Little Drummer Girl

Please excuse my cackle on this video.

Addison Joy is 8 Months

Happy 8 months to our Addison Joy!

I cannot believe Addison is 8 months, I just do not believe it; where has time gone!?

Whew, what a month November was! November started off with our first sleepless night, EVER (honestly---she has never stayed up crying all night ever) and the fussiness continued the first few weeks of the month. I felt like I had done something wrong and was at my whits ends!! Finally all of a sudden, the day before we traveled to MS for Thanksgiving (November 19) everything seemed to go back to normal. I was thrilled, but still puzzled. Well, on Thanksgiving day I noticed she was cutting two or three top teeth and a few bottom teeth!!!!! Puzzle solved!

The Stats and Milestones

Weight: Still unsure. My best guess is still about 20 pounds or so.
Height: Who knows!!
Diaper Size: 3 during the day, 4 at night
Clothing: Mostly 12 months some 9 months. It is difficult to buy clothes right now; nothing seems to fit right. There is a HUGE jump in the size of clothes from 9 months to 12 months.
Personality: Ham. That is all there is to it! Addison just waits for someone to make eye contact with her so she can flash those flirty eyes and give them a cheeseball smile. She also poses for the camera now; when you pull out a camera and say "Cheese", she puts up the goofiest smile, as you can see from the pictures on here. She is still very much a pleaser and wants to obey. When she does disobey, you can tell she is embarrassed. However, this girl knows how to throw a tantrum, especially when strapped into her car seat!!!!! Overall, she is a sweet, funny and well behaved precious little girl.
Talking: The only words she has added is this month is "pa" and "mo". She is talking almost every moment she is awake (and sometimes in her sleep too).
Breastfeeding: Wow, 8 months of breastfeeding. I never thought I would make it this far. We are committed for another month (assuming my body allows it). My supply is really decreasing but so is the amount she is wanting. Soon we will move to all stored milk; I have tons stored. I think I am almost ready for breastfeeding to be finished---THINK :) Especially with all these teeth coming in---they rub!
Teeth: As I mentioned above she has TONS of teeth cutting. The bottom two teeth have been in for a while, but now she is getting a few on the top AND bottom. Her teeth cut but then take forever to come all the way in. I am ready for them to be in because it causes sleep and nursing disruptions.
Clapping: SHE CAN CLAP AND ITS SO CUTE!!!! I laugh EVERY TIME she does it!!! See video below!
Crawling & Walking: Amazingly, Addison is able to army crawl and pull all that weight!! Not truly crawling, but she sure can army crawl fast! See video below. She is walking SO well when you hold her hands, hardly wobbling. She can also pull up on somethings, but we do not have many things that would be a good height for her to pull up on....darn :)
Food: Addison has tried so many foods now; I cannot even keep up! Once her teeth finish coming in, I may begin to experiment with more finger type foods.
Independent Play: Before we went on vacation she was up to close to 20 min of independent play in her play pen per day. Now that we are home and recovered from our traveling, we will have to ease back into independent play. Also, now that she is mobile we will start attempting to institute independent play on a blanket. It will be difficult to teach her about staying on the blanket, but we will get there!
Car Seat: We took Addison to Babies R Us to test out new "big girl" car seats. She seemed to be most comfortable in the Safety 1st Complete Air. We have not had a chance to use it much, so I will write a review on it soon.

VIDEOS

Every time I say "clap, clap your hands" she does this.


Army crawler

PICTURES

Standing...not for long before she tips over.....

See...tip over!


Laughing at Daddy. Check out her big ole belly!

Oh how I love this smile!

She was crawling around and found a stick...see the dirt on her face? Oops :)

Apparently that stick was hilarious.

Copy Cat

Can you tell she is copying Matthew blowing?



Ok...I am making a fool of myself by sharing this, but it was too funny not to share. She is trying to laugh like me...and I was honestly laughing NOT faking it. She was laughing her head off before the video, but its even funnier to see her trying to cackle like me.

High Chair Manners

Addison has been making huge strides in her high chair manners! She is so neat and tidy and well behaved during meal times. If you are not familiar with high chair manners, hop on over to the Little Tummy Yummies blog and check out a great high chair manner summary! Why teach high chair manners? Because this is our first opportunity to begin teaching self control. Self control at the table will translate to self control other places.

Addison keeps her hands either placed in front of her on the tray or close to it. Sometimes she moves her hands around but rarely bangs the tray or grabs the bowl/spoon from Mommy or Daddy. This was not always the case and occasionally we have to remind her "where do our hands go?". From the beginning we tried to teach her not to spit out food or blow it everywhere, so this has never been an issue which means---CLEAN UP IS EASY. Screaming (not out of anger but just for fun) has been a huge challenge for us since she is a motor mouth, but we are making slow progress. When she spills something or blows her food it IS cute, but I try everything I can to contain my laughter; I must remember the big picture!

Things to work on.....KICKING FEET. When she is very excited she kicks her feet wildy. We also need to work on arching her back; this is a hard one to correct!

Here is a picture of Addison with a prune beard; this is about as messy as she ever gets. Most of this mess is my fault too!!! Sometimes we do not even use a bib!

Blurry...it was on my cell phone :)

Bow Holder

Allow me to introduce you to Addison's new bow holder......

It actually isn't as lime green as it looks (I took these pictures with my cell phone). This green matches the green I used to paint the letters spelling her name on the wall.




Thank you to Tonya for giving me some guidance on how to make this!