8 Months

Wowza! Melanie is finally starting to look big to me, still skinny, but she is not little anymore. She is getting stronger every day. At her last physical therapy appointment, she was doing great, and now we are working at rolling over and sitting. She is rolling from her back to her left side onto her belly great. If we lay her on her back she will go straight to her belly. She can go the other way, but it is a little harder for her. We have been using the Bumbo a lot for sitting, she is doing better at that also. As you can see from the picture, she is not quite straight up.

She does this thing where I will lift her up to a sitting position after feeding her so that I can burp her, and she immediately falls backward, once down she will try pulling herself back up, I will help her and before we even get back into a sitting position, she falls backward again. This strengthens her ab muscles as well, she is just doing it for fun, but it helps.
I just love sleeping babies.

She is constantly looking at her hands, she will stick her hand out in front of her face and examine it.

Julie has started to play with Melanie a little, here she is sharing her blanket with Melanie.

And Melanie sure does enjoy Julie's company, usually Julie will get in Melanie's face and just giggle. Melanie gets the biggest smile on her face. She doesn't babble that much right now, but she does make noise.

Sometimes I will get excited when Melanie is doing so well at lifting her head up, that Julie will want some attention and she will get down on her belly and stick her head up like Melanie. Here she is showing how she can lift her head up to.

Loves to giggle with Daddy.

I have tried feeding her baby food, and we have not had any luck yet. It has all been homemade, which I thought would be more tasty, but she won't have it. All smiles at the beginning.

Then her slightly disgusted face.

And then out it comes, goodness. I so want her to get some food in her so that she will sleep through the night here SOON. I might have to just cave and buy some baby food from the store. We have tried zucchini, oatmeal, banana, avocado, peas, and yams. My next attempt is a squash. Julie wasn't too fond of baby food either, but she did love the sweet potatoes and squash. And she was eating food from her tray by this age too. My how each child is so different. One of these times she has got to get it.

Just chillin with Dad in the garage while he worked.

This is the picture that after I took it and I was looking at her, I was realizing that she was getting big, she fits into the stroller quite well now.

Another one where she is making Melanie happy.

What a sweetie she is. She only basically wakes up once to eat, but she has been waking up more lately.
We took her to the eye doctor about a month ago, because her left eye has always kind of wandered, unless she is focused on you. If she is just looking around or daydreaming, it will go outward, but she always brings it back. Looks weird sometimes, the doctor says it can only be corrected with surgery. Kind of like a lazy eye, we have another appointment in six months. As long as she can always bring it back after her eye wanders outward.
She is also not swaddled anymore, she is getting a lot stronger and getting her swaddled was kind of a joke, and then if we did get her swaddled she would wiggle her way out of it, so I just stopped.