Crawling!

At 8 months old, Emmaline can move all over the place now. She's also getting very good at pulling herself up on short objects. She loves to play with the game table that Chris' mom got for her - she'll stand at it and ring a bell or move gears. We had to rotate it to put the frogs out of her reach because every time she hit them, they would ribbit Old McDonald and we start to feel a little loony after about 5 minutes of that.

She's also imitating sounds, which is my favorite thing to do with her. She makes clicking noises and blows out of her mouth like an elephant (people nearby might need rain gear for all the spit she sprays). We're trying to teach her to say "cat" because she lights up when the cats are around. Sometimes she says "Ca" when she sees them, but she also says that when she sees a box, chair, or food - so the connection isn't quite there yet but she's getting close!

This morning she crawled around the kitchen chasing a ball. We have fun in the mornings - she's in a good mood after breakfast and I am too if I've had coffee ;). She has been sleeping through the night for about a month and it's magical! Only problem is lately she wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00, which is a little early for us but well worth the uninterrupted sleep at night.

Also yesterday Chris and I went cross country skiing (for the first time!) with Mollie and Levi. It was gorgeous - we went along Michigan Ditch to American Lakes. The last part involved lots of uphill, and therefore lots of sliding/falling on the way back down. But it was a magnificent day, and we're super grateful that our daycare provider didn't mind us doing that while she watched Emmaline. Enjoy a couple of photos from our outing!

We had great views of the Nokhu Crags on the way to the lakes.

The final uphill push! We had to take our skis off, it was getting comical (especially when one of Levi's skis went zooming down the trail after took it off).

The GORGEOUS basin of the American Lakes.

PS I was going to upload a video I took but it is WAY too big so I'll post a smaller one some time soon!