Our Life, the Howards: 8 months already!

MacKenzie,

I cannot believe you are already 8 months old (well...tomorrow)! You have grown up so much in the last month, I am sure I will say it again, but this has been my favorite month so far. You are so interactive and simply fun to be around.

We have been slacking on feeding you solids. You are simply quite content to nurse your way through your first year so it is hard to be motivated to give you purees and baby foods that you aren't that thrilled about gumming (that's right...no teeth yet). We have been giving you some finger foods to try out, but you would rather play. We discovered last night that you are quite fond of tomatoes with a bit of basil on them so maybe we are underestimating your foodie taste buds. We have stopped trying oatmeal at all because you might have a slight allergy to it. We will try again when you are older. You do like to gnaw on bread, tortillas, or crackers which will keep you occupied for a bit if we go out to eat. You do great at restaurants and like to sit in a high chair if you are not too tired.

We tried seeing what you would do if allowed to

feed yourself...thank goodness it was bath night!

You are sitting up on your own to play and hate being forced to lay down. You definitely know how to get your knees under you, but you aren't sure what to do with your arms which makes crawling an almost impossibility. You have mastered the circle though because your bottom half is mobile and your top half is stationary which gets you a teeny tiny bit of movement. I learned quite by surprise that you were ready to pull yourself up when you were sitting on the couch with me, pulled yourself up on my leg, and almost toppled over head first onto the floor. You are getting to be a pro at pulling up and we definitely need to lower your crib(s) in order to make sure you are safe. Thank goodness you haven't figured out how to get yourself from laying down to pulling up!

You talk almost incessantly! Most of it is ba-ba-ba-ba-ba (repeat), but every once in a while you will start with a blah-blah-blah. Usually this is funny, but not so much in the middle of our Sunday sermon which means mommy takes you outside. You are discovering your vocal range and we often turn around to look at you, thinking something is wrong, only to realize that you were just trying out your volume levels or pitch! You are laughing more and more and smile all the time. The girls at the gym nursery call you the "happy baby". The other day you cracked up when a character on a show sneezed, this has led to us making all of your animals sneeze too.

We have had a ton of adventures this past month...here are some pictures!

You went swimming for the first time,

look at your Aggie swimsuit!

At first you didn't like swimming, but when you learned you could splash...just like the bath tub then you were sold on swimming and the pool. This is at the Medlin's house for our small group's Memorial Day weekend celebration!

We went to go see Nana, in fact we have seen her twice this summer!

The next few pictures are from a weekend away with Daddy's side of the family. We went to Chalk Mountain for a weekend get away. You liked to watch the foxes in the morning and to spend time with your family.