10 months

Our baby girl turns 10 months old this Easter Sunday. Her newest "tricks" include: crawling, clapping, waving hi and goodbye, and, just today, kissing aka putting her mouth on my face. She is constantly crawling toward Topher and petting him and trying to grab his tail. He tolerates her pretty well and now and then he'll let out an annoyed little yelp at her. She loves getting into lots of things now, so we have to be extra vigilant.

She came down with a cold yesterday, so she has been wanting me to hold her a lot and she rests her head on my shoulder and pats my arm. I take her out in the stroller at least once a day, which she LOVES. She watches all the neighborhood goings-on and sometimes I push her in the baby swing at the park and she laughs and smiles and watches the bigger kids.

We went to the Macy's flower show with Naomi and Mom yesterday. She enjoyed looking at the flowers and other plants and trees, but wanted to cuddle a lot since she was starting to come down with something. Today I have been running errands and trying to prepare for tonight's small group. It is our turn in the rotation to bring the dinner twice this month. I am brining Greek chicken with a salsa-like topping. I found the recipe on C. Schumacher's blog. Brett and I did some prep work for it last night: chopping up stuff for the salsa portion and searing the chicken. I'm going to do the baking part of the chicken right before we leave. I am also preparing a salad and orzo pasta as sides. It has been quite the challenge getting everything done because of Stella being sick and needing my attention, but she has just fallen asleep and I think I will sit and rest for a few minutes before I tackle the next task.

Here are some recent pictures of my sweet almost-10-month-old.

Visiting my dad at his office (waiting while he was on the phone with a client)

Within a couple minutes, about four lady co-workers came to see Stella

Crawling at my parents' house...in this case, sliding around on the wood floors

Playing with my dad - she always gets really loud and excited around him

Brett has tomorrow off for Good Friday since the stock market is closed. I am so happy about that! Easter Sunday we will be going to my parents' house and having Easter lunch with the siblings. Have a wonderful Easter weekend. He is risen!