Marissa is 9 Months Old

Marissa is actually getting closer to 9 1/2 months, but most of these pictures are from the past month or so. She is now crawling everywhere, pulling herself up on the furniture, going up the stairs (I'm working on teaching her how to go down so I won't have to guard her as much), climbing over everything - including people, putting EVERYTHING in her mouth, and just getting into trouble. She giggles all the time and is getting to be quite the mama's girl (which is a first for me since both the boys were always fine going with other people). Marissa is happiest just smiling and playing with her family. She loves being around her big brothers and seems to be able to hold her own already. Dylan is the rescuer/protector and Preston is the tolerant love bug that she has already realized she can take advantage of, stealing toys and food right from under him. She loves flipping through books and can entertain herself for quite some time doing this. Her ear is something she plays with all the time, and uses as a comfort item when nursing or going to sleep. She still uses a binkie, but more for bedtime and fussy moments than anything else. She LOVES the water, both swimming and bath time. She can turn the tears on and off like a light switch, which is also new to us. We're gearing up for the drama and emotions that seems to come standard with most girls. She loves baby food and can't get enough of the Gerber Graduate Puff cereal I put on her high chair while I'm fixing meals to keep her quiet. She still has just two little teeth on the bottom, which I am thrilled about. The boys got their chompers WAY too quickly. She smiles with her whole face and lights up a room with her charm. She loves smiling at others, but ducks her head towards me and gets a little shy when others smile back. I can't say enough about this little ladybug of ours. We love Marissa SO MUCH and can't picture our lives without this little ball of joy!!

Marissa and her cousin, Otis. They are only 2 1/2 weeks apart

Oh No...She Crawls!!!

This post is LONG overdue, but I figured I'd still better put it up here. Marissa was up on hands and knees and even taking steps backwards for awhile, but she could not seem to figure out crawling forward. Oh man, that made her mad. I never realized just how loud and high-pitched a girl scream could be. Wow! So even though I dreaded the day she would REALLY start crawling, I looked forward to less frustration from her. I mean, imagine seeing an object you want, focusing all your effort to take a "step" and realizing you are now further from the object. She officially started crawling on March 25, 2011, which happened to be my grandpa's 80th birthday. Cool! So she was a little over 8 months. I was truly she would be fat and lazy and sedentary until around 10 months, but ready or not...here she comes. She's been perfecting the art of crawling ever since, as well as learning to pull herself up on furniture and scoot around the room. Yes, our lives just got exponentially more difficult. We moved the crib down lower and have been watching her like a hawk, but that didn't stop a topple down the stairs and a bar stool rudely landing on top of her head. Her cry is so sad. She takes things happening to her very personally. This little one is definitely going to be rough and tough, as you can see from the little movie with my "helpers" involved. We like to train them early to be tough and since she seems to cry and get hurt more than the boys, she has further to go. She is well on her way to being able to wrestle with the best of them though. ;)

Marissa's World

When you have two older brothers, EVERYTHING'S an adventure! The boys put Marissa in this laundry basket and tied themselves to it with string. They were the horses pulling her in a chariot. Yes, this one's going to need to be very tough to survive her little world. :)

8 Months Old

I know, I know. I can't believe Marissa is 8 months old either, but she is...as of the 16th. I don't have any new stats to post since she hasn't had a well check visit at the doctor, but my guess is her percentiles are still the same - super tall and plenty chubby! :)

Like my other children, I am already beginning to see personality traits in this little one. Marissa is a squealer, talker and screamer. She can often be heard with her ga ga ga's and da da da's. She found her voice long ago and LOVES it! Not sure if it's a girl thing or what, but the screams and squeals are much louder and more frequent with her. She's funny. She is very calm and mellow MOST of the time, but when she's not, she's not. She goes from calm and happy to screaming and frustrated pretty easily. I can see some of Dylan in her and some of Preston, but overall she is VERY different from the boys.

She's a pro at sitting and loves to sit in front of a bunch of toys and play for quite some time. The tub of blocks is her FAVORITE! It is during her attempts at movement that most of the frustration takes place. She gets down on her hands and knees fully looking like she is ready to take off crawling, but nope. Not yet. I watch her, seeing through her determined baby eyes what she wants and yet not being able to attain it yet. She moves. She definitely moves. I put her in one place and she is never there long, but she has yet to fully conquer this skill...or perfect her direction. On hands and knees, she has only managed to rock back and forth or take steps backwards. The toy is right in front of her and she just needs one little "baby step" forward to reach it. She uses those newly discovered motor skills and moves her leg just so, fully intending to reach her destination, only to discover she is now further away from that toy she so desperately wants to put in her mouth. Wait for it. Wait for it. Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.......... This is not just any cry, but a frustrated, high-pitched, very new-to-me girlie cry. Her crawling to this point is all backward, a fact that she does not appreciate one bit, but hasn't quite managed to remedy. She tries again. One more "step" in the opposite direction of her goal. Before long, she generally manages to get stuck under the couch and then is REALLY mad about it. Luckily, this princess has mommy and two older brothers around almost all the time to rescue her in her state of distress. Dylan used to be the rescuer and Preston would just come tell me what was going on. "The baby's sad" "He needs his binkie" (yes, everyone is a he to Preston) "He doesn't like his crib" (when she's fussing trying to fall asleep). Now, my 4-year-old son has decided he too can be a knight in shining armor to his precious Marissa and will pick her up and try to help her walk to me. He can't quite carry her, but he is gentle as can be. Oh the help I receive from such well-intentioned souls. :)

