8 months!

Man time is flying on by!  
Lyla turned 8 months over two weeks ago and soooo much has changed since then.  
But I will try to stay as true to where she was on that day as much as possible!

Age

8 months

Clothing size

6, 9, and 12 months

Milestones & Firsts

Lyla is officially a crawling girl!
It took her about two weeks to master it from the time she started getting up on her knees.  

Sleep habits

 Lyla was back to sleeping from 8pm-8am and taking two, 2 hour naps BUT when we got home from our Phoenix vacation she started waking up at 6:30am!!!  Whaaat?!  No fun!

New/Favorite Foods
Girl loves her finger foods now

I also did a post all about some of our current feeding favorites here.

Favorite Toys
She is obsessed with books right now.  I wrote all about her favorite ones here.

We pulled out all of our board books for her to play with.
Although, sometimes a new crawler and the corner of a hard book don't really go well together...

New or Favorite Words/Sounds 
Lyla is still a growler.  She espeically gets going if youre not feeding her fast enough.
Her new noises are Ly-Ly-Ly and Da-Da-Da-Da
{Which, of course, makes her Daddy happy}

Favorite Activity 

Lyla loves to ride in the shopping carts with her feet up in the air

She also LOVES to go on bike rides.  We seriously hear squeals as we're peddling down the road.

Mommy of the Month

Sometimes you have to get creative when your baby won't let you finish folding laundry...

Playtime Fun

Ticklish on thighs

Playing "Where's Lyla" with a blanket

Patty-cake gets her laughing every time.

And she loves when I take pictures with the camera turned so she can see herself

Top 5 this month

1) Our first family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona (posted in detail here)

2) Taking Lyla to the park for the first time

3) A little driving lesson...

4) Dancing with Lyla at our friend's wedding.  
She was a giggle machine the whole time!

5) Lyla had a bad diaper rash so we spent an evening doing nakey time in the Pack-n-Play.  It was cleared up the next day but, boy was that an adventure for me!

Lyla is:

Such a beautiful baby full of personality.  It's amazing just how many people comment on how alert/happy/bright-eyed she is when we are out and about.  I know she is going to be a big people-person.  And one silly girl just like her Dad!!

Weekend Round-up

What a weekend this was!

The weather in Anchorage was absolutely perfect and we spent every moment we could soaking up the rays.

Jesse came home from work Saturday morning and told me to get dressed because we were going to the downtown Saturday Market.  Lyla was in people-watching heaven as we walked around the booths.  I got a few fun goodies and Jesse ran into some of his friends while we were out.

That night we had tickets to see Mary Poppins.  

It's always nice to have a date night with my handsome hubby!

Sunday was equally as fun and relaxing as Saturday.

Lyla loves when Daddy is actually home in bed in the mornings!

We spent the morning with this crazy kid pulling up on everything in sight!  

This picture is how we are now greeted when we go into her room after nap time.

That evening we went to our cousin's house for the weekly Family Dinner.  Lyla had a blast playing with Sycely and Ella (or at least playing with their toys)

Then it was Memorial Day!

Jesse and I had some friends over that evening so we spent most of the morning getting things ready.  Lyla was happy to help pull out some food and polish our knobs for us

We quickly realized we had to keep one eye peeled on this girl at all times now so we had her play in the nursery while we finished up... Ernie was there to protect her...

We had a lot of fun hanging out with our friends, grilling out, sitting outside, and stuffing our faces with some yummy cupcakes.

Our weekend continued on til Tuesday thanks to Jesse's work schedule.  

Lyla is still insiting on waking up early {Way to go Phoenix Trip} and thus she passes out pretty fast and quick in the mornings

We didn't mind this one bit because that meant we could head out the door early for the Zoo!  It was so much fun taking little Lyla.  As always, people watching was her favorite thing to do (especially watching all the fellow babies that were there that afternoon) and she would get pretty excited to see some of the animals too.

I'll post more pictures of that trip later.

Our weekend came to an end with a trip to Yogurt Works and some more playtime outside.

Way to go, Alaskan sun.

Keep it up all week!

Scrubba-Dubba-Dub: The DL on the Tub

I was being a good mommy yesterday and taking pictures with our actual camera and not just my iphone and got some adorable bath time shots.  Which then became my inspiration for a post on the scrubba-dubba-dub-time.

Pretty much from Day 1 Day 20 we've been doing the 4 B's Bedtime routine:

Bath

Boob

Book

Bed

I do think starting a bedtime routine as early as possible is important and is key to establishing: 

1) The day vs nighttime sleep in newborns

2) Learning how to self-sooth to sleep (and thus being able to STTN earlier)

Not only that but, if your like us, it's a nice moment of family time.

Here is the shots of one of our little Lyla Lou Who's very first baths.  She was about 2 weeks old in this picture and oh-so-itty-bitty:

When preparing for our baby's arrival I set out to look for an alternative way to bathe our babe other then in the traditional baby bath tub.  We have only one small bathroom and I just wanted to avoid have that bulky thing in the way all the time.  I found {this} Puj Flyte Tub and I thought it would be a great alternative.  It folded up small and we could just stash it under the sink when it wasn't in use.  HOWEVER we ended up not liking it at all.  Lyla's little body would slip down it and she never looked comfortable.  

So after a while of fighting with this thing we finally gave into buying a baby bath (we bought this one) and we LOVE it!  

Here we are, 8 months later, and still using this guy.  

Some of my other bath time loves are:

1) This adorable toy holder

2) These super cute bath toys 

3) This yummy bath wash

California Baby is kinda expensive.  

We use our Costco size wash in the tub and save this as a little treat for when Lyla gets her post-messy-meal kitchen sink bath :)

So there you have our bath adventures.

What is your thoughts on baby bath time?