I can stand up all by myself!

Michael's been pulling himself up to a standing position for several weeks, but I'm just now getting around to catching it on film. I think the pictures below are pretty dern cute, even though his pants don't quite match. We still go through a lot of clothes around here. He loves to pull up on the wicker bench b/c it's the perfect height and there are plenty of places for him to hold on. He still falls down a good bit, but he's slowly gaining more control. He looks like he's going to take off across the room on his own any minute, but I think it will still be several more weeks (or months) before he really starts walking. Whatever the case, he loves exploring everything and everywhere, which makes grown-up outings quite a challenge, but overall he's a pretty happy baby.

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

From Michael - 8.5 months

On your mark! Get set! GO!

From Michael - 8.5 months And finally, here's a video of the little man in action!

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay, so I'm a little late. We had a great Mother's Day weekend! Chris and I were both off, which hardly ever happens. Chris let me sleep in and then made a huge breakfast, which Grandma and I got to enjoy while the baby slept. (Yes, I slept in so late that Michael had already gone down for his first nap of the day, which means I slept til about 9 AM.)

Michael had a good time helping Grandma open her gifts.

Chris bought a fairly large wading pool, and then spent most of the weekend building it a home in our back yard. Michael had a blast splashing around in it! He kept wanting to crawl around (it was very shallow), but wasn't a big fan of water actually touching his face. I can't wait to see how he likes the big pool!

Movie time!

In honor of me learning how to upload videos to blogspot, here are a couple of Michael.


This is usually how happy he is when he wakes up from a nap.



Here's he's just playing with some toys.



Here he's showing off his new crawling skills, but he gets a little frustrated at the end.

8 Months Old

What's that? It's my Birthday!

Oh Boy!

I totally stole this idea from a friend. She's been making signs like that to document all the major milestones for her daughter. I wish we'd started sooner, but he's young enough that it'll still be cute I think.


Of course, Michael was much more interested in trying to eat the sign. He's a big fan of trying to eat everything he can reach these days.


Here are a few other photos just documenting how adorable we think he is at 8 months. :)

He is now crawling all over the place. He's getting pretty fast! He can push himself up into a sitting position from a crawl. He can pull himself up to a standing position while holding onto furniture, but he can't sit himself back down. He's not quite "traveling" yet, but I don't think it will be much longer. We made a good start at babyproofing our house this weekend. By that, I mean that we put up some baby gates to at least limit where he can explore. We still can't take our eyes off him for a nano-second or he'll get into something. He eats babyfood like a champ, and he's learning to do finger food. He loves cheerios and string cheese and sometimes toast, but he is NOT a fan of avocado. He "talks" to us more and more. He drools all the time and gnaws on everything, but no teeth yet. I look forward to what this next month will bring!