Annie-19 months

Annie turned 19 months the day after Christmas! Here are a few highlights about her this past month!

-Some new words/phrases: mouse, donuts, unbuckle now, Cheerios, Merry Christmas!!, applesauce (sounds kinda like apple piss honestly!), home!! (when we pull into garage), I love you, excuse me (sounds like shooo-me!), cookie, chocolate, happy, sad, strawberries (sawbabies), can I have it?, wanna have it, Mommy!, read!!, heavy, help please, Mama!, play/I play, look, Mommy! look (over and over-sounds kinda like "wook"), shoe-wee! (when I change any diaper-whether dirty or not), Jesus, open, close, help.

-Nightly advent was a big even this past month for our family. Annie loved it and would dance around as Steven played the guitar, would love blowing out the candles when we were done, and learned the word chocolate because of the little advent calendar we opened each night. She was very demanding and excited about this-throwing fits and crying for it one minute, then giggling and all smiles the next because she got it!

-Annie has shown some serious attitude this month with lots of screaming "no!!" and fits, etc. Of course, she still has her sweet times, but she has shown her sassy and dramatic side in a whole new way this month! She learned to "jump" which for her is just raising one foot up and stomping it back down. She transferred this new move to add extra umpff to her fits, though, and sometimes will throw in a stomp while saying no. Sheesh!



-She is SO obsessed with books right now. It is the first thing she talks about in the morning or after nap. She says-read!! book!! wanna read!! She has laser focus and will not let us get away with us not actually reading to her! She is such a lap sitter, too, and wants to back up into our laps to be read to.

-She has started sitting up at the bar stools beside Henry now while I cook or when they eat breakfast, and she looks SO big doing this! She also pushes the bar stools (and other furniture) around the house now. She also loves to push the popper toy around and the wooden frog in laps from kitchen, dining room, LR, and back again. She also carries different bags around the house like a purse. I need to get her a real one I guess!

Annie's big gift on Christmas morning was a baby doll-she was adorable feeding it a bottle and putting in the paci. She had clothes on, but as you can see those got taken off quickly. Annie throws fits if I try to re-clothe the baby. Oh well!

-She adores her blankie and lovie, and this  month I have noticed her using her blankie to cover up different toys (Little People baby Jesus from our nativity set, her glow worm), and then she will say, "night night!"

-Henry was older when we let him start watching TV, but with Annie being the second kid, just gets exposed earlier. Oh well! She doesn't watch long before she gets down off the sofa, but she will sit beside bubba for a few minutes and just take it all in. So cute to see their little profiles side by side.

-The moved her up in church nursery, but she cries and when the infant workers hear her, evidently the go rescue her (especially if Mr. Jason is there). They spoil her!

-She just loves her brother, and she wants everything he has. Toys, food, attention, you name it. When he is on the floor she will go latch onto him like an octopus and "wrestle" with him. She is really tough and seems to like the tousle, but Henry is the one begging for her to get off and saying she is hurting him. Ha! She's gonna be a tough girl. When I do laundry, she always gets bubba's undies and carries them around the house, too. Ha! Oh, and she can say "undies". I think it is because they are Elmo themed ones, but still, it's pretty funny.

It's getting harder and harder to get a good pic of this girl-she is constantly moving as you can see!

-When I go to get her out of her car seat, she plays a game with  me. She has her head turned away from me kind of buried in the side of the headrest. I say, "where's Annie?" and she turns her head to look at me with a big grin...then immediately goes to hid her face again. We do this a couple times, then the game usually ends with he getting her neck with kisses-she is so ticklish! Sweetie.

-While we are out and someone asks her, "How are you?" she thinks they are asking her age and plays her game with them by saying, "two!!"...they don't really get it, but I do and think she's funny!

-We had a rainy December, and every time we would walk outside, she would start singing, "rain, rain, go away!" She counts!! She must have picked this up from Henry or school, because we certainly haven't worked with her on it. She usually starts with two and skips five, and her ten sounds like "bomb!!" for some reason, but otherwise she sounds so big doing this! She so articulately says each number (se-ven!), and does so in order. We are impressed, anyway!:)

We love you, big girl!! Thanks for being so much fun and sassy and so sweet, too. Can't wait to see what next month holds for you!

Annie-18 months!

Annie turned 18 months old on Thanksgiving day (11-26-15). To think that she is 1.5 is amazing! Time really has flown by with her. She had her 18 month appointment on 12-2 and did great. Her stats were: 33 inches long (33%), 24lbs 10oz (50%), and her head circumference was in the 25th percentile. I feel like these have basically been her percentiles from the very beginning. She has had a consistent growth pattern! She had a couple of rough teething days this month, but the ped says all her teeth are in now, so I'm so thankful we shouldn't have any  more of that for a bit! She also had her 6 month ENT appt this month and the doc says her tubes look great and are doing their job. She has been remarkably healthy for the past 7 months-it's been awesome! Here are a few other highlights about Miss Anne this month.

-The biggest news? She's officially a walker! The weekend prior to Thanksgiving I could tell she was getting more and more comfortable while we were visiting my parents in TN on 11/21. Throughout the week she seemed to WANT to walk and would "ask" to be put down (by demanding down! walk!). We were at Target on 11/24 and she wanted to walk the aisles. Big fits when we tried to pick her up. By Thanksgiving day, she was walking more than crawling. And here we are less than 2 weeks from that and all she is doing is walking now. She has changed from a baby to a toddler right before our very eyes! It is fun to see her exploring in new ways and toddling around like a big girl, too. My back is thanking her as well!:)

-A few other things I want to remember about her transition to walking-while she was still getting the hang of it, she and Henry would hold hands and walk around the house to practice. I couldn't get a good pic of this, but it was so sweet. She also went through a big phase of walking a few steps, then toppling down and immediately patting her head and saying "bonk!" (even though she didn't hit her head at all). She also went through a phase of putting her head down on the ground and her booty up in the air (like the first part of a somersault), then toppling over onto the carpet-over and over! She was so funny doing both of these things.

