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18 months.

 

oh this little one.  my little sidekick.  this photo cracks me up.  as she so often does.

at 18  months, L :

• weighs around 33 pounds.  will update after her appointment next week.
• is TALL.  everyone guesses she's older than she actually is.
• goes to be around 7:15p and wakes up between 7-7:30a.
• goes down for a nap at 1p and sleeps for about two hours.
• nickname : ladybug.
• loves having my undivided attention for a couple of hours after we drop C off for preschool.
• is equally excited to pick up her sister from preschool.  when i ask her if she wants to pick up C she always says, "pepas!  coming!" 
• has started swim lessons without me in the pool with her.  she is currently the only one in her class and the jury is still out if that's a good or bad thing.
• is enjoying storytime and seeing her friend harrison - her godfather's son - each week. 
• would eat string cheese for every meal and snack if allowed.
• loves animal crackers.  specifically the brand found in the target $1 spot.
• selects "goodnight moon" and "the going to bed book" to be read to her each night.
• is all about mr. and mrs. potato head and plays with them each day.  also loves her little people house and people. 
• has the loudest, piercing scream when she gets mad. 
• if she doesn't want to do something, she has this grunt which her father finds absolutely unnerving.
• when she can't do something, she'll say "help me!  help me!"  only it sounds more like one run-on word.

17 months.

 
 oh how i love this little girl.  even if her daddy said she's really not a baby anymore.  i'll give him that her size doesn't lend itself to the notion of a "baby," but she is indeed my baby.

at 17 months, L :

• weighs approximately 32 pounds.  that's two pounds more than last month...
• nicknames : ladybug.
• has the best crazy curly hair.  she's the only person i know who's hair looks amazing in humidity.
• wakes up around 8a and goes to bed between 7:15 and 7:30p.
• wears 2T and 3T clothing so that everything can be covered.  she is so tall i'm not really looking forward to the winter months and finding clothes that are the right size.
• loves to sit at the play table she shares with her big sister to color and look out the window at the birds.
• loves the alphabet song and can sing a large portion of it.
• will pick cheez-its or animal crackers as her snack of choice each time i ask her what she'd like.  even if she doesn't get her way each time.
• i have to sing her "down by the station" - a song we learned at storytime - while i brush her teeth or she won't have anything to do with the activity.
• is obsessed with "em-ay em-ays" (m&ms) and requests them after each meal.
• finally calls the cats by the correct names.  and loves them both dearly.
• still adores swimming lessons and will have her last parent/tot lesson next week.  then she'll be on her own!
• is now pacifier free.  i took it away three nights ago and tonight she went to sleep without a peep.  she would ask for it when i put her in her crib for naps or at night and i didn't want her relying on it for a crutch.
• refers to her blanket as "pepa."  very similar to what she refers to her big sister as.
• has four stuffed animal friends she's become attached to - elle (her animal lovey), bear (a polar bear from grammy), elephant (the grey elephant she takes her photo with each month) and cuppy (a snoopy i just bought her last week).
• loves to say "1...2...3..." and then have whatever stuffed animal she's playing with "jump" from something.  just like she does at swimming lessons.
• always asks where her sister is whenever she wakes up from her nap or in the morning.

16 months.

 

late in posting the monthly update, again...  life with two crazy girls usually seems to take precedent.  but i have two more months in taking photos.  and of course, NOW it's getting easier to do this monthly ritual!

oh how i adore this sweet girl.  her personality bubbles up out of her from the moment she wakes until she lays down her head each night.

at 16 months, L :

• weighs approximately 32 pounds.
• nicknames : ladybug. 
• goes to bed around 7:15p and wakes up around 8a although at times she sleeps as late as 9a.
• wears 2T clothing although some shirts need to be 3T to be long enough. 
• has a crazy vocabulary and can verbalize quite well whatever she's trying to communicate to us.  including putting two words together.
• adores her big sister.  they get along so well and are partners in crime.  they crack one another up.
• loves books.  her current favorite is freight train, introduced to her at story time by miss carissa.  luckily she'll be receiving her own copy soon.
• calls both the cats "duke."  thomas is not thrilled by this.  both cats are starting to be more tolerant of her high pitched shrieks however.
• favorite go to breakfast = peanut butter toast and a banana.
• runs to the kitchen as soon as she hears the blender.  she loves smoothies and instantly is shouting, "juice!  juice"
• swims like a fish.  she adores swimming lessons and would spend the entire half hour of each session jumping off the side if it were allowed.
• is the only girl i know who's hair looks best when it's humid - her curls are lovely.
• has 10 teeth but luckily doesn't bite.  *knock on wood*
• is the most easy going, laid back baby until she gets angry.  and then watch out!  she tends to throw things when mad.
• is following in C's footsteps and loves all thing sesame street.  she can call by name and point out cookie monster, elmo, bert and ernie, abby and big bird. 
• thinks m&ms should be a food group.  she pronounces them as "em-ay, em-ays" and requests them whenever they might be in view or C mentions them to egg her on.
• can recognize the letters "o" and "e".
• loves singing the abc song and will sing a-g before fading out and joining in on random letters throughout the song.
• will always respond "blue" when you ask her what color something is.

