8 Months Old!

Seriously??? Eight months old??? This just doesn't seem right. Where did my little 8 lb baby go? The one who slept peacefully in her carseat every time we went anywhere? Those days are long gone. We have a very busy baby who is on the move! We can officially say Maddie is crawling. She started off a couple of weeks ago doing the "army crawl", but she has graduated to a more sophisticated crawl where she is more up on her hands and knees. She is still trying to figure the whole thing out, so while she does that we have to get going on baby-proofing the house! Maddie has also mastered standing up in her crib. I have been telling Gabe to lower the mattress down further (we have already lowered it once), but he has been putting it off. Well the other night Maddie woke up at about 10 o'clock crying and when I went in there she was standing up! I completely overreacted because it took me by complete surprise! I immediately called Gabe and told him to lower the crib NOW. So at 10 pm he lowered the crib, so we don't have to worry about little Maddie taking a tumble :)
This week I have been working on nap training. It is going very well and Maddie is actually napping so much better. I do a modified version of the bedtime routine and just lay her down in her crib awake. I used to rock her until she was asleep, but it was becoming impossible to lay her down in her crib without her waking back up. It is working out really well. Half the time she falls asleep completely on her own, but a few times I have to rub her face or back and she will then drift off. She takes a morning and afternoon nap for about 1-2 hours each.
Well that is about it for now. Pop-Pop was here for a couple of days picking up my dad's tractor. My Dad loved his tractor and spent many hours on it. Pop-Pop is having it completely refurbished in my dad's memory and it should be ready by October 25th (the anniversary of my Dad's death). We are going to plan something special to remember him. I still can't believe it has been almost a year. They say the first year is the hardest. I can only hope it gets easier one day...but we have a lot of good things in our life to be thankful for. Thank God for our precious baby girl!!