From 6 to 8 months

Well, we've had some problems with trying to get this post out to you all. We had written about 8-10 paragraphs or so about Allie, and then it wouldn't post. There was some sort of error. Then we were going to copy it to a word document and try again after re-signing in to the blog, but the computer shut down and we lost all that had been written. So we want you to know just how much time and love went into this post.

We need to catch you all up on Allie's life. When we last wrote on the blog, Allie was 7 months old, but we only caught you up to her 6 month stats and abilities. We will try to get you caught up to where she is at today. A lot has happened since we last updated the blog. It has been a lot of fun watching Allie grow and develop and learn new things. She is such a smart, fun, happy, and cute baby.

As we wrote before, Allie started army crawling just before turning 6 months. Then she started pulling up and walking along furniture a little before and around 7 months. She was walking along furniture before learning to crawl with her tummy off of the ground, so we were afraid that she might just skip crawling and start walking. Luckily, though, she started crawling with her tummy off the ground about 1-2 weeks after the last post. She has gotten to be a fast little crawler and stays very busy. She'll crawl around, pull herself up, walk along things, just stand and wave her arms, then crawl or walk along things to get to a new area to play in. She is a very busy baby! Very busy. Usually she is pretty good at entertaining herself, though there are times (generally when she is nearing a feeding or nap time) when she will be busy, but needs one of us to be right by her side. She has not started walking, yet. But she did take 2 small steps yesterday. She is able to push and walk with her walker quite well. Luckily, though, she will often default to crawling if she is wanting to get somewhere quickly.

Allie imitates sounds. The first sound that she started copying was probably blowing raspberries. She had been able to blow raspberries for quite awhile (I think she started around 4 months?), but then she started copying us when we would do it. We tried to record a conversation that her and Daddy were having in raspberries, but when she saw the camera, she decided that the conversation was not meant to be public. Other sounds that she is good at copying include: "a-ba-ba-ba," a smacking the lips sound (sometimes when doing this she will stick part of her little tongue out, which is really cute), grunting, laughing, and singing high pitched tunes (like when we sing a song that has "oohing" in it).

Everything about sleeping has changed in the last few months. Somewhere around 3 or 4 months, Allie had a week where she would sleep for 9 hours each night. We were so excited and loved it. But that ended up being a tease. She added feedings back in and she got to where she was waking to eat every 3 hours again at night, in addition to eating every 2 hours during the day. We knew it wasn't an issue of hunger, so something needed to be done. We had an idea of what needed to be done, but we got an extra needed nudge when Nikki talked to one of the pediatricians at work. We have a one-bedroom apartment, so Allie was in our room. We had hung a sheet from the ceiling, but she knew we were still there. She would stand up and lean as far as she could to try and see around the sheet, and then yell/cry at us. So the first thing he said was to move her out to the living room. The next two issues were contributing to the same problem. Allie's schedule changed at some point, and her feedings changed from when she woke up to just before naps and bedtime. So she started getting in the habit of having us nurse her to sleep (well, Nikki would nurse her to sleep). In addition, we were still swaddling her. So the next issue was that she needed to learn to fall asleep on her own. We needed to put her down awake and unswaddled. We implemented all three immediately. Jared started putting her down awake for naps and we did likewise at bedtime, where she got to have her own room in the living room. It was hard hearing her cry and scream so much at first, but it has really helped. Now the shortest she will go is a 6 hour stretch, and last night she even went 8.5 hours. She sleeps about 11-12 hours in total each night with only 1 or 2 feedings. It is great getting more sleep. She will still usually cry herself to sleep, but it isn't as bad as it was before. Sometimes after a few minutes of crying or screaming, she will start singing to herself and sings herself to sleep. It is really cute. We have a little pink elephant in her crib, and sometimes we will find her cuddling with it and/or singing to it. She is such a cute baby.

There was more in the previous edition of the post, but we can't remember all that we wrote before. We'll likely remember and include it in a post later.

Now for the fun part, the pictures! She is getting to be a little ham. She smiles real big almost anytime we hold the camera up. She also stops doing whatever she was doing that we were wanting to catch on camera. Oh well. Enjoy!

Allie Exploring

Allie loves to stand!


Bath time in a swimsuit. We had tried getting a video of her, but it didn't work out.

Having Fun

Just a cute shot and wanting to get the camera

Standing again

Mommy and Allie

Daddy and Allie

Meal Time - She is still working on the sippy cup thing
Some of her favorite foods now are: yogurt and meats (chicken and turkey, especially - just the Gerber pureed kind)

One of Allie's favorite places to be: at our feet. She also likes to stand on feet, which we are pretty sure she gets from her mommy.


Next are a few videos. We have a lot more to show you, but we are having difficulty getting them to upload to the blog. Hopefully we will be able to share more in a post very soon.

This video shows her shaking her elephant rattle and doing two of her favorite things, standing and making noise.

This video shows some other things she likes to do: play and stand under the table; and wave or flap her arms. Here she is combining the two.