8 months old!

My little princess is 8 months old already!

Sarah turned 8 months old on Sunday and she is growing and changing every day.  She is doing a lot of the skills that are expected of 9 and 10 month old babies.  She is also growing healthy and strong.  She now is about 22.5 pounds, wearing mostly 12 month size clothes, size 3 or 4 diapers, and getting HEAVY in her carseat.  We are keeping her in her infant car seat for a bit longer so we can have her in it for our trip to Texas in October. Then she'll probably transition to a convertible car seat.
Anyway, other developments lately...
- Sarah is crawling all over the place.
- She pulls up on furniture, toys, people, etc. and cruises.
- She really wants to walk and almost decided to skip crawling.
- She has 2 teeth on the bottom, but might be working on a couple on top.
- She eats a wide variety of baby foods and isn't very picky - though she does spit whole mouthfuls of food back at me once in a while.
- She babbles and says "mama" and "dada" and throws in a few other consonants and sounds.
- She ADORES her big brother, despite his roughness with her.
- She is very ticklish and is very cute when she giggles and squirms away from tickles.
- She waves by holding her arm out straight and then opening and closing her hands.
- She puts her arms up, tucks her head to the side, and makes a really cute smiley face when she wants to be picked up.
- She sleeps well through the night...most of the time.
- She now enjoys pulling off the crib rail guards and chewing on them or throwing them on the floor.
- Favorite toys include her exersaucer, her wooden name puzzle stool, her music table, and the animal train (along with anything of Austin's she can get her hands on).

I have been taking pictures of Sarah in her rocking chair every month when she turns another month old.  The challenge used to be that she didn't sit up well on her own when she was really little so she would slump down in the chair or tip over.  Now, the challenge is that she is on the move all the time and won't sit still in the chair long enough for me to snap a photo.

Her baby doll occupied her for a few brief moments.

This is right before she jumped off the front of the chair and I had to quickly snatch her out of the air before she would have fallen on her head.

She was trying to get to the Pooh quilt on the ground when she dove off the chair, so I put it up on the chair in an attempt to get her to stay put.

 Then she decided climbing up the back of the chair was more interesting...

 We also joined Nanny and the St. Therese Southwest team for the Memory Walk on Saturday. The walk site was only a mile or so from Nanny and Grandpa's house, so we drove over there, walked to the start site, walked the 3 mile walk loop, enjoyed some time at the park there, then walked back.  Pushing about 70 or so pounds of stoller/kids/stuff was definitely a workout and I was a little stiff and sore on Sunday.

Sarah bundled up and ready to ride.

 Austin and Nanny at the start

 Walking...

 GiGi's banner at the finish line.  My Nanny (the kids great-grandmother, aka GiGi) has dementia, so she was our inspiration for participating in the walk.

 Made it to the finish line.

 The start and finish of the walk were at a park near Nanny and Grandpa's house in Bloomington.  We always called it "chutes and ladders" growing up, but I don't know if that's what the park is actually called.  It definitely is much different than when we were growing up.  I remember it being big, but now it is enormous!  It has so many parts and paths and tunnels and climbers and slides that it was hard to see Austin once he got going inside it.  He would disappear and pop out from a completely different part of the park.  Good thing the whole thing is enclosed so he can't disappear somewhere and not come out.  I got a few photos of him playing, but most of the time, we couldn't see him well enough to catch him on film.

All the way to the top by himself!

 Sarah hanging out with Auntie Michelle.

Some other fun...

Sarah enjoying the kids' porch swing...

Still waking up

Happy and smiley as usual

Looking pretty cute in a hat from the Hattons.  I love hand-me-downs!

That's all from us for now.  Next up is Kevin and Michelle's birthday this weekend. Only 3 more weeks until my board exam.  Can't wait to be done with it!