Wow. What? Katelyn is already 8 months old?! She’s 2/3 of the way to ONE YEAR. I can’t believe it. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home for the first time. However, I often feel like we just brought Evin home the day before that. So, I suppose this is par for the course!

I can honestly say that 8 months is my favorite time of baby-hood. I don’t know what it is, but it is just soooo fun. I remember this milestone with Evin and am enjoying it just as much this time. Now, on to the good stuff…

Our little peanut is doing so well. She’s as feisty as ever, but also never happier. She honestly makes my face hurt from smiling so much. She just smiles that big open grin and I can’t help but smile back at her. It’s so freaking cute. And she smiles ALL THE TIME, which gives my cheeks quite the workout. I love it. She truly is a happy, happy baby. She’s also still very strong willed. We cannot forget that! She will let you know what she wants when she wants it. Don’t you worry. Anything from being hungry to having your hand on her leg when she doesn’t want it there. She will scream when she’s hungry and move your hand off her leg. It’s quite amusing.

She also loves to be involved in EVERYONE’S business. She has to be amidst all of the action and cannot stand to be left alone. And now that she can crawl (or at least scoot, army crawl, semi-crawl & roll), she can do something about it. Just today, Evin and I walked out of her room to get something and not a minute later, she was in her doorway wondering where we went. She’s happy in her little excersaucer or high chair watching me cook, clean or play, but not for too long. She definitely has places to go, people to see and things to do!

With her super-strength, she has become increasingly hard to hold because she just wants to be down doing whatever it is that she needs to do. Someday, Katelyn, someday! No need to rush. Please. :o)

In the past two months, Katelyn has…

• Popped out 3 MORE teeth. Ya, this is not an accidental repeat from her 6 month post. She now has 6 teeth. And you’ll be happy to hear that two of them are her two front teeth. Yay! I’m excited about it, but I’m sure she would have liked them to arrive a little bit apart from each other. I could tell it wasn’t the most comfortable of experiences.
• Celebrated her first Christmas! Gma Peggy came into town and we all headed to San Diego to celebrate Christmas. During that trip, Katelyn got to stick her feet in the sand for the first time. She wasn’t much of a fan, but I don’t blame her. It was chilly and she is definitely not a fan of the cold. She was also able to go to Sea World and the Birch Aquarium for the first time. While, I know she didn’t know what she was seeing, she loved looking at all of the swimming fish. So interesting to a baby, I’m sure. :o)
• Started saying “Mamamama.” Not many people believe me, but whatever. I worked hard on her for a while and she finally caught on. I had to combat the “Dadadada” coming out every day! ;o) I’m not sure if she has meaning to the word quite yet, but I do know that it comes out when she’s upset. So, I have reason to believe that this is her first word! He he–just kidding. She’s also saying, “bababa” which I’ve been working hard to associate with her bottle. She did wake up early from a nap the other day saying, “Baba”. I left her because I didn’t think it meant anything. Then I thought about it some more and went back with a full bottle, which she downed and then immediately went back to sleep. Pretty amazing. I’m also convinced that she says “All done.” This, in fact, would be her first word if she really is saying that. See the video below and you tell me!
• Celebrated her first New Year! We had a great evening at dinner and ended with fireworks and champagne. Katelyn made appearances off and on through the night. I can’t wait until she can celebrate with us all night!
• Tried green beans (gross), carrots (eeewwww) and sweet potatoes (YUM!). Our feeding of solids is still not consistent. I’ve really had to make sure that she’s getting her full amount of formula each day. I’m so worried that she’s going to drop weight without a moments notice. I track each bottle to make sure she’s getting what she needs. I try not to stress about it, but it makes me feel better to know how much she’s getting every day. She’s also been sick this month and not eating enough as it is. So, adding bulk to that just didn’t make sense. However, now that she’s better, I have found that the veggies (sweet potatoes) don’t fill her up as much as the cereal did, and she will still finish a bottle after eating a little afternoon snack (2oz). So, we’re about ready to get on a schedule. A couple weeks ago, I made some homemade baby food–sweet potatoes, green beans and peas. Next week, I think we’ll try the peas out to see how she likes them. I may even throw a Cheerio her way one of these days… how exciting!
• While she’s not technically crawling on her knees across the room, she will do a mixture of crawling, jumping (gets on knees and launches forward), army crawling, and rolling, to get where she needs to go. Since Evin never really did the traditional form of crawling, and army crawled everywhere, we consider this crawling. You go girl!
• She has recently started to sit up on her own. She goes up and down up and down all day long. It’s great. With all this new mobility, she is able to start playing more with her brother. Just the other day, she crawled over to Evin as he was digging through her toy box. She was like, “What are you doing in my stuff?!”
• If I set her standing next to something she can definitely stay there holding on. She doesn’t always think it’s necessary to be standing, but she is definitely strong enough to do it. Since our house is all tile, there’s not a ton of opportunity for her to practice grabbing onto things and standing up. We’ll have to get the activity table and walking trainer thing out and put them in her bedroom so she can practice. And I’m sure she’ll be standing in her crib before we know it. I also have no doubt that this little gem will be climbing out of her crib the first chance she gets.
• Gone through a pretty nasty cold over the last week or so. She had a small ear infection and is still on antibiotics to cure that. We also had to get a nebulizer since her lungs were a little scratchy. I only had to give her one treatment at home, which was nice. I’m glad we had the thing, but kind of interesting that you can’t just rent them anymore. Not sure we need to permanently own one–hopefully.

We don’t go back to the doctor for a well visit until 9 months, but at her sick appointment last week she was 15lbs 8oz. It’s unfortunate because I’m sure she had lost quite a bit of weight from just being sick and not eating well the week before. I feel like it’s often one step forward 2 steps back with this one. Oh well. She’s bright eyed, happy, healthy and has super chunky legs. I’m not going to complain!! I’ve moved her up to a level 4 bottle nipple and she’s putting away 9oz bottles in no time (only been puked on once, thank you). We’ll see how much she weighs at her follow-up this Friday.

Her hair is still brown and her eyes remain a blue/grey color. :o)

Here are some pics & videos from the past month or so (since my last post was basically at 7 months)…

Katelyn saying “all done?” You decide.

Katelyn kinda crawls (this was taken earlier this month)

(click an image below to open the gallery)