Grace is now closer to 18 months

Is it bad this just makes me laugh? Woo hoo!

The 15 month post for Grace is now the "nearly 17 month old post/closer to 18 months post (aka nearly 1.5 years old)!"

Smiley girl

"Cheese!"

Grace is such a ball of energy and I hear it over and over again: "Grace is SO busy." I don't really know what "busy" means, but I do know she shouldn't be left alone. Otherwise she will climb to the third level of the shelves in the playroom closet and get herself stuck there. Thankfully, William came and got me. "Mommy, Grace is stuck." Then, I've brought her to open gym time and I've had other moms that don't know us, ask: "She isn't your first, right?" Ha! Is that a compliment? I think so! I'm glad Grace isn't a shy girl. I like that she's out there, getting at it! She runs in a crowd smiling and waving at strangers. She didn't have a problem pushing the older boy that jumped in her way at the open gym time. The slide at the playground didn't present a single worry in her mind, and down she goes! 

Jump, jump, jump!

William: "Grace you need your bow! Come back!"

At the same time she is mellow. She's flexible and she's happy to go anywhere and do anything. She loves a great time. William makes her laugh so hard and she loves to join in the fun when she sees big brother doing something funny. It isn't hard to get her to try something new either.

Now that you took a picture, I want to climb.

What's William doing?

She's so smart. I can give her so many instructions already and she listens. Some of her claim to fames: Go find Pinky (her bear) and off she goes looking for the bear. Go find your shoes and off she goes to the mudroom to find a pair to bring back to me, then sits down and puts her foot up. Sit down and let's change your diaper and she lays down on her back and puts her feet in the air. Throw the trash away and she will go to the kitchen island, open the drawer, put the trash in and close the drawer (this is the most impressive and something I think took William until 20 months to do! Must be a girl thing ;) Let's go eat and she RUNS to her high chair and climbs up. Let's take a bath and she runs for the stairs to head upstairs. She's also saying words like ball, thank you, no, hi there, airplane, dog, baby, mama, dada, all aboard, water (wa-wa), all done, bye-bye and cheese, and also repeating lots of words we say too. A favorite thing to do right now is say "Shh..." and she raises her finger to her mouth. 

Loves the rocking chairs.

Yells "cheese" as soon as a camera appears.

Saw teenage girls and wanted to join their fun.

Goofy girl

She dropped the morning nap probably three weeks ago. It had been sporadic for the month leading up with her occasionally sleeping and then some days she'd just hang out in bed jumping from one end of the crib to the other. I gave up trying and when William is at school bring her to do something fun. We've been going to the open gym on Friday and it's been really fun to get the girl time. Poor thing has been following William around every where and now we can do something she'd like to do. Don't tell William though. He'd be pretty jealous to know she's been at the gym! He loves the gym time too.

Eye protection for the fearless one

Favorite toys are probably the airplanes and cars! I see her flying the airplane in the air and making flying noises. Then she will crawl along the ground with cars, also making car noises. She loves wearing shoes and is always bring a new pair over to me to put on her. She's very good at kicking her soccer ball too! She runs and kicks it, keeps running and kicks it again. Quite athletic!

She is giving hugs and kisses when asked. But usually laughs when you try to give her a kiss. She thinks it's hysterical and doesn't exactly dive in sometimes (unlike William who is constantly asking for hugs and kisses ha!). She likes a good open mouth kiss - so funny! It's the sweetest at night when we tell her to say goodnight to William. She runs over to him and they both hug each other. William gives her a kiss on the forehead and she loves it!

William tries for a hug and Grace of course laughs and plays
hard to get!

She loves to eat avocados, bananas, bread, cheese. She really isn't a HUGE candy/treat fan. She will eat it - don't get me wrong, but she doesn't seem to DEVOUR it like William. We ordered chocolate chip pancakes at breakfast a couple days ago and she literally made the most disgusted face when she tasted it. But a plain pancake or a pancake with blueberries in it is delicious to her.

Carbo loading

Stair climber

Loves her sparkle shoes

Yummy dinner?

Getting longer

Loves her Pinky bear

Oh hayy!

Laughs all the time

Climber in action

As you can see from several of the pictures, Pinky is still her favorite. She's grown very attached to her white blanket too. William has the exact same one in green. I will check on her at bedtime and she will have the white blanket over her head and she's passed out. She loves to cuddle with it.

I signed up Grace for 2 day 2's in the fall. I can't believe it. She still seems like my little baby, but she's getting big fast. Her hair is getting fuller and longer. I can't wait to braid it! She has a mouth full of teeth and she's getting taller - I'm buying 2T clothing for her now. She will start swim lessons at the end of March. Lots going on for Miss Grace! Nearly 1.5 years old!

Keep up the good work, little lady! You are the happiest, prettiest little girl and we love you bunches and bunches. XOXO!

Pretty girl!!

