8...danika is 8 months old!!!!

my sweet baby turned 8 months old on april 7!

lets jump right in!
she still wears size 2 diapers, but on 4/8 she started wearing size 3!...
she is in size 6 month, or 6-9 month clothes
she makes this funny face just like finley did....she scrunches up her nose and makes her lips in a kissy shape then breathes really fast through her nose! its too cute!
she sits up like a champ and can roll from back to front and then back again while she is on the floor playing with her toys.

danika has gotten so much better at eating solids! i put some strawberries in the mesh baby feeder thing and she LOVED it@ she grunted and groaned and became a strawberry mess!
we have graduated her from the bumbo on the dinning room table (she had begun flipping herself out of it!) to the high chair (march 13)...so we then had to graduate finley to a booster seat on a dinning room chair. i think the girls like their new "seat seat"s as finley would say!
the new foods she has eaten this month are applesauce medley (apple/pear/peach), avocado, puffs, yogurt (she LOVES this and will devour an entire cup!), green beans (i just give her a green bean, and she picks it up and gets it to her mouth and eats it!), and pumpkin.
her favorite is yogurt and banana oatmeal mixed with breast milk!
she still only breastfeeds or gets breast milk! when i am with her she still eats about every 2-3 hours, 6ish minutes off one side. its getting difficult though, she is very distractable....so she will suck a few times, then come off to look around, then suck a few times, then come off to look around. and she will look at anything...the tv, her sister, the light....so i have started taking her to her room, and laying down with her to feed her so there are no distractions.
ive given danika a sippy cup with some water in it a few times...she just chews on the sippy spout and squirts water everywhere!

danika got her first tooth! on march 25. the bottom middle left one....then 5 days later, she got her 2nd tooth! on march 30, bottom middle right one.
i got the swing out of the garage and hung it back up in the yard (3/27)....finley still LOVEs to swing...and danika loved it too, i may have to get another swing!

weve been getting out and doing more things now that she is a little older...i went with the girls in matts family to the botanical gardens orchid show (i blogged about it earlier), and it was beautiful!
matt took the girls to walmart on 3/13 for the first time by him self with both of them! whott whott! go daddy!
we went down to st louis for the st pactricks day parade and had a great time!
i took the girls to the zoo to meet a friend of mine and her son, then me and the girls ate our picnic lunch in the huge park across the street from the zoo.
i went with another friend of mine and the girls back to the botanical gardens one day just to walk around and enjoy the beautiful weather and the spring flowers!
every evening that i am off, i take the girls on a walk its been so nice! weve been getting a lot of use out of that double stroller! thanks craigslist!
we went to show mes for dinner and met our friends that had twins 2 months ago....
we went to an easter egg hunt (blog post to come!)

danika has been "talking" more! she says "babababababa" and "dadadadadada" and "mama"....and of course her screeches, grunts, and screams too!
she is still a total mamas girl....and never wants to be put down!
she even gave me her first open mouth kisses on march 26!!! made my heart sing!!!

finley got hand/foot/mouth disease....got a rash all over her little body...then a few days later, danika had a rash all over her as well! finley is really good at sharing!
you should see these two interact, it is so stinking cute! they truely are sisters that love and adore each other...both their faces just light up when they see each other...or hear each other!
danika was really snotty, fussy, and feverish for about a week...about the time those 2 teeth were coming in...poor baby.

danika still wakes once through the night to eat...sometimes its 1am, sometimes its 3, sometimes its 5.......she goes to sleep around 830-930...wakes for a feed at some point...then sleeps until between 7-830
weve made some big sleeping arrangement changes! ive been working on operation pack and play (pnp) for a while now...she was sleeping in her bouncy chair in the top portion of the pnp until we realized that she would stretch out and flip herself out of the chair! so i started laying her down in the bottom of the pnp on 3/24. i got the new monitor out *thank you ebay* and we were starting to put her back in the pnp at "bedtime" rather than having her sleeping in our arms or in her chair in the living room with us until we went to bed....shes not a good sleeper and any slight noise or light would wake her up...so her out in the living room wasnt working well at all! when we first were putting her in the pnp, she would only sleep for about a 2 1/2 hour stretch at a time....then 3 1/2 hours...she had gotten to about 5 hours at a time! we were doing GREAT! at least i thought we were! she would still wake around 5am, then i would get her and feed her and she would stay with me the rest of the morning....this went on for a week...
until 3/31 when matts sister came to babysit for us....
when she went to put danika to bed, she saw the pnp in our room but didnt think she would be able to get danika down into it without waking her up....so she took her to her room and PUT HER TO BED IN HER CRIB! this was the first time she had ever been in her crib...i hadnt planned on putting her in there until she was at least a year (finley was 13 months before she slept in hers)...so needless to say, when matt called me at work and told me danika was in HER CRIB, i freaked out a little and told him to "get her out of there!!!".
he told me "no" that she was sound asleep and he was leaving her there....
so i said "fine, but will you go take her picture? thats the first time shes slept in it" (the picture freak that i am!)...so he did...and it woke her up! (hehehehehe)...
but i will say that her in her crib has actually been a GREAT thing! the first 3 nights she slept in there, she slept all night long! from about 830-9pm until 7am! i guess that baby was ready to be in her crib....even though her mama wasnt ready for her to be over there! :-)
getting her into her crib continues to be very tricky...she will fall asleep in our arms, or next to me while i breast feed her to sleep....but as soon as she hits that crib mattress, she is instantly awake and fussing...so we have to lay her on her side, give her binki to her, and then stand there with our hand on her until she calms back down and drifts back to sleep which usually takes 5-10-15 minutes depending on how awake and upset she got...

danika is so smiley

so happy

so tickelish

her thighs are so squishy

she is pure joy