Activity Table

I was shopping a couple weeks ago for a birthday present for a friend of Natalie's when I noticed this little activity table on sale. I bought it thinking it was the right height for Sarah, brought it home and set it up. Sarah LOVED it!! She even shared time at her table with her friend Bradyn a couple days later. Now the funniest thing about this table is, she loves to stand at the table and growl at the various toys on it. It's hysterical!!! But she's always smiling while she is growling, so I know she isn't upset or anything.

Her other new thing is to mug for the camera. She has realized that when the flash goes off it's time to smile. However, she waits until the flash goes off, meaning the picture is already taken. So it goes like this...mom takes picture, flash goes off, Sarah mugs with big grin. I have managed to get off another quick shot to capture her "mugging" however, and it is quite cute.

Milestones

Sarah just hit two milestones in the last two days. She cut her first tooth yesterday evening, and today at Fort Foster she figured out how to crawl on the beach!!! She is getting so big...I can't believe my baby is almost ten months old!! She loves to get around the house (up till now she's been rolling, that is obviously going to change quickly lol), and her favorite thing to do is reach behind the TV stand and pull out the cable cord (the only one she can reach). So now I need to come up with a way to block her reach in that one small spot in a way she can't get past.

Another thing of note...her father is a huge Red Sox and Pats fan. Sarah now owns two more Red Sox onesies in the official colors (in addition to the two pink ones she already owns) and a pink Patriots jersey, all compliments of daddy. She makes a cute fan, I must admit.

I will post pics of her new tooth when she lets me (right now she's not very fond of showing it off, but has no problem biting with it lol) and crawling when I catch her in the act with my camera (unfortunately I didn't have it with me today).

Vacation

We just returned this past weekend from a week's vacation at a wonderful cottage on Sebago Lake. We all had a wonderful time, and the place we stayed at was absolutely beautiful. We hope to stay there again next year.

Sarah absolutely loved the lake. My inlaws had bought her a baby tube that she could use in the water. This was all well and good for the first couple trips into the lake, until she decided it was no longer acceptable that her arms couldn't reach far enough over the side to splash the water, which of course is her favorite thing to do. So she decided she wasn't having any of that any more, and mommy had to carry her out into the water so she could splash. And splash she did. Happily and noisily. Nat, Connor, and Erin would come up to us in the water and splash along, which made her even more happy.

However, our happy baby came very close to cutting a few teeth (they're almost there, barely any gum covering them) last week as well, which made for some rough moments and a LOT of poopy diapers and a yucky diaper rash to go with it (I changed more poopy diapers in one week than I think in the past six months lol). But thankfully we found some ointment that was not zinc oxide based that did the trick and made life a little better for Ms. Sarah. She also slept quite a bit, partly I think due to exhausting herself in the water and partly as a coping mechanism due to the teething.

I am including a few pictures, but only a few for the moment because most of ours didn't come out as well as we had hoped. Hopefully I can get my mother in laws pictures (or a copy of them anyway) so I can post more.

Tubby Time

We have discovered that Sarah LOVES water (except cold water). She has figured out how to splash, and now that she sits well on her own bath time has become more fun....she LOVES tubby time!!! She is completely fascinated by the water, the faucet, the little switch that you flip to keep the water in the tub or drain it, mommy's little scrubby ball, etc. It is so much fun! We've also discovered though that bubble baths are not a good idea, because she thinks the bubbles are for eating (the same is also true for the sand on the beach). She is also really close to figuring out how to crawl. My baby is getting too big already!!

A Day at the Beach

Tim, Connor, and Natalie left on Wednesday to go camping in Baxter State Park, so Erin, Sarah, and I have been enjoying some girl time. Wednesday we went shopping, and Thursday afternoon we went to the beach! I stuck Sarah's toes in the ocean, but it was a little cold, and she wasn't having any of that. So (since it was low tide) we found a big warm puddle to play in. This was great fun for a while...until Sarah decided that the sand was for eating! And it's not like I can just tell her no, since she wouldn't understand, so we played on our beach mat for a little bit. Then we got changed and walked around some of the little shops, and stopped for ice cream. I gave Sarah a bit of mine, thinking she'd try it and that would be it. Oh no, it became HER ice cream. And she was fit to be tied when it got down to the cone and she couldn't have any more! I had to quiet her with a baba lol. But we had a very good day nonetheless. I think I have a little water baby on my hands...Sebago Lake should be quite a bit of fun this year!

Fort Foster

This past weekend I took the kids and Sarah to Fort Foster for an outing with my entire family. This was Sarah's first trip to Fort Foster. The water was at low tide, starting to come in, when we got there, and was pretty warm up until about a foot or two into it. After that it was a tad cooler...not bad for the rest of us, but not to Sarah's liking lol. She sat in the warm water and played with the wet sand and tried to catch the pieces of seaweed that mommy and brother and sisters kept taking out of her reach. She figured out how to splash in the water with her hands, which she thought was great fun. She also managed to finally snag not one but two pieces of seaweed, which she happily played with until a very small but cool wave passed over her. The wave did not knock her over, but she managed to knock herself over with her own reaction to it. She decided she did not like the water very much after that. Oh well! We played on the playground too and went for a walk on the pier. Definitely a great place to bring the kids...we'll have to do it again sometime!