Marissa LOVES her bath and will splash around for as long as you let her. I take her out every day with a smile on her face and by the time we are to the changing table, she is usually crying. She wants that water! We got into some bad habits during what we call "my time on the couch" but have since remedied that and once again have a lovely little daughter who sleeps through the night.

She has also gone from not understanding or liking solids at all to LOVING them. She opens her mouth as wide as can be the moment she sees the spoon headed her direction. It is the cutest thing ever! Reminds me so much of a little baby bird waiting for a worm.

She is still pretty good about going to other people, but is definitely beginning the stage of "where's my mommy." She looks around for me and notices the second I leave the room. She may end up being my child with the most separation anxiety since I worked part-time when both of the boys were babies so they were more used to leaving me.

I have to say, I love this stage. The sitting, inspecting toys, content to play in the saucer, pre-mobile stage of babyhood is my favorite. We're at the tail end of it, I'm afraid, since she is moments away from figuring out this crawling thing so I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts. We love Marissa and truly can't imagine our lives without her. Her unique smile lights up a room, and those chubby cheeks are simply irresistible!

I got the idea to post some chubby baby bathtub pictures from my sister-in-law, Laura's, blog

Gotta love that CHUB! Her rolls are my FAVORITE!

Marissa LOVES her feet! She doesn't keep shoes or socks on for long.

Mommy and Marissa

Perfecting her crawling stance

One of her favorite toys - the tub of blocks

Marissa

Like the rest of my posts, this one is a few weeks overdue. I was going to post a "three month" post, but never did. She'll be four months in a week so I think I'll skip it and just post a few pictures from the past month of her. Not nearly enough pictures...dang it! The days I remember, I take a million, but I definitely don't get the camera out as often as I should. Oh well. That's what happens with child number three apparently...especially when you are in YW and trying to home school. Just not enough hours in the day!

I don't have new stats for her except to say I'm sure she's still right up there at the top of the weight and height scale. She is tall, strong, sturdy and an adorably chubby little bubby. :) She is mellow and tolerant...until she's not. Then she can scream with the best of them! It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. Did I eat something that bothered her? Does she have a stomach ache. Can I really NEVER drink a Diet Coke? She can't possibly need to eat again, right? Why is this child screaming? Marcos was convinced it was him. She would scream when I'd leave for YW and I'd get an urgent call, "I need your help, Maria!" Well, as soon as we discovered she just can't tolerate being overly tired, life has made sense again. It's very strange. Neither of the boys were that way. She'll fuss if she's hungry, but you can stretch her meals out an extra hour if you absolutely have to as long as you have a binkie. My boys can hold her and love her way too much and she doesn't flinch. But if you get her past her bedtime, her little body can't handle it and she just screams. And for now she still likes to be swaddled and likes her pink soothie binkie to go to sleep. She lights up when I enter a room, which warms this tender mother heart of mine and smiles at anything. She has such an easy smile, but gets so excited and shy that she turns to the side a bit when she is in a full grin. She rolled over early...from her tummy to her back, but doesn't do it often. That may have something to do with the fact that I don't put her on her tummy enough. :/ She giggles, but not because she thinks things are funny yet. It stems from the fact that she is quite possibly the most ticklish little thing I have ever seen. She fights the laugh though and tries to hold her breath and hope it will go away. Pretty amusing to watch. When she had a bit of a bellyache one night, I was gently rubbing her tummy in a circular motion and discovered just how ticklish she can be. She would squirm from one side to the other trying to escape the "tickle torture." I absolutely LOVE her fat rolls! There are three or four on her thighs alone. And those chubby cheeks are completely irresistible. I just want to nibble them! She has her daddy's eyes, although the jury is still out on the color. And she has those expressive eyebrows of his. You know, the kind that seem to have an extra muscle there raising them at such random moments, but making her face come to life. She sleeps 7-9 hours at night, but has started slipping into a habit of waking up more often. I'm usually so tired I don't notice what time it is and just grab her to feed her. Then I realize she didn't really need to eat. So we will be working on that bad habit now so we don't have a big problem on our hands soon. Several ladies in the ward have started calling her the community baby. Kind of endearing. Pretty much some lady in the ward is always holding her. I send her to Relief Society during Young Women's because she tends to be a distraction to the girls who all want to hold her and coo at her instead of listening to the lesson. The Relief Society ladies have started fighting over her, knowing there is a baby to hold for an entire hour. So she's the community baby and Marcos and I both love it. It takes a village, right? She will always be "Baby Echo" to the Young Women who were at Echo Lake for girls' camp this year. They started referring to my big belly as "Baby Echo," joking that she was going to be born at camp.

