8 months

Another month has passed, and our baby bug is now EIGHT months old.  And she is just as cute as ever (if not cuter...)  WARNING: This post is really long with lots of pictures, but SO much has changed since last month!!!

What she's up to these days:

• crawling everywhere.  She started crawling just after turning 7 months, and has gotten faster and faster, and now there's no stopping her.
  
• Around 7.5 months, she started pulling up onto her knees.  Then with a little help she pulled up to stand.  Then, like 2 days later, she pulled up to stand all by herself.  Now all she wants to do is stand holding on to something!  She crawls over to me and pulls herself up all day long.  She still needs a little help to get all the up most of the time, but it won't be long before she's doing it totally on her own.
• Speaking of standing, she has stood up all by herself, not holding on to anything a few times for about 5 or 6 seconds.
• She wants to walk holding on to our fingers all around the house.  And she is f-a-s-t!
  

• Sleeping:  sleeps through the night about half the time (7pm-6am-ish), the other nights she wakes once to nurse around 3am.  She has stopped waking up at the 5am hour, and even sometimes sleeps until 6:45 or 7!
  
• Naps: we're on 2 naps a day, around 9am and 2pm, they usually last 1.5-2 hours!  LOVING this new schedule.
  
• LOVES to play in her crib.  She crawls all around, sits up, lies down, rolls around, goes from one end to the other, plays with stuffed animals, laughs at the little crib soother/toy she's got in there, chews on her silk blankie, whines a little, cries sometimes, and then eventually goes to sleep.  But she mostly goes to sleep without crying at all now, which is so amazing.

(Taking pictures of Riley is getting harder and harder since she's constantly on the move!!)

• food: doing sooo much better with solids, we're on 3 meals a day (although the amount she eats at each meal is totally variable), and she loves trying to feed herself (and making a HUGE mess).  We also pretty much give her whatever we are eating for dinner (except nuts, citrus, and honey), so she's had a whole bunch of different foods with different textures.
  
• foods she has tried so far (foods she liked in bold): rice cereal, apple, sweet potato, banana, pear, blueberry, strawberry, guava, oatmeal, yogurt, cheese, toast, vegemite, avocado, potato, kumara, sweet potato, peas, broccoli, green beans, pumpkin, pasta bolognese, eggs, hamburger, french toast, chicken, carrots, cucumber, apricot, peach, parsnip, cottage cheese, vanilla custard, lamb, mango, chocolate custard, red bell pepper, homemade (healthy) pizza, watermelon, baby mum mums, rice crackers, cream cheese.  There's probably more I've forgotten to include too. Now some of these she only liked because they were mixed in with other things, but I think that still counts.  I'd say her FAVE is still pear, sweet potato and yogurt (not together).  Basically she will eat anything as long as it's mixed with sweet potato.
  
• Still hasn't tasted formula, and is doing better with taking a bottle, although she only gets one maaaaybe once a week.  
• Has a weird fascination with the rug/dining room table.  She is constantly crawling in there and trying to get under the table.  It's the weirdest thing.

(This is my view for quite a lot of the day.  Buggy crawling away from me to get under the table.  But I bribe her back with the remotes...)

• Loves to throw toys.  If we put her in the high chair, she picks up toys/spoons/bowls, and throws them over the side. She also loves to bang them on her high chair tray.
  
• is obsessed with TV remotes.  And car keys.  And my computer.
  
• Babbles alllll day long.  Loudly.  She says mama pretty clearly, and just a few weeks ago she started with bababababa, dadadada, gagaga, rarara, shhhh, and a few other miscellaneous sounds.
  
• She has one tooth, but I swear the second one is coming any day now.  Aaaaaany day.
  

• Has discovered the art of a tantrum.  She's become OBSESSED with books lately, and throws a huge fit after we finish reading one because she wants more more more.  We're using this to work on our signs for "more" and "book."  Hopefully she learns those sooner rather than later, because uhh, the meltdown is epic...
• When we read books she purposefully turns the pages or opens the flaps of the "peek-a-boo" books
• Has this new face she makes, and I haven't been able to really capture it on camera, but I am trying!  She basically scrunches up her nose in excitement, and breathes heavily through her nose as she crawls to get something.  I die every time she does it.

• Loves the car and the stroller.  In fact, she loves them both so much, she will play or sit quietly and if we are anywhere near her nap time, she will usually go right to sleep.
• Is no longer afraid of strangers.  At swim lessons I often ask the instructors to hold her for a minute or two and she is happy as can be.  She smiles at everyone.  She also loves Mark's parents now!
• Speaking of swim lessons- she's still loving them, and she "swam" (was dunked) under water for the very first time.  She sputtered a little, but then was back to splashing and playing in no time!
  
• Wears cloth diapers during the day, and disposables during the night so we can save some money.  This was working really well for us until she got her very first diaper rash, and I'm thinking it's from the cloth diapers.  Great.  I'm not giving up on cloth yet, but that would sure be annoying if she got a diaper rash every time we use them!
• wears 9-12 month clothes, size 3 diapers, and if I had to guess, I'd say she weighs almost 18 pounds.  I'll weight her tomorrow and see.
  
• Has a new fave toy (that I bought for $10... best $10 I ever spent)
  

• baby signs we're using with her: more, milk, eat, drink, ball, all done, sleep, up, help, mama, dada.  So far she's only signed milk, and only once, but it's a start.  She definitely is getting the hang of it though! 
• LOVES to drink water.  She's pretty decent with a sippy cup, bnd we've discovered she love love loves to drink from a powerade bottle.  Our little athlete-in-training!
  

Is still the cutest little buggy we've ever seen.  And I just cannot stop taking pictures!

What was I doing to get her to smile so big?  Either (1) saying cheeeeese which is apparently SO funny, or (2) playing peek-a-boo behind the camera.  Works every time.

And of course, we took her monthly chair photo, although I don't spend much time on these photos because (1) the lighting is horrible in there (2) Riley will not sit still and (3) I need Mark to help me otherwise she goes flying off the chair.  But I feel like I've done it every month so far so I might as well just keep going until she's 1!

First attempt.  Uhhh.... yum?

Second attempt.  This was .2 seconds before she attempted to fling herself off the chair.  Mark saved the day.

Final attempt.  She's sitting up.  She's looking at the camera (or in the general direction).  She's not eating her Ellie.  Success.  Done.  Call it a day.

Happy 8 months baby bug!!