Check that off the list

We've had a very eventful day in the Ryan household today. Fortunately, J got to see most of it before he left for the evening. Kate has had a very exciting few weeks and is really growing into her personality.

She is an incredibly happy baby and loves meeting new people. We ran into one of our amazing nurses from Children's at our Mother's Day dinner and within 30 seconds of talking to her, Kate was reaching out for her to hold her. We love that she is willing to go to anyone, though she often doesn't want to sit still for long.

Kate has picked up a couple new skills in the last few days. A few weeks ago, we started tapping our hands over her mouth while she was making noise. She thought it was hilarious. Well, it is now one of her favorite games and she is even learning how to do it herself. Usually, she uses her pacifier or a toy, but recently she is actually doing it the right way with her hand. She even tries to make the noise on our mouths and puts our hands over her when she wants to play.



Perhaps you noticed in the beginning of that video that Kate has also learned how to crawl in the right direction. She figured it out this morning. She usually only takes a few movements forward at a time, but she definitely has the idea. I expect she will be off and running in the next few days.



I got a little surprise this afternoon. Many of you know that we have a video camera in Kate's crib that connects wirelessly to our TV downstairs. A few days ago, we were watching her on KateTv (as we lovingly call it) and we watched her sit up in the crib, scoot down to the end, and stick her face right in the camera. We then proceeded to watch her turn the camera around. It was almost as if she was giving us a tour of her crib. We decided that is was time to move her crib down to the lowest setting. It's a good thing we followed through because this is what I saw on KateTv today. She was pretty proud of herself when I got up to her room.



Kate is also working on hugs and kisses. Her kisses usually are open mouthed slobber-fests. She is spotty with the hugs, but it feels so good when she wraps her little arms around us.

Here she is going in for the kiss.
I can't wait for her to learn how to give closed-mouth pecks.

Kate will be nine months old on Monday. We can't believe how heavy she is (almost 25 pounds) and how quickly the months have passed. We're beginning to plan her big 1st birthday party in conjunction with a big birthday for my dad (they have the same birthday).

Some parting photos just to show how much our little girl has grown already.

Grandpa D made this chair for Kate for Christmas and she tried it out for the first time on Christmas morning. She was 4 months old.

Here she is today! The bow is in the same place as it was on Christmas morning.
She is already looking like a little girl.