♥ Haven Araya is 8 months old! ♥

I'm in complete denial right now.  8?  Did we skip some somewhere?!  Ahhhh!  That puts her at 2/3 of a year!  Only 4 more months until it's first birthday time!!!!!!!  I'm pretty sure we're going to combine the girls' parties for the next few years to save on money (their birth dates are only 17 days apart).  Then they can have their own when they start to invite their friends from school.

Here are her 8 month stats:

Weight: about 21 lbs (weighed her myself.  She was 20lbs, 14oz at 7m- she'll be weighed again by the doctor at her 9 month check up)  ***Venily was 20 lbs at 7m and stayed that weight for a LONG time.... she was only 21lbs, 6oz at 15m!  I'm curious to see if Haven is similar!


Length: 30.5 inches

(Venily was about 20lbs and 29in at 8m!)


Haven's updated growth charts:

Clothes size: 12m & 18m still.  Now that we are wearing summery clothes and she's thinning out, she can even wear some 6-9m again, LOL!  We don't need to worry about sleeves or pants being too short in the summer! :)

Diaper size: 3

Shoe size: 3 or 4 (had to get rid of a bunch of her 3's she outgrew!)  She has LONG, skinny feet!

SLEEPING: Waking up once a night again.  Sometimes even twice.  I think it's because she keeps learning new skills (which can cause night-wakings).  Usually takes a couple of attempts to put her down for the night as well.  Still prefers to sleep on her stomach, with her 2 right hand middle fingers in her mouth! :)

Usually 2 naps a day.

EATING: Still breastfeeding throughout the day.  Still eating 3 solid food meals and some snacks.  She is much more receptive to baby food than she was before, though she still likes real food better (Venily HATED baby food and only wanted to feed herself).  I usually give Haven baby food for breakfast w/ Cheerios (or baby cereal and Cheerios) and baby food for lunch and a "real food" meal for dinner (usually whatever we're eating).  She usually eats an entire jar of 2nd baby food for her meals or half to a whole jar of 3rd food!  She never leaves a speck of "real food" left on her tray and always wants more, lol!  And she eats finger food snacks twice a day.  

I'm not sure whether I'm going to try to phase out the baby food yet since she tolerates it... it's easier to clean up after, but I feel like transitioning to all "real food" would be better for her because she's ready for it!  Hmmm.... maybe we'll start doing 2 "real food" meals a day now!

PLAYING: Really loves all of her toys where she can stand and play! She can "walk" with her rolling toys, but the wheels move a little too fast for her.  I want to try them outside to see if she'd like that better!  If only we had grass in our yard... hopefully within the next month!!

She also has an increased interest in cars and anything with wheels.  She'll take her Little People car and drive it back and forth on the floor.


Another new "game" she likes to play is intentionally throwing toys on the ground while I'm holding her and then pointing at them until I pick them back up for her! haha!  And then throwing them back down and pointing at them again! :)  Silly, silly girl!

APPEARANCE: Everyone in the stores and stuff keeps telling me her hair is red, though I'm sure it'll change, it's dark in the back!  She is definitely thinning out more, though she still has neck rolls and a double chin and chunky thighs! :)  Her eyes are still blue though and her cheeks are still big w/ dimples! :)  Everyone ALWAYS tells me that she looks like me! :)


TEETH: 2 still!  Not sure when the next ones will pop through!


SPEECH: Says lots of words now "Dada", "Mama" ♥ !, "ball", "hi", "eat", "duck", "teeth" and she is always attempting to say words I tell her to say!!  Dada is still her favorite word!

-signs: "eat", waves, claps, does "so big", gives high fives, puts her hands up to be picked up, points at EVERYTHING now, just like Venily did!  It's really funny.  If she wants something or someone she'll point at them or if you ask her where something is, she'll point at it!  And she likes to play a game where if I'm holding her she'll point at someone else to hold her and as soon as she gets in their arms, she'll point back at me and so on and so on! :)  She's really enjoying the fact that she can communicate with us and we will respond to her!

MOVEMENT: Crawls now!!  Oh boy, I'm chasing after her all day now, taking things out of her hands and mouth!!  It's crazy how she didn't know how to a week ago and now she's all over the place, lol!  She can crawl up on all fours, but often drops down and army crawls too, haha!  She can also walk up to 3 steps towards me!  She wants to walk BADLY and thinks she can just take off, lol!  She cruises on furniture and pulls up on me.  And she can stand for 2 minutes all by herself (though she's usually trying to get somewhere so won't stand that long unless she's really interested in something!  Still hasn't fallen or gotten hurt yet.  I am DREADING the day she gets her first big bump... thinking about buying 1,000 pillows and foam for my whole house! :(

OTHER:  
I think both her and Venily have seasonal allergies.  Jason does and as soon as he started getting a runny nose and sneezing, both the girls did too and it hasn't stopped! :( 


Both girls also have really bad heat rash!  Haven got sun-burned the other day even though I had SPF 70 on her and only kept her in the shade.  We're going to have to be super-extra careful this summer!!!

P.S.  I LOVE Havens more than anything else in the world!!!  She's such a fantastic little sweetheart, I couldn't imagine life without her!  ♥

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AT 8 MONTHS...

Haven's LIKES:

* Smiling and waving, of course!

* Being in the water


*Standing

*Her BIG sister!!!

*Pointing!

* Eating any little thing she can get her hands on!

* Animals!

Haven's DISLIKES:
* Getting her face or nose wiped! (still her #1 annoyance)

HAVEN/ VENILY COMPARISON: (Venily's 8 month Update)



Pics: Venily at 8 months!