15 months.

my sweet little baby.  still can't wrap my head around the fact that she's 15 months old.  and go figure that this is the month that she actually wanted her photo taken and didn't want to get out of the chair afterwards.  that's something new!  too bad there are only three more monthly photos to take.

at 15 months, L :

• weighs approximately 30 pounds.  we'll see the official weight at her appointment.
• is xx" long.  this girl is t-a-l-l.
• nickname : ladybug
• has decided she likes to sleep in.  yet another reason why she's a mama's girl!  she goes to bed between 7:15-7:30p and gets out of bed around 8-8:30p.  heavenly for a mama that's a night owl!
• has an insane vocabulary.  she'll repeat pretty much anything i ask her to.  so awesome for her to tell me what she wants and for me to understand.  she's very polite and will say "please," "thank you" and "excuse me." 
• has seven teeth.
• will eat pretty much anything.  and lots of it.  her breakfast each day almost always consists of peanut butter toast and a banana.  and usually it's two pieces of toast.
• loves to do whatever her sister is doing.  luckily C is okay with this.  they have a great bond and are almost always playing together or chasing each other around the house.
• calls duke by name.  only she says "duuuuuuuuke."
• has to have her "elle" and her blanket with her throughout the day.  she loves her elles - she has three - and get so excited if she has two of them and swings them about to insure we all see what she has.
• has figured out how to take one nap - hooray! - and sleeps from 1-3p.  i'm totally okay with a two hour nap as long as she does it regularly so that it gives me a bit of time to focus on other duties and take a breather.
• continues to love swimming lessons.  as soon as she's in the water she'll start changing "jump!  jump!  jump!"  she loves to jump off the side and that's all she'd do if i let her.
• has the biggest personality.  she is FUNNY!  and she knows it which makes her even funnier.

oh how i adore this girl.  i'd take a million more just like her if babies came made to order.

14 months.

not a sharp focused photo, but the expression is so her that i had to use it.  she was looking above me at her big sister who was also taking her monthly photo with her own fisher price digital camera.

i had to laugh tonight when i looked at the clock and realized 14 months ago we were just welcoming our new baby girl into the world.  and tonight i was feeding her a taco.  or rather taco fillings.

at 14 months, L :

• is approximately 28 pounds.  while i'm getting ready in the morning, the girls are in our room and L loves to walk in and out of the bathroom and has figured out how to stand on the scale.  so funny as C loved to play with the scale at that age and still does.
• nickname : ladybug.
• gets up around 7a, although the past few days it's been more like 8a.  goes to bed around 7:15p.
• decided to give up her morning nap although has yet to figure out how to taken an extended single nap.  instead it's more like an hour or an hour and a half.
• is walking.  she loves being able to follow C around the house so that they can play together.
• has crazy curly hair.  in humid weather, she has gorgeous hair.  and yes, this mama is jealous.
• is wearing 2T clothes.  she's officially now in the wrong season for most of C's hand me downs.  boo!
• loves to give kisses.  to me, to her big sister, to the kitties.  even to a goat outside of a co-op store we were at last weekend.  full of smooches around here.
• favorite foods : bananas, kiwis, spaghetti.
• loves swimming lessons and jumping in from the side.
• enjoys bath time with her sister, especially when we blow bubbles before getting out of the tub.
• is such an easy going baby except when it comes to church.  such a battle with her to stay relaxed and looking at books.  the exact opposite of her sister.
• is a copycat when it comes to vocabulary.  it's hard to keep track of when she says new words as she says them so often.  my new favorite is when she says "amen" after our blessing at each meal or the girls' prayers before bedtime.
• favorite books : "brown bear" and "goodnight moon."  C can recite both of these to her and she has picked up a lot of vocabulary and animal sounds from them.  she'll ask for either book by name.  she also enjoys "where is baby's belly button?"

