Here is a picture of Charlotte's first tooth!

(You will probably need to zoom in, if you can.)

Playing with dad's hat.

(Kyle's Uncle Rob is the Routt County Coroner. We don't have some weird, morbid sense of humor or anything.)

... and a new style of hat! Please note how many times this empty wipes box had made it on our blog and think twice about buying Charlotte toys.

Charlotte's first ride down a slide!

Here are some videos of the sliding experience.

Here is Charlotte clapping along to her music. She kept turning her music on and clapping, and when it would end, she would turn it on again, so she could clap again. It's hard to capture videos of her because as soon as we get out the video camera, she spots it and becomes a statue. Kyle actually recorded this through the hole of an empty wipes container.

Today Charlotte turned nine months old. She has been teething (AGAIN SO SOON!) again this week and had a 102 fever on and off for the last two days. She is finally not feverish anymore, but is still drooly, snotty, and generally cranky and unpleasant. However, she is eating a variety of foods, such as grilled cheese and avocado, she loves Sesame Street, and she says "doo, doo, doo" all. day. long. She just recently began clapping (pictured below) and waving bye bye. We love her!

This is when Charlotte pulled herself up on the table last week.

Charlotte in her tutu from the Rummelhoffs.

And finally, this afternoon Charlotte, wearing her tutu again, was scooting on her belly on the floor and being generally crabby. Eventually she got her pacifier in her mouth and decided that a sunny spot on the living room carpet was the perfect place for an afternoon nap.

Look at how crazy her toes were during her nap!

Oh yes, one more thing. The last three mornings when I go to check on Charlotte (she's been sleeping in due to fevers keeping her up at night + daylight savings time) she is sleeping on her belly with her butt sticking up in the air. We tried to get a photo this morning, but it was too dark in her room and we didn't want to wake her up. She's so kooky.

*Is anyone able to open these pictures to make them bigger? I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It's probably Mac's fault.

My Mom Fika's have taken a turn for the better. I'm trying something new, but I read on a friend's blog once about sharing your goals before you complete them and how it can sometimes satisfy the desire to complete them at all, so that's all I'll say. I'm trying something new.

But this "something new" has led me to wandering some really amazing blogs of writers involved in (in)courage. I happened upon The Simple Mom, who recently started something called "Project Simplify"- a five-week plan to declutter, clean, and organize based on Tsh Oxenreider's book, Organized Simplicity, which I will hopefully be purchasing soon. I'm a week late, but I'm going to give it a whirl. I love decluttering and in the wake of my first, serious, grown-up move, I'd really like to simplify my life. Plus, it involves before and after pictures, which I love. Each week Tsh designates a "hot spot" to tackle and last week's was your wardrobe and closet. Here's the link, if you'd like to join. She has some really great guidelines and I'm excited to marvel at my very clean closet in a few days.

Charlotte is changing so fast, I can't even handle it. Yesterday morning, as Charlotte was jamming my fingers into her mouth, I found her first little tooth on the bottom right side!

And she's scooting backwards all over the place. Like, TWO DAYS ago I could plop her on her bottom and there she would sit and play until I came and got her. Now she's across the room stuck under a chair in less than five minutes.

And yesterday I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I saw her little fingers gripping the other side of the coffee table and her little face start to rise up over the edge. She had pulled herself onto her knees.

And she's feeding herself things like grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwich and scrambled eggs. And tonight for the first time and picked up her sippy cup, tipped it back, and drank juice from it. She's like a REAL KID, for pete's sake.

I'm changing a little bit too, I suppose. I've lost almost 25 lbs. since I went back to Weight Watchers. And I just very recently am able to fit back into my very smallest pre-pregnancy jeans! Hooray!