17 Months

William turned 17 months a few weeks ago - nearly 1 1/2!

17 months on the 4th of July in NC

The past few months have been amazing in terms of what William "gets" now. He's:

• Answering questions like, "What does a pig say?" <<insert pig noise>>
• Acknowledges me when I ask questions like, "Where is your green blanket?" Runs into his bedroom and pulls his favorite blanket out of his crib.
• Responds when I say, "Let's put your shoes on now." Grabs the nearest shoes, runs to the front door and sits down waiting for me to put his shoes on.
• He has a lot of body parts down - nose, ears, teeth, head. Whenever I get him up from a nap, he likes me to lean forward so he can point out mama's nose before leaving his crib.
• He knows a lot of words too - maybe he needs a translator (aka me), but says a good amount:
  Car, keys, Maggie, mama, dada, cracker, shoes, truck, dog, Maggie, cup, and all time FAVORITE word is ball. He spots a "ball" every where we go and it's not unusual for him to run up to strangers playing with a ball and try to intercept it.

A few of his favorite toys nowadays are -- any type of ball, his new baseball bat - He lifts the ball on the base then uses the bat to hit the ball, Legos are the newest hit - I bought a big bag for him and he sits there stacking them as high as they'll go, books - though he isn't the greatest at sitting still for the whole story. He loves to flip through by himself and point at different things then make funny noises.

The tantrums are popping up too. I can see the frustration in that he wants help, but can't express what he needs. He'll run up to me and just wail with a worried expression on his eyes - which means follow me, I need you NOW! The result being... sippy cup refill necessary OR my green blanket is stuck in my crib and I can't pull him out OR the ball is underneath the table and I can't reach it. 

He is VERY attached to Matt or rather "dada" nowadays. He went through a huge attachment to Matt a few months ago before we moved and it dissipated. Now it is back! The funny thing is the separation anxiety is when he's not even separated from Matt. He's upset if Matt is in the house and not holding him. Matt walks to another room (William is free to follow him if he'd like), but instead of just following for fun William breaks into tears. Once Matt leaves altogether William is fine though. It is very sweet how much he loves his dada!

Cuddling with dada

William's absolute favorite thing and can't live without right now is "Green blanket" - yes the most creative name we have for it. The blanket was a gift from one of my mom's friends in D.C. We didn't encourage the attachment, but William has grown very, very fond of it. So much so that our A++ sleeper the other night wasn't falling asleep for some reason (chatting away in bed) then we realized... oh, green blanket is here in the family room. Brought green blanket in and he went straight to bed. I have a mini green blanket (it's actually blue, but the same type) that sits in the car. The mini blanket does the trick with car rides when they're on the longer side. William still doesn't like to be in the car for long, so at least mini blanket makes him feel better. And he's still sucking his thumb when he's tired. As soon as he spots green blanket or a soft stuffed animal, he associates it with bedtime, pops his thumb in and is happy to hit the hay.

Green blanket and Dog. Ready for bed.

Mr. Independent. He wants to do so much more by himself, which is great! He wants to hold all his blocks by himself, he wants to hold the keys and try to unlock the front door. He wants to hold Maggie's leash when we're walking.

I'm gonna carry these all by myself...

He's also officially down to 1 nap a day. It was kind of tough figuring out the transition from 2 naps to 1 nap mostly because of swim. Swim was in the morning and it would wear him out. So his 1st nap was delayed due to the timing of swim and he couldn't hold on until the 2nd nap, so he was sleeping early - like, 11am early. Then not wanting to go down again later in the afternoon. It was weeks of not knowing exactly what he needed. He was tired, but not so tired for two naps... confusing, yes. Once swim wrapped up it became much easier to get him down later in the day. It started at 11:30a and now we are very close to 1p. 12:30pm is probably more the norm and hopefully we can get to 1p in the coming weeks before little sis arrives!

Speaking of teeth - lots of new ones popping through. 5 right now actually. He will have a full mouth in the next couple weeks. Those molars looked so painful coming through and definitely contributed to some crankiness - understandably so.

Overall, William is a super active little man. Very interested in every single thing in the world around him. He wants to run constantly and explore constantly. He loves clapping, he LOVES waving and blowing kisses at everyone (especially truck drivers ha!). Has a ton of fun at the Y daycare playing with all the different kids and toys, which makes me think he will adore school in the fall. He's super affectionate - not unusual for him to run up to me randomly without prompting at all and give me a smooch. He definitely reserves the most kisses for his mama :) Laughs hard and is quick to pick up new knowledge. He definitely impresses us each and every day!

Cracking up at the dolphin show at Seaworld

We haven't learned dolphin just yet! Cow, dog, pig for now.

Always running! How most pictures look nowadays.

This was a LONG post, but so much to report on William. His 18 month (1.5 years old!) wellness appointment is next week. I love those wellness visits. Can't wait to check on his progress!