I’M EIGHT MONTHS!
Height: 28.75″
Weight: Measurements 18 lbs., 6 oz.
McKenna is growing like a weed and is already encountering some of the problems I had to deal with in middle school and high school. Poor thing just keeps growing taller and taller (wonder where she gets that from) and is staying pretty thin (we have a few cute baby rolls, but she’s pretty lean) so we’re running into the problem of pants that fit are too short and pants that are long enough are too big. Poor girl. Welcome to #tallgirlproblems, Baby.
A lot has happened in the last month… Or at least it feels like it. And now I’m thinking I say that in every post. (I’m not willing to go back and look to see if I need to change that sentence to something more original, so we’ll go with it.) I’m pretty sure that’s how being a parent to a baby is. Time flies when you’re having fun… Or chasing a speedy crawling baby around the house. Or both.
In the last month McKenna celebrated her first Christmas (my favorite time of the year) and New Year. I kept telling myself to “Write a blog post about it, already!” but time got the best of me and here we are, 3 weeks past Christmas and it just doesn’t seem as important anymore.
So here is a brief (just kidding, not brief at all) synopsis for anyone who is curious:
Christmas Eve/Day: We were fortunate enough that my dad (who lives in Nebraska) was able to come down for a week during the holiday.
We visited Santa the night before Christmas Eve at Westshore Plaza. Luckily we arrived when he was due back from break, so we got in line before it got too long. It was still about a 30-45 minute wait time, but McKenna loves looking around and people watching, so she was entertained. The entire time we were in line Michael and I were planning a stealth mission of how we were going to sneak pictures of McKenna on Santa’s lap on our phones. You see, the information page they handed to us while we were in line asked that no personal photos were to be taken. Instead you could view your photos immediately after and pay $25.00 for 7 of them. Seven photos?! Uhm… No thanks. Anyways, we were fortunate enough the photo paper ran out just before it was our turn. Apparently it is a huge process to switch it out, so, since McKenna was starting to get antsy (it was feeding time), they let us discretely take some photos on our phones. Santa wasn’t happy about it, but I could care less because I have much better plans for my $25 than 7 photos of Santa. In the end, I was sort of hoping for the classic screaming baby photo, but McKenna could care less that she was on Santa’s lap (in fact, I don’t even know if she realized she was).
Christmas Eve morning we woke up and Michael and I exchanged gifts. He worked Christmas Day and since he works 24 hours at a time, we decided to do everything on Christmas Eve. One of my favorite gifts was a collage photo throw blanket Michael got me covered with pictures of McKenna’s first 6 months. I started crying instantly… I’ve definitely got those mom hormones now.
We spent the rest of the day with my dad, Mike’s parents and my mom and her husband at Mike’s parents’ house in Bradenton. I’ve always had (large) family gatherings on Christmas Eve, so it was nice for that to continue. We had a great afternoon/evening and exchanged gifts – which McKenna napped through… Including her own!
Christmas Day was spent relaxing at home with my dad and McKenna. It was totally a “do nothing and stay in your pajamas all day” kind of day. Very peaceful.
New Years’ Eve Mike also worked New Year’s Eve (and got off at 8 a.m. New Year’s Day), so McKenna and I spent the day at home relaxing and were both in bed by 8:30 p.m. Something tells me this may be a recurring thing in the years to come…
Now that we’ve gotten the holidays out of the way, back to the world of child development…
Sleeping. We had a rough patch of about 3 weeks where McKenna was waking up 3-4 times a night. Most of it was resolved by re-situating her in her crib, giving her the WubbaNub (pacifier), and/or changing her. Of course, there were moments right around 4 a.m. where she absolutely would not go back to sleep, which is when we caved and put her in the bed with us. It wasn’t the most relaxing sleep for Mike or I, but it was still an extra 2-2 1/2 hours of quiet. Mike and I would sometimes complain of lack of sleep but were constantly reminding ourselves how lucky we’ve been with McKenna’s ability to sleep through the night. (Fortunately, that no sleep phase is over and we are back to sleeping through the night again. Woohoo!) 
Crawling/Standing. Girlfriend is ready to rock. She’s got the crawling thing down pat and has even worked her way up the stairs a few times (while being closely monitored, of course). When she pulls herself up on something to stand, she’s a big fan of taking one hand off to bend down and pick things up. A few times she’s decided she’d like to try to stand up on her own (taking both hands off of whatever she’s using for support/balance) and every time it results in a bump, fall and tears. Poor baby. My current favorite is when she’s trying to reach something in the middle of the ottoman or activity center and she gets up on her tippy toes to reach.
Finding our voice. McKenna still airs on the side of being quieter, but she’s definitely found her voice in very recent days. She’ll babble to me while I’m preparing her breakfast, changing her diaper, taking her daycare or on the way home in the evenings. It’s so cute, and we love to babble back!
Toys. Toys are cool and all, and McKenna really likes them part of the time… especially her Baby Einstein jumper & Fisher Price Scout dog. But when she’s not playing with toys she’s playing with other fun items around the household.
We (McKenna & I) did get a new “toy” for Christmas… This Schwinn jogging stroller! We’ve gotten to use it a few times when it’s not too cold, and we love it!
Teeth. We now have two (both bottom teeth), and Mom and Dad think they are the cutest little things! It seems like she is working on more, but we’ll see when they show up.
The upcoming month is bound to bring lots of fun, excitement and adventure. We are finally getting our first round of (professional) family photos taken this Saturday, which have only been rescheduled about 5 times (they were originally supposed to be taken in November in time for holiday cards, but it just didn’t happen) so of course I’m excited about those! (Update: these were set to be “rescheduled” again the night before, so I decided to get a refund. Very frustrating. I am currently debating whether to seek out another professional or ask my mom to take them with her D-SLR. At least I can depend on her to keep the appointment!)
My birthday is next week (an excuse for a date night for me and Mike), lots of wedding prep is going down and Miss McKenna will be 3/4 of the way to a year old in a short amount of time. I know I’ve said this before – and everyone says it all the time – but I really can’t believe how quickly time is passing!
Couldn’t leave you without some bloopers from out “8 Month” photos. This happened about 1 minute in… Tell me how you really feel, McKenna. 
Our Little "Whoops!" 