8 Months Old

Every month that goes by, the next one goes by faster!  I cannot believe my little baby is already 8 months old!  She has become such a big girl!!!  She is so happy and just makes Matt and I fill joy every time we look at her!  In the past month, she has gone from army crawling to REAL crawling, from having to be put in the sitting position to doing it ALL BY HERSELF!!  The first day that she sat up on her own, I was going to get her up from her nap and she was sitting in her crib with a HUGE smile on her face.  I laughed and cheered her on and told her what a big girl she was.  And she was just glowing with pride in herself.  It might have been one of the cutest things I have ever seen.  In the past week, I started noticing that at the 3 hour mark when I would nurse her, she wasn't all that hungry or interested.  So I moved it back to around 4 hours.  This schedule has worked awesome, and she has adjusted without skipping a beat!  It is so nice for me to not feel like I am constantly nursing her and we are in a much better daily rhythm.  She still sleeps from around 8pm to 8am and we are still so thankful for that!  Since the new eating schedule, she has been taking 2 great naps a day!  She sleeps between 1.5 to 2 hours both in the morning and the afternoon, and has even given me a couple 2.5 hour naps!!! We've been going to the YMCA in the mornings during the week and Hannah has been doing GREAT in the child care.  It is such a blessing and relief to me, to walk in there after 30-45 minutes and seeing Hannah either playing happily on the floor or happily being held by one of the workers.  She doesn't even immediately reach for me anymore!  This has been a huge concern for me, feeling uncomfortable leaving her because she would basically scream the whole time!  Although I didn't want Hannah to be upset, I knew it was good for both of us, but mostly I didn't want to subject the child care workers to her screaming!!  We are also heading to Utah in a couple weeks and while Matt and I ski, Hannah will be childcare, so I hope that that goes as well as the YMCA has been going!  Hannah babbles all the time!  Her most favorite sounds are mama or mom, and dada, but is also known to say baba and yaya.  She still squeals often and makes other sweet non consonant sounds.  She is playing much more independently which is really helpful for me.  She loves to bounce in the exersaucer and dig through her toy box.  She especially loves balls and things that make noise.  And of course her favorite things to play with are remote controls and cell phones!  She loves a dryer sheet too!  She has gotten much more interested in books lately and will occupy herself for a little while trying to turn the pages.  Hannah loves water and has gotten really good at drinking from her sippy cup.  She has a traditional sippy cup and a new one that has a straw and she does so well from both!    She still eats like a champ!  She eats 3 meals of solid food a day.  Avocados remain her favorite and she also loves mangos.  I think she could give or take apples, but she seems to really like pears.  She still eats well from a spoon, but also likes to try to feed herself more.  A few new things she has tried (and liked!) are chicken, tomatoes, broccoli, and black beans.  I plan on giving her yogurt and cheese in the next few days as she is now a big 8 month old!!  She still loves cheerios too and teething biscuits are a new fun thing we've tried.  Again, we don't know her height and weight, but she is mostly wearing 9-12 month clothes as this point.  So I would think she is over 20 lbs and around 28 inches.  She can still fit into some of her 6-9 month clothes, but they are a little short in the arms and legs!!

I took her little "8 month photo shoot" in a new swimsuit I got her at a buy 1 get 1 free sale at Carter's.  I think it's super cute, and Hannah LOVED wearing it!!  I think we have a little girl that is going to LOVE LOVE summertime!!

Super Bowl Week

As I'm sure you all know, the super bowl was here in Indy this year!  It was a super fun week!  Most of the week we had temperatures in the 60s, so that was an awesome break from winter for us!  One day Hannah and I went out for a nice a walk and we stopped at a little park near house to see how Hannah liked the swing!  As you will see from the following videos, she LOVED it!!!  On Thursday of that week, my friend Rachel and I took our babies and went for a walk down to the super bowl village.  They blocked off 3 or so blocks of streets for a little outdoor party!  There were curbside bars, people everywhere, concerts, food trucks, ziplines, ice sculptures and more!  It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the 2 mile walk from our house and getting to see all of the action down town.  Matt was out of town most of the week leading up to the super bowl, so he didn't get to see any of it until Saturday when we headed down to go to the NFL Experience. It was CRAZY!!  It was a really neat place to be and I'm glad we "experienced" it, but the lines were outrageous (we waiting 1.5 hours to kick a fieldgoal, both of us missed, and that's the only experience we participated in).  But it was the first nasty day all week with temperatures in the 40s and raining, so we were glad to be inside.  Hannah took great naps in the stroller so that was good.  Then in the afternoon we went out into the village and met up with friends Steve and Sarah.  A couple of Matt's superiors from work were in town for the big game, so we met up with them for a bit too.  We are so thankful that Hannah slept warm, cozy, and dry inside her stroller.  Matt and I were a little bit under dressed, so we were wet and cold!  We then headed home to have our friends from down the street over for dinner.  Hannah was excited to have her little friend Jay over a while.  Matt and I usually have pretty uneventful weekends, but we decided to go all out on Superbowl weekend, because if our nonstop Saturday wasn't enough, we had our community group over for a superbowl party on Sunday!!  It was fun and it I had a good time using some of my serving dishes that I had never used before!  I made meatballs, guacamole, pigs N a blanket, and cheeseburger eggrolls!  To get the eggroll wrappers, I had to go to this asian supermarket, and when asking a lady who worked there where the wrappers were, she asked me what I was making.  I tried to simply keep it at "eggrolls", but then she questioned me further, "like vegetable or seafood", and I said, "no, beef, cheese, and onion".  She looked at me like I was a CRAZY American.  Which I guess I am!!  

These 2 videos are from Hannah's first time in a swing!  We went by the park while on a walk one of the nice days at the beginning of the week.  She absolutely LOVED it!!!

These next few are from the Super Bowl Village on Thursday before the game.

Hannah and I are the tiny speck by the E

And ice sculpture of the Indianapolis skyline

Hannah and Jay hanging out while Rachel and I ate lunch

This set of pictures is from the Saturday before the big game, when Matt and I went down to the NFL Experience

Hotel where the Patriots were staying

Hannah chillin at the 30 yard line while her Daddy attempts a field goal!