8 Months Old

Dear Lily,
Today you are 8 months old! I can't believe how fast you're first year is going by! You're growing bigger and bigger by the day. You're starting to fill out finally, but you're still tall and thin. We'll have to wait till next month to see how much you've grown.
This past month you learned a lot of new things. The most exciting thing was learning to crawl! Over the month you've really perfected it, and can get around with no problem now. I'm constantly running after you to keep you out of trouble!
Another big thing you mastered this month was to pull yourself up to standing. You raised yourself for the first time on March 15th, and have used every opportunity since then to practice. Just this past week you have started learning to cruise! It makes me so proud to see how quickly you are developing!
A couple of other new things you did this month were trying to clap and making kissy faces and noises at us. You also love to say mama and dada now, but you're new favorite thing to babble is glarb glarb glarb. You've also started to mimic me when I sing to you, by singing la la la in a very high pitched voice. I love when you sing with me!
You're diet has evolved a lot this month too. You now are eating stage 3 jars, which have a lot of small chunks for you to gum. You're starting to really get a hang of chewing your food! I'm starting to make you're food a lot chunkier too. You've also found the joys of flavored puffs this month. You get very excited when I pull out the yellow container for you! At first you had trouble getting the puffs from your hand to your mouth, but now you are a pro at it. It only took about a week for you to really improve your pincer grasp enough to feed yourself the little puffs!
Today, on you're 8 month birthday, we took a nice long walk around the neighborhood together! You love looking around when we go out for walks. Today all the flowering trees opened up just for you! It was just beautiful outside! When we were finished our walk, we sat outside for a while so I could take some pictures. In the middle of our photo shoot the neighbor's dog came over to greet you. You were determined to crawl after him when he went back to his own yard!
Here are a few of the pictures we took together this morning! You just get more beautiful every day! Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you, and we love you so much!
Love,
Mommy