[nggallery id=28] There have been a lot of developments and changes in month 7. Emily is now up on all fours and crawling around the house getting into everything. She is crawling from one room to the next with ease and occasionally without detection. I try to steer her away from things that are potentially harmful, but it is fun to watch her make decisions on her own about where she wants to go next. Lately she crawls to anything that she can pull herself up on like coffee tables, sofas, chairs, baskets, window ledges and my least favorite - garbage cans. She has figured out how to pull up on just about everything but she has not yet figured out how to take any steps once she is up there. Hopefully we have some time before that happens because I am still getting used to the crawling. We have not been to the doctor's office since the 6 months checkup so I don't have any updates on height or weight. The next check up and round of vaccinations is not until 9 months. It would be amazing if we could stay out of the doctor's office until then. Emily actually came down with a cold yesterday. No fever, just a lot of congestion. She was up all last night but appears to be much better now. I'm crossing my fingers that the worst of it is over and she will sleep well tonight. For the most part, however, Emily is sleeping through the night regularly. Hooray! Emily has also taken to formula and her new solid food menu without any trouble. Thank you, Emily. When Ben and I started this blog our intention was to keep family and friends updated with information and pictures of Emily. It serves that purpose very well, but I have come to the realization that the neatest thing about the blog is that Emily will have it when she is older. It would be very hard to save this much dialogue or this many pictures in print. So with the off chance that Emily might actually be interested enough to read all this when she is older, I am going to start adding a note directly to Emily on the monthly updates. It follows that Emily will have any comments that you make as well. No pressure, but I am hoping that Emily will be able to look back and read a lot of comments from family. No need to go crazy, just thought I would point that out in case you had not thought of the comment section in that way yet. For Emily, Even when you wake me up at 5 in the morning and I am thoroughly exhausted, I still can't wait to see your first morning smile. It is equally fantastic every time. I know that you won't always smile at me every time I walk into a room. But I hope that you will always be smiling about something. Love, Mom