8 Months

Yes folks, she smiled for ALL her pictures!!

See her teeth?

Our little monster/ boogs/ two-teeth/ bugger is quite the mover and shaker now. She's still as happy as ever, but she's even more fun than she was last month. I love watching her discover the world around her, especially when she finds the joy in simple things (like the ties on my apron).

Leah's become rather proficient at the army crawl, and doesn't seem to be too interested in the traditional crawl. Every so often she'll get up on all fours, but then she doesn't go anywhere. Which makes me wonder if she'll skip the traditional and go straight to walking. After all, she DOES like standing. We'll extend our fingers to her and she pulls herself right up. Sometimes she'll crawl over to us so that we'll help her stand (whereas in the past it was so we'd hold her). I know, what have we done?!

Accompanying these moves have been some new sounds, too. I'm not sure if it's because of the teeth or not, but Leah now purses her lips and blows, almost as if she's trying to whistle. Granted, nothing comes out, but it's so cute to watch! Oh, yes, she has her two bottom teeth (and she's been working on some more). Because of the teeth, her tongue is regularly sticking out due to her feeling the new additions to her mouth.

I feel as if there's so much I could say about Leah, but I'm not even sure what else to include. After all, as a first time parent, everything that she does amazes me, so it's hard to filter the really amazing from the somewhat amazing.

One last note about our little explorer: she loves hanging out with me and Scott. I know, most babies prefer their parents, but what makes us laugh is that we could be sitting in separate spots in the family room while Leah's playing on the floor, and she's perfectly content. She'll just hang out with her toys. But the minute the two of us are sitting next to each other on the couch, Leah's over there, wanting to join us. Once she's on the couch, she's ten times happier than when she was playing (happily) with her toys. That goof. She knows how to make us smile.

Capturing the Moments

Yesterday I realized that I wish I could capture every moment with Leah so that I could re-live them years later. She's growing by leaps and bounds now, and her little personality is really starting to shine. Our eight-month-old (as of yesterday!) is quite the explorer, which is why I wish I could capture every moment. Here are just two moments (from yesterday) I wish I could re-live daily:

Leah has discovered the bottom shelf of the bookcase that's in our kitchen, so I recently moved some non-breakables to it (I thought that might be better than letting her play with the ceramic mixing bowls that had resided there). One of those items is a tin of recipes... and Leah LOVES it. She'll crawl over and pull it off the shelf so that she can "drive" it on the floor. So yesterday, I was sitting at the kitchen table writing while Leah was playing with "her" tin; soon it became strangely quiet (anyone with a baby knows that type of quiet), prompting me to turn (after all, Leah's also started venturing down the hallway or into the living room). There was my baby girl, pulling herself up on top of the tin. She had managed to hoist her upper body onto the tin and was trying to stand (oh, have I mentioned before that standing is her new favorite activity? She can't do so on her own, but she will with our help). Scott, who was in the family room, and I just watched her, cheering her on to success (yes, we're crazy, and no, she didn't quite make it all the way up). If only I could re-live that moment.

Later that evening, Scott and I were eating dinner and Leah was entertaining herself in the family room (for those of you who don't know, our family room and kitchen are basically one big room, so it's not like Leah was unsupervised). Anyway, as most of you know, Leah loves exploring underneath the end table. Well, that's the one on the right side of the room. She hasn't really expressed an interest in the one of the left until now. Up until recently, there were two packages of diapers (unopened) stacked underneath it, thus preventing our little adventurer from getting very far. That wasn't the case yesterday. While we were eating dinner, I happened to glance into the family room only to see a little panda butt sticking out from underneath the end table. The little bugger had climbed onto the one package of diapers and was trying to make her way completely underneath the table! Scott and I both laughed out loud, as I rushed over to redirect her curiosity, but not before I snapped a picture. When I sat down next to Leah, she looked at me and grinned. She was so proud of herself!
Now that's a moment that will always bring a smile to my face.

Trunk or Treat

Our Little Pumpkin

Leah and her girlfriends (fellow March babies) convinced us parents to take them to Trunk or Treat at church, even though they are MUCH too young for all that candy. Being the doting parents that we are, we agreed, despite the rain and the crowds. Luckily, we were able to duck into an empty room so that the girls could hang out and take pictures. This is one motley crew, and I just hope that they "remain" friends as they grow older. Enjoy the photos!Lizzie, Kate, Leah, & Evie

Let's try this again with ALL the girls. Can you tell this was rather entertaining?
Lizzie (chick), Kate (princess), Leah (pumpkin), Evie (clown), & Avah (peacock)

Leah really had a thing for her friends' costumes. (Above) Grabbing Kate's princess costume. (Below) Munching on Avah's peacock costume.