She's a crawlin'!

(I wrote this on Thursday, so adjust accordingly.) We've had an eventful past couple weeks with the Booger. Cousin Katie came out a couple weekends ago for a visit. Anna had her first introduction to the Grand Haven Farmer's Market. We picked up a few goodies and took a walk along the boardwalk. We had lunch at the Kirby with our friends Jenn and Abby. Then we took Anna for her first beach experience! She did so well, in the sand anyway. She really didn't try to eat it either! Then we brought her to the water where the mood changed when the cold water and waves washed up on her feet. We're looking forward to more beach trips with her (we'll be a little more prepared this time).

Anna had also, at the time, figured out how to pull herself up on semi-stable objects. Since then, she's learned how to do it like a pro.

We started the week with a transition of daycare locations. I take her and pick her up now, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The set up is different there, but Anna has seemed to adapt just fine. She has become the baby that gets in all the smaller babies faces, rather than the one they try to keep the older ones away from.

Over the course of the last couple weeks, a lot of it this week, she's mastered the "pull herself up on everything" and she still army crawls but we're switching it up with the actual crawl! It's so much fun to see her learn new things - we also know we really have to keep an eye on her. We have a basket of magazines and books on the floor that are mine and Gary's that she seems to gravitate too. We've been trying to teach her "no" (being 8 months, not sure how possible it is to understand that) by pushing her hand away from the basket when she gets there. She wails like we keep breaking her heart over and over again. But we figure we'll keep those things down so she'll learn what's hers and what's ours.

Last night we were upstairs doing laundry and we were playing with her in her room. She has this frog that vibrates and plays music if you push it's back. This is no ordinary vibrating frog. It vibrates hard. And apparently this particular frog scares the crap out of Anna. We didn't realize it as we haven't had it out much yet. So I pushed it to vibrate and set it by her. She acted like this frog was going eat her for dinner. She freaked out! Then she has this beautiful soft lamb that winds up to play soothing music, she freaked out with that too! We have no idea why these 2 animals do it to her b/c she has many other animals that quack or sing. We had to laugh though - her reaction is priceless.

Today was another first for me to experience. I brought her to daycare. Brought her to where she needs to go, gave her kisses, said goodbye and set her down to play. She looked at me and started crying, like are you going to leave me and crawled towards the door. My heart sank. She never did that before. So I picked her up, told her she's ok and stood her up by her saucer. I said goodbye again and waved, she smiled and does her little wave and I left on happier note. She's figuring out a little bit of separation anxiety as she's figuring out her raw emotions.

She's also been waking up once a night a few nights week with wails of crying. We think it's teething and waves of pain come. One night, I went in and gave her her pipe and her little froggy she cuddles up with (oh my goodness, it's so darn cute!), rubbed her back and walked out. She (you'll see a pattern here) wailed like I just left her forever. This is newest thing and she obviously gets results. It's really quite cute and funny to watch b/c she doesn't cry all that much. So it doesn't bother us. :)

Let's see, what else. We're starting to give her finger foods (so far melon and Ritz) so she can start figuring that out. Tonight she did fairly well! She says da-da, ma-ma, ba-ba but doesn't really know what they are. She has moved from making noises with her arm and mouth, to using her fingers and moves them up and down on her mouth to create noise. It's really cute too. :) She does it when she's upset too. I don't know why, but it's funny. She talks, screams, makes noises and likes to be on her knees playing with her basket of toys. She's getting very squrimy if she's in your lap too long and wants to be down. Basically she's all over the place. But she's so much fun and love seeing her figure things out and keeping developing who she is.

Mom and Dad are doing well too. Work is busy for both of us. We "finished" our landscaping for the year. I'll get pictures of that up this weekend. And we added a new member to our family - a lawnmower. It's a beauty, all shiny and red. Not what we wanted to buy right now, but it's all about the homeownership, right? :) We're starting some painting projects too. Another changed is that it was time to cut off 6 years of hair. It was time for a change so here is the before....

Gary and I celebrate our 5th Anniversary this Saturday! What a ride it's been and I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. I planned the evening with a nice dinner and a Whitecaps game! We can't wait. (Here is the after.)

Stay tuned for another post this week with more pictures and more updates!

Love to you all and have a great weekend!

GCA

She's getting so big!

The Banana is going to be 8 months old very soon! It's hard to believe how much she's learned in a short amount of time. I was going through photos of when she was first born and the clothes we put on her till she was 3 months b/c she was so little and knowing now that those clothes are packed away already and we're on to 9 month clothes!

It seems like each week (sometimes a few times a week!) she comes up with something new to do that leaves Gary and I looking at eachother saying "did you see that?" She has learned how to scooch herself up on to her knees and on a rare ocassion, on to her feet (that was only with dad on the floor). Once she gets on her knees and plays for a few minutes, she starts crying b/c she doesn't know what to do next. Because she doesn't cry all that often, we like to watch her cry. It's so pathetic looking, but so cute! :) She's mastered the army crawl - getting into a lot of things now. Of course being a baby, she wants to eat the littlest things and put the oddest things in her mouth. She's also taken a few crawls a couple days ago! She gets to her hands and knees fine, but plops down to move. We got her doing a few crawl finally (I know I'll regret that later) but she's well on her way to being a full fledged crawler.

She's so much fun with her little personality. She'll mimic you with screams and babble. She looks at you when you call Anna or Booger. We're trying to teach her what no means (a never ending battle to the day we die, we know) with her trying to get into things that aren't hers. She gets very upset when you push her hand away from something she shouldn't have. Stubborn little thing!

We're trying to introduce finger foods as she's learned how to pick things up using her fingers rather than her whole hand. It's gone ok - a bit of gagging and a freaked out mom. She's grabbing the spoon from us when we're feeding, her so we're trying to show her how to eat with a spoon. Yeah, that's going well. :) Dad also let her be as messy as she could be. I think they both had fun with that!

She's sitting up on her own and apparently gets into the sitting position at daycare. We have yet to see it ourselves - maybe that's her big next move to show us. But when we put her into the sitting position, I call it her prison as she just sits there and doesn't know how to get in that position. She doesn't mind for the most part - we usually can't leave her alone long enough for it to bother her.

She's also learned how to clap. It's the cutest thing and she does it a lot! I don't know if she learned it at daycare or at home. We clap a lot with her, so maybe a bit of both. Either way, it's darn cute.

No teeth yet, but we're have a lot more symptoms of them. I keep checking - despite her protesting. We've removed the baby tub from the big tub b/c she can sit on her own now, but it's also so much easier to wash her with out the constraints of the little tub. I don't think she cares either way, as long as she has letters to chew on. We've also started to put her in highchairs in restaurants rather than in her car seat. It gives her a bit more freedom and I think she's appreciative for that. :)


As for the boring parents, we're hoping to finish our darn landscaping this weekend. The weather or other plans have gotten in the way of doing so. So I'm hoping! Then on to painting and other projects. Everything is going well for us otherwise.

Have a great weekend if I don't post again before then! Enjoy the pictures and videos!
Love,

GCA