Eight Months Old - Izzie B

Holy cow!  With all the business associated with Halloween the whole month of October flew by and it was November, meaning Izzie is another whole month older!  I know the time is going by so quickly because we do so much with two kids, but it makes me a little sad.  She's already 2/3 of the way to her first birthday and with the upcoming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, combined with Brady's birthday prep leading into February, the time will likely go even faster.  I almost wish we could pause so we could really enjoy her first holiday season, but the older we get, it seems the faster time goes.  Remember when you were a kid and you couldn't wait for time to pass and to get older?  Those days are long gone.

This has been a huge month developmentally for Izzie.  She was scooting at the beginning of the month (not that that's anything new), but she started crawling with her belly off the ground.  She's also gotten quite sneaky trying to escape the family room.  We don't really want her on the hardwood floors or the kitchen (which is right off of the family room), so we put her car seat up to block her in.  As you can see above, that didn't hold her for long.

We turned the car seat sideways (as seen above) and that seems to be working.  We also have two chairs laid side-by-side on the other opening into the room.  It's a very open room and not something that will work with traditional baby gates, so we've had to improvise.  You can see she also started to pull up this month.

 Within a day or two of pulling up for the first time, she started to cruise and you can't keep her on the floor for long.

She loves to play with the great toys in the basement playroom and now that she can pull up, there are many more toys open to her. 

Brady's toys are still the coolest ones around :) 

She will use just about anything to get to a standing position. 

You can see she often faces out and holds on with one hand.  I'll be surprised if she's not walking by Christmas.

 There's no shortage of shenanigans in our house, so when Andy was switching to a new gym bag, he thought it was the perfect size for Izzie.  He was right and she's a good sport.

Brady loves to play with his sister and is pretty good about her using him as a jungle gym. 

They both love bath time. 

I just love when he smiles at her.  He takes very good care of her.  She had a runny nose and he was always wiping it for her when he saw she needed a tissue.  He also wipes any spit up she has on her, usually after he helped to burp her. 

Both kids love spending time with Andy when he's home.

 Saturday morning breakfast with daddy.  He got a kick out of the fact that they all had their own bowls of oatmeal.

Bundled up now that the weather is turning cold.

We couldn't resist taking some fall pics. 

Hmmm, what are these? 

Let me take a closer look . . .  

I know!  It's food! 

She's an eating champ when it comes to solids.  This month we added fruits in her morning cereal (all homemade by Andy).  She's had bananas, mangoes, apples, peaches, plums, blueberries, and pears.  She has veggies for lunch and has had peas, carrots, squash, green beans, sweet potatoes, and broccoli.  The only thing she doesn't absolutely love is the green beans.  Mid-month she started eating meats for dinner.  This is the only thing we aren't making ourselves and I'm not loving how soupy they are.  We will likely start getting higher stages meats with more texture or make some ourselves.  She loves to eat baby puffs and yogurt bites and is getting better at putting them into her mouth herself.

She had about two or three weeks when she slept terrible.  She easily woke up two to three times per night.  We think she may have been teething as we can see the teeth pressing against her gums, although none have broken through yet (Brady was 10 months when he cut his first tooth).  In the last week or so, she's gone back to sleeping through the night, so we're happy about that.

She's still tiny, although we don't have a weight check until next month.  I had bought clothes for Christmas pictures and got 9-12 months size because she'll be almost 10 months at Christmas.  She was wearing a similar outfit in 6-9 months and it was so baggy, I ran out and switched them to a smaller size because there's no way she will outgrow that size in the next few months.  Around this age is when Brady started to take forever to outgrow clothes as well.  At least we get more use out of them.  She's still wearing size 2 diapers, but we've stepped up the 3's again overnight since she's sleeping about 10-12 hours and was having a few leaks.

It's unreal how big she's gotten in less than a year.