Aven at 9 months

At nine months, Aven is a crawling machine, driven by curiousity for everything around her. She laughs and giggles and makes funny noises. She plays very independently for long stretches of time (more so that her big sister ever did), and she is showing preferences for "real" food (everything from eggs to hamburgers) over "baby" food. In short, aside from being a little smaller than Rory, Aven is moving more quickly through these developmental milestones than Rory did ... probably because she is so anxious to do the things that she sees her big sister doing! Aven is 26.5 inches (10th percentile) and 15.1 pounds (3rd percentile), but we're anticipating a growth spurt the way she's packing away real food these days. Aven and Rory still look very similar to each other when you compare pictures of Rory at the same age, although Aven is starting to show more distinctive features (fuller lips, smaller cheeks).