Allison is 8 months old!

Allison hit the 8 month mark the day after Christmas. The changes over these past few weeks have been amazing - she's completely mobile and is starting to explore her world from an upright position. It's hard to believe that just a month ago I could walk away from her for a few minutes and expect to find her in relatively the same place I left her.
Another big change for this month is a new 'do. While Ally's baby shag was cute, we decided she could benefit from a little trim, especially since the sure hands of Aunt Ellen were available for the job.

Before:

During:

After:

While Allison did a good job sitting still for her makeover, most of the time these days she's on the go.

She started the month by getting up on her knees and rocking back and forth, then progressed to an Army crawl. These past few days, she's been replacing that more and more with true crawling.

She also decided to add pulling up to her knees to her bag of tricks, which couldn't please her more.

This, of course, gives her plenty more options for hijinks.

The car seat is no longer purely for transportation:

And an open refrigerator offers a world of exciting treats. Including, apparently, generic brand salsa that probably expired months ago.

Of course, while getting up and around delights Allison to no end (at least that makes one of us!) it also adds one more item to the list of things our happy-go-lucky baby will cry about: clunks to the head have joined hunger as the two reasons for turning on the waterworks.

But despite a stumble here and there, 8-month-old Ally remains a sweet-natured, joyful little girl...just one with a couple of bruises here and there.