February = Fun!!

Who makes freezing cold weather fun? Sadie Beth Balzer does!!! Who can get enough of this? We have been having such a blast with our sweet little girl, who is growing and changing so much each day. February has been full of lots of exciting stuff for Sadie Beth...new developmental milestones all the time it seems. As mentioned before, she has a tooth now and probably is working on #2 considering how much time she spends gnawing on whatever she can get near her mouth (toys, fingers, my shoulder, etc). She is now rolling from her stomach to her back and sitting up without help! She is also now "choosing" between toys (putting one down to pick up another), whereas she used to simply play with the one she was given. It was funny when she would get tired of the toy she was given and would start fussing out of frustration but wouldn't put it down. I'm not sure she realized that she could.
Another new fun development is that Sadie Beth absolutely adores her Daddy! It's not that she ever disliked him, but now any time David walks in the room, talks to her, or gives her any attention whatsoever, she LIGHTS up completely...usually with big smiles and a few jumpy bounces. We have continued our Wednesday playdates at Abby's house. It is so great to have that mid-week break and social time with friends. And the babies are actually starting to notice each other's presence too. Last week Amelia and Sadie Beth were holding hands and smiling at each other. Elijah is enjoy his time with the ladies in this picture!
Sadie Beth continues to love her exersaucer....so do I since I can get so much done while she is playing in it. Usually she is good for 20 minutes or so which means I can at least get started on dinner or do some cleaning.

We will be sad to return the bouncy seat to Jason and Jodee soon because Sadie Beth has enjoyed it so much...but even sadder that our friends will be moving all the way across the country. Thanks to the Upchurch's for letting us use this great toy...we'll miss you!
Aren't sleeping babies sweet?
Another funny story...one day Sadie Beth and I were playing on the couch. I don't remember how exactly it happened, but she fell and landed as pictured below, face planted in between the cushions. I expected her to not be so happy about this but she thought it was HYSTERICAL and sat like that laughing into the couch. Rather than helping her up immediately, I took advantage of this fun photo opp.
Showin' off for the camera...
"Ohmygoodness, I have feet!!!" says Sadie Beth. This has been a new discovery over the last 2-3 weeks. I have started letting her go barefoot more at home just because she loves trying to grab her feet.

This is a horrible picture of me, but too cute for Sadie Beth. We had just gotten home from church. We were given this outfit by our friends Keet and Hillary. Sadie Beth was having fun standing and bouncing up and down on our bed. Please ignore the dishevled bedsheets...we barely make it to church on time let alone get the bed made. :)

This was the teething weekend. Sadie Beth was fussy-fussy and wasn't happy no matter what you did. So David put her on the couch like this....suprisingly, she thought it was kindof fun.

This was one of the first times Sadie Beth was sitting up by herself. Unfortunately, right after I took the picture, she toppled over before I could catch her and wasn't too thrilled. I felt bad, but at least she will learn resiliency.
I spend a lot of my day simply exchanging smiles with this sweet little bug...it's pretty much on of my favorite things in the whole world to see her smile. Some people might think this is a waste of time, but I know I will never regret one minute of it.

More exersaucer fun. When she plays in the exersaucer, often she is very focused...at this moment in time, the object of her concentration was the flower as she attempted to see just how much of it she could get in her mouth.

Sitting up all by herself...don't you love the perfect straight posture? She stayed sitting up for quite awhile here.
Sadie Beth likes her Gloworm that her Great Granpa and Great Grandma Shelton gave her for Christmas. She likes the different melodies that it play.

That's all for now....thanks for reading!

Tooth Time!!!

Sadie Beth has a tooth! You can hardly see it, but it has officially broken through the surface as of 2/9/08. I'm kindof relieved to see it because I thought her "teething" might have all been in my head. You know, like when moms will claim that their babies are cranky for months on end because they are "teething" when really they are just cranky. For the last few weeks Sadie Beth has been always gumming something, often times like her mouth is causing her pain. I haven't wanted to give her Tylenol just for the heck of it, but this week I have several times...I'm just glad to know it was for good reason. I guess that means I should trust my intuition.
This picture here pretty much illustrates how you will find her these days...hands in the mouth. Most of the time she deals with it pretty well but she's been a bit more cranky than normal off and on the past couple of weeks. Let's just hope that she doesn't figure out how to bite Mommy while she's nursing. That won't be fun.
P.S. - oh the joys of poopy diapers...about 5 minutes after this picture was taken Sadie Beth was lying on the floor and had a MAJOR blowout...it made it up to her armpits...TMI, I know. I was just glad she pooped. We get excited about those sorts of things these days...oh dear. :)