Before she turns 9 months on Monday...

Failing to chronicle the past few months of Harlow's life is the thing I've felt the most guilty about during my blogging hiatus. As my last baby, I'm afraid of missing anything with her. Thankfully I didn't drop the ball on taking pictures of her so I have plenty of visual reminders to jog my memory of the past.

I always love my babies, but during the first several months I am usually too stressed and intimidated to fully enjoy them. It slowly eases through the first few months but by 6 months old I am just completely in love with my sweet baby. I think the jillions of photos I have of Harlow at this age are evidence of my adoration.

I'm not the only one who spent the month adoring this girl. There are a lot of great things about Harlow, but being cuddly is not one of them, so we take whatever we can get from her--even when it means hanging out with her while she sleeps.

 Reed is another eager and adoring fan. I love to see the two of them together.

Harlow does quite a bit of adoring herself--especially when it comes to her big sister. And with moves like this, why wouldn't she?

Aside from all the love, the big deal this month was learning how to crawl. It started with a lot of upper body strength followed by some concentrated arm and leg flapping. (my personal favorite)

The next step included a lot of backwards scooting, which worked pretty well for getting her places. Unfortunately, I don't think any of those places were places she wanted to go.

Next step: Army Crawl

Once she discovered forward mobility there was no stopping her...especially when it come to taking down building blocks. I love the determination in her face. She's a girl on a mission.

She spent the next few weeks of doing what looked like the "downward dog" yoga move. (Excuse her poor legs covered in eczema---yep, I cursed three of the four of them.)

Finally, after several weeks of work, she got it all together and started truly crawling right at 6 months on the dot, making her our earliest crawler. She looks just a little bit happy about that.

I think she's got big plans of keeping up with a certain somebody.

Other notables from this month include:

 First swing at the park.

Discovered a favorite toy. Hands down the toy she loves the most.  I'm completely impressed by how long she will entertain herself with it.

Enjoyed her reflection. 

Starting helping around the house. Sam thought it was pretty nice of her to hold the bag of chips for him while he snacked.

Wore cute clothes with crazy hair.

 Enjoyed her rice cereal almost too much.

In fact it was some enthusiastic eating (and consequential tumble) that prompted the purchase of her new high chair. It took having a 4th child for us to break down and finally buy a real high chair.

 Got mad and made a fuss because well-- even  the best babies are still babies.

Even looking at your mad little face you make make me so happy Harlow. I love everything about you.