Monday, July 27, 2009

18 Months Old!!

I can't believe that Laurel is a year and a half already! Time has gone by so quickly these last 18 months.

She has gone from this...




To this in just 18 months!





I am enjoying all the new changes that Laurel is going through although she can be a handful at times!

She has begun singing the last word in lines from her favorite songs like I am a Child of God, and Pop goes the Weasel. She loves to do the motions and dance to songs like I'm a Little Teapot, 5 Little Monkeys, 5 Little Ducks (thanks for teaching that one to us Aunt Brandi), The Hokey Pokey, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Once There Was a Snowman, and many more.

Her favorite game right now is Ring Around the Rosy and she will do it forever! Every time we fall down at the end she jumps back up, reaches for mine and Matt's hands, and says "more", "again", or "please". It is so cute, but after about 10 rounds of it you get start to get a little dizzy!

She is also learning some of her numbers, colors, and ABCs and is talking like crazy. The other day I started to make a list of all the words she knows to take to our 18 month check up, but I stopped at about 250! She is learning words so fast it is impossible to keep up with her.

She can do about 30 animal sounds although her lion, tiger, bear, jaguar, etc. all sound kind of the same. Her frog sound is so funny, "lipplet" and we also love her snake sound, "hissssssssss". Haha! She can name almost all her body parts including odd ones like her chin and elbows. She likes to point to our body parts and name them as well. I'm not too crazy about "eye" (she will stab your eye out!) or "boobies" which Matt encourages her to do!

One of the funniest things she likes to do lately is make "nests" or piles of stuff and then sit on them. She will pull all the clothes down from the couch (where they are waiting for me to fold them) and then add her blankets, pillows, baby dolls, toys, etc to the piles. Just beware, she gets really mad if you mess with her piles!

She also LOVES to "color", but you have to be careful because she will color on the walls, herself, one time on the toilet, if you don't watch her. She is getting a lot better about coloring on "paper" because she knows I will take them away otherwise.

Of course she still LOVES to run, jump, and climb every chance she can get. I have to keep a very close eye on so she won't kill herself with her daring deeds. We will be starting gymnastics next month so hopefully that will give her a good outlet for all her excess energy! But probably it will just give her more ideas!!

It is so hard to get anything done nowadays. I have to watch her so closely to keep her safe and because I will be cleaning up one room and she will be in another room wreaking it! She is not happy when I'm doing something besides paying attention to her!

I spend most of my days just playing with her and reading and singing. She is growing up so fast and I'm trying to enjoy every minute!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Happy 4th!!

We had a great 4th of July and I loved seeing Laurel enjoy it so much. Last 4th she was only 5 months old! Our Independence Day celebrations began on Thursday when I took Laurel to get some pictures made in her cute little stars and stripes outfit. On Friday we went swimming during the day and then went to the park in the evening. That was Laurel's favorite part (not surprising!). We then went to see Fireworks which Laurel was not crazy about, maybe next year she'll enjoy them more. They were really loud because we set up our blanket right across from where they were being set off. Saturday we went to Matt's parents house and canned pickles and then picked blueberries. We picked blueberries last 4th too and it was so neat to have Laurel be able to help this year. She ate way more than she picked. When she could not reach the ones on the branches, she just stole berries right out of the bucket! We had a great weekend, but we were all very tired as well! Enjoy a few pictures that I took on Friday (I forgot my camera on Saturday)!

Laurel at the park going down the slides.


Trying to escape so she could go down more slides.


Riding on Daddy.

Watching a dog.

Playing with Daddy's phone while we waited for fireworks!

Laurel being scared at the fireworks :(

I still can't believe that it is already July. Laurel is going to be 18 months at the end of this month! My baby is growing up so fast!