18 Months Old!!

Can you believe it's already been a year and a half! My sweet little baby is now a sweet little toddler! I took her to the doctor today for her check up and she came in at 25 pounds, 13 ounces (about 50-75th percentile), and 34 inches long (97th percentile!!) so it's looking like she'll end up like her brother, tall and skinny! She is currently getting over strep throat and scarlet fever, but doing just fine. Other than that, she checked out fine, right on schedule developmentally. I had to laugh when her doc asked if she could turn the pages in a book because that is seriously all this girl does! She will sit for hours and just look at books, so sweet!

So here is some more of what she is up to these days:

She loves to play "tackle" with her brother but she usually ends up biting him :(

She likes to eat most foods, she is a big pizza and spaghetti fan, and she loves marshmallows! She is getting better at eating with a fork and spoon, she's got the spoon down pretty well, and she knows what to do with the fork, it's just not quite there yet. She likes to try and drink from a big girl cup (one with no lid), but she still needs someone to hold it for her. She has to have her own plate and I think her high chair days are coming to an end.

She loves to climb on anything and everything. She has finally figured out how to climb up her slide that Santa brought her, but now she wants to climb the shelves and onto the kitchen table and yesterday when I got her up from her nap she was trying to climb on her crib bumper, might be time to take that out. I really would like for her to stay in her crib for at least another year, but if she's anything like Timothy she'll be jumping out of it soon! Guess we should get a mattress for that big girl bed!

She talks non-stop! Most of it is gibberish and the other half consists of her screaming "mommy", don't get me wrong, I'm glad she can finally say it, I just wish I didn't have to hear it so much! But she talks quite well and she knows several animal sounds and names of people that she sees a lot. She is a little chatterbox, but I love to hear her sweet little voice!

Her favorite toys are her books and her babies. She carries her babies around wherever she goes and reads to them or feeds them or covers them up and says, "shhh" or "nite nite". It's so fun to see her little imagination at work already.

She loves to sing songs and she's learning some of the words. Her favorites so far are "If You're Happy", "Wheels on the Bus", "I'm a Little Teapot", "Old McDonald", "Row Row Row", "This Little Light", and "Jesus Loves Me".

As always, she loves to go to Bible class and loves all of her teachers. She lights up every time she sees them which I love because I know she's enjoying herself which means someday that she'll learn a lot from them.

And as always, we are so blessed to have her in our lives! She keeps us laughing and keeps us on our toes! I just still can't believe that in six months I'll have a two year old little girl, every day with her is so special!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!!

This past Monday, since Brandon finally had a day off of work, we decided to go to the zoo and renew our membership. It is really the best money we spend all year, because I take those kids there at least once a month, they love it! Anyway, we had to wait and go after Charlotte woke up from her nap because it was WAY to cold to go in the morning, so we got there an hour or so before they closed, which was perfect. It was nice and empty and we had a great excuse to leave when it was time! As usual, the kids had a great time and I actually remembered to bring the camera and snap a few pictures.

Just for the record, the both love to watch the bears and the monkeys. Timothy loves to see the fish and alligators and has finally decided that he likes the hippos (we went through a phase last year where he was scared to death of them, I think because they were so close up), but he is still terrified of the aquarium, he'll go in there, but he doesn't like it - I guess he takes after his mommy with her fear of fish and the ocean! Charlotte likes pretty much anything that she can see. They both love to go in the Tiny Tot Nature Spot, it's so cute, it's a whole section of the zoo just for small children and they have so many fun "hands on" things for them to do. In the summer, they have a river bank where the kids and play in the water, it's really a nice set up. Anyway, enjoy the pictures! Hopefully we'll get a warmer and sunnier day again soon so we can go back!

Cabin Fever

It has rained so much in the past month, I feel like I'm living back in Washington. And it's been really really cold. Even when we get a day that it's not raining or foggy or misting, the ground is so wet and muddy and the pollen counts are so high that we can't play outside! So, needless to say, we've been spending quite a bit of time indoors. Here are a few random pictures from the past few weeks.

Charlotte has decided that she likes to eat her breakfast and lunch at her little table instead of in her high chair. She actually eats pretty well there, and since that means that she actually eats instead of screaming "mommy" the whole time, for me, it's a win-win. Plus, she looks pretty cute sitting there and eating out of her tea set (because all the food has to go in the cups before she can eat it).

My mom got Timothy this cool book that turned out to be a tree house complete with make your own pipe cleaner bugs and pop up furniture, so one day when it was really yucky outside, we pulled this out and put it all together and he played with it for a long time. He liked to change the bugs' clothes and make them sit on the couch to watch movies.

And I threw this one in just because they look so darn sweet! It's rare these days to get a real nice smile out of him, so I take every one I can get! When we had pictures of the kids made with Brandon's parents at Christmas, the girl kept telling him to smile with his mouth instead of his eyes! Either way, his smiles are sweet to me :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope your day is filled with love, Timothy made my day by telling me "thank you for loving me mommy" at lunch today. They woke up to heart shaped pancakes and they each got a new back pack with a treat inside. Hopefully the rest of the day will go well!

Birthday Party

Sorry for the lack of posting recently, it's been a little crazy around here. Last weekend, we drove over to Brandon's parent's house to help celebrate our nephew Easton's birthday. Timothy always love to go to Meme and Papa's house because he gets to play with the puppies and usually he gets a tractor or a 4-wheeler ride. This time, it was pretty muddy and gross, so we mostly played inside. The birthday party was fun, Timothy loved bouncing in the bounce house and Charlotte pretty much just wanted to walk around in the muddy grass. Can't believe Easton is already 3, that means Timothy will be 4 and I'm just not ready to admit that yet :) Here are some pictures from the party!