13 months.

 

oh how she'll hate this photo in her baby book when she gets older.  but that's what happens when you don't cooperate with the mama and instead throw a crazy tantrum.  silly girl.

totally late putting up this monthly review.  but better late than never.

at 13 months, L :

• weighs approximately 27 pounds.
• is outgrowing her 18-24 month clothes.
• current nicknames : ladybug.  even her big sister refers to her by that name.
• favorite foods : pasta, black beans, avocado.
• is starting to point out body parts : hair, ears, teeth.
• is still using crawling as her mode of transportation.  she'll surf around furniture and walls and holds onto my legs to follow me around.  makes cooking dinner a bit more difficult than usual.
• has a  much bigger vocabulary than her sister did and rarely signs because of it.  she usually says "more" when she wants food instead of saying she's hungry.
• absolutely loves swimming lessons.  she was slower to warm up to the idea than C was but these days she truly enjoys it.
• thinks that sitting through her sister's soccer practices and games is torture.
• is so easy going except when it comes to church.  i can't remember the last time i was able to sit through a service without taking her out.  the past few weeks i've sat out with her more than in.  definitely a change as we never had to do this with C.
• is still in love with her elephant lovey that she got last year for easter.  we now have three of them so that we're never without.
• only uses her binks at nap and bedtime.  this was an easy transition and hope it goes just as well when we take it from her completely.

12 months.

 

my sweet one year old baby girl.  i'm still wondering where the last year has gone.  12 months ago we introduced a newborn into our family and now we can't imagine us as anything but a family of four.

at 12 months, L :

• weighs xxx (to be completed after her doctor's appt.  i'm guessing about 25 pounds.)
• is xx" long  (also to be completed after her appt.)
• current nickname = ladybug and the occasional little baby reference.
• wakes up around 7a and goes to bed between 7:15 and 7:30p.
• takes two naps - her morning nap is usually and hour to an hour and a half and her afternoon nap is around an hour.  at times i think she's ready to give her morning nap up and then she goes and proves me wrong.  she falls asleep immediately for both naps so i think she still needs both.
• favorite foods : pancakes, avocado, peaches and spaghetti.
• can tell you what a cow, duck and kitty say.
• smacks her lips to make kissing sounds and then attempts to give either thomas or duke kisses.
• will give you a kiss if you ask for one.  half the time she bumps foreheads with you and thinks that's good enough.
• is becoming quite the fan of "yaya" just like her sister and will call it by name when it's on.  yaya, otherwise known to everyone else as sesame street, is the name coined by C after the preschool version of the show had that word in the theme song.
• is surfing along and pulling up on any surface that stand still. 
• she'll walk when holding onto our hands.  i feel that by next month she'll be walking on her own and then the girls will be chasing each other.  a new form of chaos.
• is really becoming quite chatty and trying to repeat words that we say.
• is obsessed with "brown bear brown bear what do you see."  she'll pick it up every time we're in her room and then say "brown bear" over and over again.
• crawls with exaggerated hip movements.  seriously hysterical to watch.  daddy calls her a salamander.
• loves playing with the play kitchen and food, especially the fridge that she and her sister got for their birthdays.
• hates getting her face washed after meals.  unless i sing her "pop goes the weasel" - somehow it makes the task become bearable for her.

11 months.

 
late on posting this due to colds and grey weather.  and possible denial that my sweet baby is so close to her first birthday.

at 11 months, L :

• weighs 23 or 24 pounds.  i did the scientific home weighing last week and can't remember which figure it was. 
• nicknames : little baby and ladybug.  i think we're slowly phasing out little baby.  because she's really no longer either one of those.
• goes to bed around 7:30a and gets up around 7a. 
• takes two naps a day, usually around 2.5 hours total.
• is in love with "brown bear brown bear what do you see?" and pulls up on the table in her room so that she can snag it and flip the pages - backwards - by herself.
• shrieks at a high decibel level when either of the cats are within view.
• is a super speedy crawler and pulls up on anything that stands still.  she surfs along the sofa and the loveseat and loves to try to reach as far as she can to the toys her big sister has put up there to keep her out of.
• decided to quit nursing without a second thought.
• loves avacado and kiwi and would gladly eat them at every meal if allowed.
• if you open the gate to the stairs and ask if she's ready for a bath she'll be there in a milisecond, excited to climb the stairs by herself.
• is really enjoying swimming lessons and will fall in the water by herself when you count to 3.  and is quite proud of herself for doing so.
• absolutely adores her big sister.  it's so fun watching the two of them together.  they have a great time hiding out under the dining room table.

