8 Months Old!!

Somehow another month has gone by and Evan is 2/3 of his way to a year.  My boys just keep getting so big!  December was filled with a lot of sickness in our house, but a lot of changes too!

Here are some highlights of an eight month old Evan:

• Loves eating.  Is eating every puree we give him, although we haven't tried meat ones yet :(  He loves puffs, with the puff sticks being his current favs.  He loves finger food and has tried banana, potato, strawberry and a little noodle.
• He LOVES standing.  He wants to stand all the time.  He can pull himself to a stand very well if there is a handhold about chin height when sitting.  He is very adept at 'crawling' up mommy's leg to get to a standing position!  He is quite good a sitting now, with only occasional fall overs now.  He can get in and out of sit fairly well and will get on all fours.  Just today he took several crawling steps in a row... and then stretched on his belly to get exactly what he wanted!  He much prefers to stand or hold on to anything over crawling, but I think once he figures it all out we won't be able to stop him!
• His favorite toys right now include the Melissa and Doug soft picnic toys (especially loves pulling apart the velcro sandwich! Thanks for teaching me Ama!), the mailbox, the peanuts from his soft elephant, little balls that fit in his hand, things that play music, the soft farm book, the soft photo album filled with Liam baby pics, taking the pieces out of his suitcase and holding beer bottles!
• It goes without saying that Evan would MUCH rather play whatever big brother is playing.  Liam is doing so well with letting Evan join in - gives him a car to play in radiator springs, gives him a train and some of his own track when playing trains.  He even let him hold two cardboard pieces to the brand new game he played today.  Such a wonderful brother and Evan just loves him so much!
• Evan is sleeping... on and off.  We have been battling hives, fevers, colds, and coughs in the last month and with each of those you can add in teething and learning new milestones (sitting, crawling, pulling to stand), which on any given night can mean sleeping the night through (infrequent... talking two times maybe this month) or up for hours crying, screaming and just out of sorts.  "Normal" nights include going down around 7 and waking around 4 for a feeding with a final wakeup around 6.  Naps have whittled down to two most days... unless he is taking 20 minute naps... then it is more, many more!  He sometimes goes down with absolutely no fussing, but for the most part he still has to cry himself to sleep most naps/nights.  We are headed in the right direction with just a few detours along the way.
• No new teeth yet, but man oh man is he chewing on those two front teeth... I am hoping they break through soon!
• He is in 9-12 month clothes, size 3 diapers are getting tight depending on the brand
• He loves hanging upside down, blowing raspberries, talking, talking, talking, playing peek-a-boo, singing songs, dancing and his mommy :)
• He is in his new carseat, which he loves.  He also loves sitting in carts and doing other big boy things :)

We love you Evan!