now she has recently figured out how to stand without holding on to anything. I'm such a proud mother. Here are some pics (By the way, it's so hard to get a picture of her standing, because when I notice she's doing it, I have to run and get my camera. By then she has lost interest, and she will not do it for me "on command." She's stubborn.) The first picture was taken at Jason's mom's house right after Christmas-time, so she was 9 months. Jason snapped that picture and he was so excited to show me that he managed to take a picture after one try when I had been trying for a couple weeks! The second picture is one I took just recently. She was pushing the shopping cart (that her older sister had filled full of jeans from their dresser drawers by the way) and just decided to let go and hang out there for a minute. You can tell she was proud by the look on her face. Oh, how I love these milestones!
I'm wondering when she is going to walk. Not because I'm concerned at all, I do realize that she is still very young. I'm just a curious mother. If you would have asked me a couple months ago, I would have guessed by 9 months, like her older sister. She seemed to do everything else earlier than Kylie did, so I thought walking would be the same. Obviously that didn't happen. Which is perfectly alright, I'll be a proud mom regardless of when it happens! I don't even think at this point that it will be anytime soon. She just doesn't have any desire to take any steps. By the age of 4 months, Kylie used to love it when I would hold her hands and make her "practice" walk. Well at 10 months, Eve still hates it. She doesn't want any of it. She will force herself down and crawl off as fast as possible. Whatever. I'm just going to let it happen whenever it happens. No more practicing. Over Christmas, I did see her take 2 steps, completely unassisted. Then she fell down and giggled. Then she stood up again, fell down and giggled again. I guess falling is much more fun than walking. At least it is to Eve. My sister Rachel tried to "train" her while we were visiting for Christmas. She was determined to have her walking before she left to go study abroad in France. She left today by the way, so her strict program didn't work. So I guess I don't know when she'll be walking, but what I do know is that no matter when it is, I will be so excited to see my little girl toddling around.

There is another very important development that I should mention: I gave Eve her very first pigtails today. How adorable is this:
The naughty girl was putting a "hair pretty" in her mouth in that first picture, but what can you expect, she's 10 month old. Don't worry, I was obviously there to take it away (that and all the other "pretties" that a certain toddler dumped all over the floor).

Oh, something else fun? She loves to dance! When she hears music that she likes, she pulls up and bounces up and down. I have a video of her doing it for the first time back in October. I'll try to remember to post it sometime.

Family Picture Update

Here's a picture of Eve at 7 months. She's very photogenic, which makes my job as "Marsh family photographer" so much easier. We have to put her hair in a ponytail or put clips in it because otherwise it will hang in her eyes and whenever she has a runny nose, she likes to wipe it all over her face. It's just way too disgusting when her hair is in her face for her to get her snotty little hands as well, I'm sure you can imagine what that looks like. I'm also a firm believer that no baby should ever get a haircut before they are at least one year old.













Kylie on the other hand is more difficult for me to capture in a picture. She doesn't often want to look at the camera, much less smile for it. Plus whenever it seems that those conditions are met, I seem to have "forgotten" to fix her hair that day. Well, it's not easy to fix the hair of a busy 22 month old. We are growing out her bangs, so it's pretty important that I try to pull her long bangs out of her eyes. But she's still a doll and such a sweet little girl.
















Jason is doing well, there's not too much to update. He's still working at Sears, in fact in this picture he is wearing his new blue Sears shirts since their dress code now requires blue shirts instead of white or black. So that's the big news lately... :) He is still taking classes obviously and is very busy trying to keep up with all the reading, papers and tests. He also still has his internship at our church and is busy running the Awana program [with my help, of course! :) ].













And here I am, with my new haircut. I think it's the same haircut that I had way back in 8th grade, only updated with a side part instead of down the center. Oh, and I will never curl my bangs the way I did back then, I promise. I can't believe I woke up early to spend time making my hair look so ridiculous. I also think it's the first time since eighth grade that my hair is not colored in any way. And I've course I took this picture of myself since I'm the "Marsh family photographer."

It's too bad that although this photography gig gives me the opportunity to store many memories in pictures, it doesn't bring me any money (Actually it costs me money when you think about it). I'm still working as a substitute teacher, and still looking for a full time job that would allow Jason to be more of a stay at home dad and student. I'm still hopeful.

In other news, I have stopped breastfeeding. Eve was not sleeping at all at night unless she was physically attached to me, using me as her pacifier. After over six months of this sleeping arrangement, I was becoming very tired and grumpy with terrible back pain from the way she was forcing me to cuddle with her all night, every night. So we started giving her more bottles at night to stop her from associating sleep with breastfeeding. My job as a substitute teacher allowed me to pump, but once we started giving Eve more bottles, it wasn't enough. We started formula, which of course made my supply drop until she was eventually all bottle fed. I was a little sad about it, because there's a good chance she's my last baby, but the fact that I could sleep soundly in a comfortable position made up for any sadness. Also, after being pregnant and/or breastfeeding for over the past 2.5 years, it feels nice to finally be able to have my own body back! (Let me tell you how exhausting that "and" part was!) Caffeine here I come!