10 months.

 

oh my... only two months until the big birthday.  when chatting with another mama earlier this week we were both in disbelief that we were pregnant this time last year and now have these growing girls instead.  this was the hardest monthly photo shoot ever.  L was trying to dive from one side to the other and her elephant was being flung about like crazy.  luckily everyone survived and we have this as the most decent in focus shot of the bunch.

at 10 months, L :

• is now wearing 18-24 month clothes.  her pants are too big for her but she needs that size for the length.  when will someone come out with baby tall clothes?!
• wakes up at 7 or 7:30a and goes to bed between 7-7:30p each day.
• is nursing twice a day - when she wakes up and before bed and eats three meals and two snacks.
• current nicknames : little baby, ladybug
• made the transition to crawling on all fours instead of army crawling.  she's quite speedy too.  thomas has yet to figure this out and will turn around and give her this look like, "where'd you come from?"
• licks thomas whenever she gets close enough to do so.  i've yet to figure out why she started this or why she continues to do it.
• has discovered a passion for cottage cheese, just like her big sister did at this age.
• will eat and eat and eat until i sign and also tell her that she's all done.  i also clap to make it seem like this is a happy thing so she won't cry.
• knows the sign for fish and loves walking by our aquarium and doing it.  she also likes to wave at them.
• continues to love swimming and will now fall into the water by herself on my count of three.  she's quite proud of herself for doing this too.
• loves playing with her big sister, especially a "game" they invented where L is under the dining room table and C goes from one side to the other and screams boo at the top of her lungs.
• when she's vocal her go to sounds are ba and ya.  she will only say mama when she believes she's in major distress and then it's mamamamamamamama.  she will say dada for her daddy on occasion.
• enjoys playing with all of the food in the play kitchen.  she seems to prefer the wood food where C prefers the felt.
• loves the ladybug pillow pet that she received for christmas and loves to tackle it.  this is hilarious as it's as big as she is.
• pulls herself up on the fireplace and sofa as well as one of her larger toys.  on anything else, she's happy just pulling herself up on her knees.

9 months.

 

this sweet baby girl turned nine months old on friday.  and sweet she is.  love that she's a bit of a cuddler and lets me get in lots of kisses throughout the day. 

at 9 months, L :

• is 21 pounds, 9 ounces.  she's slimming down a bit.
• is 28.5" long.  her onesies and pants are becoming short... again.
• is wearing 12-18 month clothes, but likely will move up a size in the near future because of the length issue.
• goes to be around 7:15p and gets up between 6:30-7a.
• takes two naps a day - usually around 9:30a and 1p.  there's never a rhyme or reason to how long these naps last but usually the first is 30 minutes to an hour and the second is an hour or so.
• nurses four times a day and eats 8 ounces of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  she enjoys puffs after she's done eating while waiting for her slow poke sister to finish her meal.
• enjoys juice every couple of days from a sippy cup.  she no longer uses a bottle and within the last week has actually mastered the sippy cup and holds it by herself.
• thinks paper is a food group.  i have to watch her like a hawk to insure she doesn't put it in her mouth.
• is beginning to wave.
• is babbling - favorite sound is ba ba ba.  she throws in a da or a ma on occasion, but they definitely aren't heard as much.
• can get where she wants to go by army crawling.  she'll push herself up on her knees but hasn't figured out how to get anywhere by crawling in the typical fashion.
• loves splashing in the tub with her big sister.  daddy's clothes are usually a bit wet at the end of bath time.
• has found a new toy in the springy door stop things.  this amuses her for a good five minutes each time she finds one.
• still is president of the thomas fan club.  he's so good to her and doesn't do anything to retaliate against her high pitched shrieks of joy and not so gentle pets.
• loves little people figures as a teething object.
• has her two bottom teeth.

and just because i thought this was hilarious :

 

C wanted to take a photo with L after i was done with her monthly photoshoot.  as you can tell, L wasn't so keen on sharing the spotlight.