11 Months

This baby is almost a whole year old!

Gwen has been walking! She gets too excited about and tries to run, but then falls. It's cute. She learned to clap recently, too. She says "nyum nyum nyum" when she wants to eat/is about to eat and "no no no" when she's upset/when I'm upset with her. She loves to play this "game" where she hands me an object, I say, "Thank youuuu!",  she grabs it again and hands it back to me again and again. She pulls hair like a demon and has made two kids cry over it. :(  She loves flipping through and chewing on books. 

All photos in this post are taken by Lydia of Photography Hill. She has great deals for bloggers! Make sure to check her out if you're in the Phoenix area! She took some outfit photos for me that I'm excited to share with you all. 

10 months

It's getting harder to take Gwen's photos now that she's very mobile and very curious. She has actually been 10 months old since the 8th, but I've procrastinated taking her photos just because the heat is so awful and indoor photos don't look as good. I finally sucked it up and I took a few photos while we were scouting locations for my most recent session (photos of that soon!).
She will no longer keep anything on her head, so headbands and cute hats are out of the question. So unless she's wearing something obviously girly, almost all strangers mistake her for a boy. Gwen has learned to climb up the stairway. We may need to purchase another baby gate. She loves to feed herself and sometimes won't eat unless she can do it herself. She has 6 teeth. She loves to wave and give high fives! 

Nine Months

Ok, so I'm cheating this month by using some of the family photos that my sister took instead of photos that I should have taken of Gwen. This month has been busy. Gwen babbles up a storm, crawls everywhere and gets into everything, and she's laughing a lot more, which is the best. She laughs a lot when I chase her, or when she's at the top of the stairs behind the baby gate and Ryan or I will crawl up the stairs. She goes nuts. Up until this month, I thought that Gwen's weird behaviorisms were simply just "babyisms." Nope, she's actually just crazy. Gwen eats a lot of different foods, now. I'll be sure to keep track of what she likes and dislikes for the next update. So far, there are few foods that she doesn't like.
I feel like Gwen is starting to understand me when I talk to her... sometimes. Other times I'll be repeating the same thing over and over in a stern voice and it just doesn't register at all. I guess she's still pretty young for that. (?) She also has so many cool facial expressions, now. Check out this gem of a photo, for instance. All these cousins have great expressions.

All photos by Ashley Rose Hamilton Photography 

8 Months

These photos are a month late! We have moved into a bigger place since I last blogged, and we didn't have wifi for two weeks. And then once we finally got it, I was feeling especially lazy about updating the blog. It was a nice little hiatus. 

Gwen is now 9 months but here she is at 8 months- 

She has sprouted 4 teeth in the span of like, 2 weeks. We have stairs in our new place, so we've been baby-proofing left and right. 

7 Months with Gwen

Six months to seven months has been the funnest transition with Gwen so far. She learned to sit up (which seems like a tiny miracle) and is much more interested in toys and is more interested in things she shouldn't have. She learned to army crawl about a week ago, so it has been fun seeing how far she can get from one end of the living room to the other end. Man, we gotta baby proof this place now. We are still co-sleeping, but next month we'll be moving into a place with two bedrooms! So we'll see how transitioning to a crib will be.... I'll probably have a harder time with it than Gwen! Honestly, she might just use the crib for naps. We'll see. Who knows, maybe I'll be relieved to have her out? Although I'm very(!) excited to finally have the chance to decorate a nursery!

We are still nursing and she eats a little baby food here and there. She so badly wants to stand, and tries to pull up on furniture or our legs, but she can't quite get there yet. Oh, and she's babbling a lot which is super neat for Ryan and I but probably boring for the rest of the world. We are definitely her biggest fans. I'm sure that's why God made parenting a partnership- so we can "fangirl" over our babies with our spouses/partners and not feel like a complete dork.


This is unrelated, but related at the same time-
I was pretty devastated after reading this blog post  about protecting your family/babies on social media. I knew that there are a lot of creeps and evil people on the internet, but I kind of just forget about it. You know? I focus on the good and fun of sharing photos of my adorable baby on Facebook, Instagram, and especially this blog. What shook me the most while reading that post was learning about the horribleness that is baby role playing, and that there is a community of these sickos on Instagram that can steal your photos and post them on their own accounts. A minute after reading the blog post I changed the privacy settings on my Instagram account and Facebook. This naturally got me thinking about my blog. I felt torn- I had immediately felt guilty about all of the photos I had uploaded of Gwen on all of my social media. I know that I shouldn't, since my intentions of sharing my life as a parent are good, but I couldn't help thinking whether or not her photos had already made it onto one of the baby rp accounts. It just feels so violating knowing that these predators are on the same platform that many of us parents use to share cute, funny pictures with one another.
After sleeping on it and reading through the tips to keep my baby safe, I feel a little better about keeping my blog. I thought a lot about making my blog private as well, but I felt that it would defeat the purpose of my blog, which is to share most aspects of my life, connect with other women and moms, and to make new friends. You can't really do these things if you're closed off to the world.
I also thought about how unfair it is that I was so afraid to share my life with all of you. I love blogging and I'm glad and proud that I've stuck with it for four years.
So! I am going to be more careful about what I share here and I'm not gonna let the bad guys control my thoughts too much. Learning what I did was a great reminder to keep some parts of my life and photos, private. Also, I've made a new Instagram account! Please follow me :) @hey_whataday 

Gwen and I

I am head over heels for these photos. I'm so glad I decided to get them done. Photos are pretty amazing in general, no? We're able to see how we used to look, how young we were, how weird we were, our fashion tastes, hairstyles and whatnot. I know I'll be glad to look at these once Gwen has grown and remember her littleness. I can't thank Chrissy enough for capturing these moments. 

All photos by Let Me See You Sparkle Photography.