Wow, that was long! And yet only a tiny portion of what I could say about this precious little daughter of mine. Things I'm sure I'll be glad are recorded some day I suppose. Here are the pictures for the majority of you who I'm sure skip all my lengthy boring posts and glance at the pictures of the cute kiddos. :)

Three months old

Someone gave me this onesie for Marissa. Not something I would have bought, but it does make me smile. :)

Happy little bubbers!

That shy face she gets when she smiles and starts to look away always makes her look like she's winking. ;)

I was changing Marissa into her Halloween costume and she spit up a little bit. I didn't have a burp cloth so I just used her onesie, which was already unsnapped since I was in the process of changing her outfit. She giggled and giggled. I guess a shirt in your mouth is kind of funny. :) Anyway, I had Marcos grab the camera and managed to film her giggle for a minute. She laughed so hard it gave her the hiccups. I sure love this happy little baby!

Marissa's Baby Blessing

We had Marissa's baby blessing last Sunday, September 12, 2010. It was a little weird because it wasn't a fast Sunday, but we didn't want to wait until October and the first Sunday in September would not have worked for a number of reasons. My sister-in-law, Laura, was blessing my nephew, Otis, that day, most of my family was out of town over labor day weekend, and another family in our ward blessed their baby and they have a HUGE family. There wasn't even a place for us to sit that week. So I'm glad we did it last week instead. The only negative was that we couldn't actually bear our testimonies...but that was okay.

Baby blessings are something you look forward to and dread at the same time (well, I do at least). The pressure of keeping a baby happy so she doesn't scream during the blessing, making sure she doesn't poop or spit up on her outfit, keeping the rest of the kids quiet, and planning and carrying out a get together for fairly big families is fun, but lots of work. We decided to have a brunch afterwards since our sacrament meeting starts at 9:00. It turned out perfect. I made a bunch of eggs for breakfast burritos, made bacon with brown sugar on it and got apple and orange juice. My mom helped out by ordering a bunch of cinnamon rolls and bringing sausages and chocolate milk. It was easy and super yummy! Thankfully my mom snuck out after the blessing to set everything out. That ended up being super helpful so everything was ready right when we got there.

The bad part was that Marcos had to work the day before so all the shopping, cleaning and other preparations fell to me and me alone. And then he had high council meetings in the morning. I honestly thought he was going to miss the blessing. I finally texted him at 8:45 a.m. to see if he was coming home. So much for taking family pictures before church. Oh well, at least he made it. The kids were well behaved and ready on time and Marissa was an angel. I showered the night before, knowing I would be swamped with a huge "to do" list in the morning so the only other thing I wish I could do over was my flat hair. :) Oh and I forgot to wash my favorite skirt so I was in a really comfy, but less than flattering skirt that day. Oh well, my sweet baby looked beautiful in the blessing dress Abuela made for her and that's all that matters!

The weather was beautiful, everyone chatted and had a good time, we were actually able to get a few family pictures (minus one of all the cousins...Dylan had already changed his clothes and I was exhausted by that point...oh well) and the blessing Marcos gave Marissa was beautiful. Anyway, for those who weren't there, I'm recording the official words of the blessing here for us to remember.

"Our Father in Heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Melchizedec Priesthood which we hold, we take this infant into our arms and give her a name and a blessing. The name by which this child shall be known on this earth and on the records of the church will be Marissa Nicole Uboldi.

Marissa, at this time, we give you a special blessing. We want you to know that our Heavenly Father loves you very, very much and he has sent you to the earth at this time for a very special purpose as many other children that are born at this time. Our Heavenly Father needs the most valiant children and the most valiant servants to work in his vineyard, to bring to pass much righteousness and freedom and to teach the principles of freedom to this country and to the world. You are one of those.

We bless you that you will know that you came to parents and two brothers and extended family and friends who love you very much and want nothing but the best for you. We bless you that you will know that Jesus Christ is your Savior, that you will develop a testimony of the gospel, that you will enjoy being a member of the church and serving all the days of your life our Eternal Heavenly Father. And that you will, as time goes on, grow up with strength and knowledge, that you will make correct decisions, that you will consult your Heavenly Father, that you will have the desire to one day go to the temple and also to be married to a worthy young man who holds the priesthood. We bless you that you will be happy and that you will know that you are loved. And we say these things and do so humbly in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."