-She is talking SO much. The nursery workers all comment on how verbal she is and how much she communicates. Some new things she is saying this month are: I love you, Maggie, Mags, good girl, Mags!, up please, chalk, honey, jeep, socks, shoes, toes, side for outside, dink for drink, moe for more, cold (when she touched a cold cup, she said it), thank you mommy (repeating Henry), what's that (about everything!), trash, dirty, mess, yucky, slide, buck for cup, jacket, turkey, cleamup for clean up, right now! (oh yes), sorry mama, oh (after every answer we give her), rain rain! (the beginning of the song-if we walk outside and it's raining), poopoo and pats diaper, where pass go? (for where did my paci go?), I wanna have it, I wanna eat now, whoa! (EVERY time she sees the Christmas tree), big (when I give her a whole banana) and so many more!

-She wants to keep account of ALL the family all the time, so she is constantly asking, "where's dadda? where's bubba? where's mama?" As soon as she wakes up in the morning or from nap, the first thing she says is "where's bubba?" When I say, "bubba's sleeping" (or whatever), she says, "oh". If we are all in the car and Steven jumps out to run in somewhere, she immediately says, "where's dadda?" It is kind of amazing how aware she is of us all at all times. She is also in a phase of just saying all of our names over and over again in her car seat while we are driving like she is making a list of everyone in the family. Mama, dadda, bubba, Maggie. Over and over! She is attached to her blankie and will say "where's blankie", too.

-She loves to write (ie-make lines) with chalk outside, loves to use paper and crayons/pens/markers, etc, and loves to play with playdough. She dances to music when she hears it and tries to sing along to songs she knows-Jesus loves me, old McDonald, twinkle twinkle, etc. It's so cute to hear her baby voice try to say the words.

-She likes to throw trash away and will walk from the living room into the kitchen with some trash to throw away when we ask her to. She is totally obsessed with her toothbrush and goes and gets in the drawer herself and gets it out to "brush" her teeth. When we brush them at night it is a battle because she wants to do it herself, so it usually ends in major fits and serious sadness when teeth brushing time is over.

-She remains an awesome sleeper. She is so sweet and easy to put to sleep, and she NEVER cries when being but down. When we ask her if she wants to go night-night, she ALWAYS says, "uh-uh!" and snuggles right in. She loves her bed and will stay in there a long time once she wakes up just rolling around and playing with her blankie.

-She makes a monkey noise when we ask "what does the monkey say?" and also now knows more body parts-head, back, arms, legs, tongue, mouth. When she doesn't have a bow in her hair, she pushes her bangs back out of her face herself, and she looks like such a big girl. Steven and I both think it's so cute when she does it.:) She also plays with her hair while she goes to sleep in her car seat if we are driving somewhere.

-She knows her name and can say it. When we ask her what her name is, she points to her chest and says "Annie!". She also knows a joke-it is so funny and we don't know where she learned it. When we ask her how old she is, she holds up one finger on each hand and says, "two!". We say, "no! you're ONE!" and she says, "no!" in a teasing way. It is so cute and she laughs and does it over and over. Henry likes to do this with her.

-She's very friendly while we are out and is always waving and saying "hi!". At the grocery store the other day, she held her arms out to FOUR different women for a hug, and of course they ALL came over and gave her one right away. It was hilarious. I don't know what got into her!

-She is still in the baby nursery at church and has a special friend named Mr. Jason who spoils her and gives her all kinds of attention. I didn't realize how sweet their relationship was until some of the workers told me he is recently divorced and his 2 young kids are with his wife up in TN much of the time, so he comes to volunteer in the nursery and wants to be with Annie bc she reminds him of his daughter. They are 2 peas in a pod, and it is so cute! He comes on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights to be with her. So sweet.

And she's off!

Rock, rock, rock!

It's hard to get a pic that's not blurry-she's moving all the time!

Had to include this one of her saying night night right before Steven was putting her to bed.:)

Fall Break 2015

We had such a nice fall break this year! I have resigned myself to being ok with just not being able to keep up with posts like I used to (just trying to keep up with Annie's monthly posts is enough for me!), but I really want to document some major events when I can. I figure just getting some pics up is something!These are out of order, but oh well!

Friends Blakeley and Winnie babysat Annie while Henry and I got to go to Disney on Ice on Friday!

He was beyond thrilled!!

On Thursday after our beach trip we went to the farm to pick up Maggie and got in some farm time.

Before the farm, we ran by our friends' house who has baby chicks. Henry was loving it at you can see. Annie loved it too and kept making cheep cheep noises, but I just couldn't capture it!

Is that pic a framer, or what?!

We met my folks at at condo in Orange Beach from Friday through Wednesday and had a wonderful time. The weather was beautiful.

We got a pic of Annie in front of "Annie Girl" at Zeke's Landing, and I was happy it was there again! The pic isn't very good in the dark, but oh well. Now I am hoping this can become a tradition of a photo op each time we go!

Practicing her standing skills on the sand!

This was on the way!

She kept putting the shell in her hair and saying bow.

Annie loved the water but HATED the sand!!

And Henry was a fan of both!:)

We attempted some family beach shots. This always proves to be a challenge:)

We were sad to come home on Wednesday...sniff, sniff! It was a great trip!