18 Months Old

Dear Hailey,

Hello my sweet little peanut!  We have clocked another month in your precious young life, and your daddy and I are still as smitten with you as the day you were born.  I say this every month but you are so sweet, so smart, and SO silly!  You make us laugh every day with the funny things you say/jabber and the funny motions you make.  You love to dance to music and act out your own special versions of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, and If You're Happy and You Know it.  You have grown leaps and bounds in the 6 months since your birthday, and I can only imagine what the next 6 months will bring.  But one thing is certain, your daddy and I are positively in love with you!

Here is a rundown of where we are at 1 and half years old:

• 24 pounds, 12 ounces (57%) 
• 2 feet, 8 inches tall (32 inches) (61%)
• You wear 24m clothing and jammies with a few 18's and 2T's thrown in for good measure.
• Your shoe size is 5, and your left foot is a half size bigger than your right - just like mama!
• You are still cloth diapered most of the time but when we wear sposies you are in size 4.
• Your favorite food by far is yogurt.  No matter the meal time, as soon as you get in your high chair you say "Yo!?".  You eat plain organic whole milk yogurt and I add some agave nectar to sweeten it up a bit.  You also love fruit.  Your curent favorite fruits are blueberries, bananas, and apples. You also like bread, graham crackers, cheese, pasta, and applesauce. 
• A list of your least favorite foods would take up this entire post, so I'll just say you are a very picky eater!  You refuse to eat any meat whatsoever.  Basically you won't eat anything that doesn't look familiar.  I hope you outgrow this!
• You still love your milk, or "wawa" in your words!  You drink 3-4 sippy cups of organic whole milk every day. 
• You love any container that you can climb into, especially laundry baskets. 

• You have around 65 single words.  Your frequently used words are: more, no more, bye, hi, dog, mama, Buh (Bucky), wawa, up, out, shoe, book, wawa, baby/babies, please, and I love you/thank you ("ah you"!).  A couple new cute ones you learned lately are Ho Ho (for Santa) and "night night" - melts my heart!!  You are not yet putting two words together, but you can communicate pretty darn clearly by using single words!
• You do the signs for "all done", "more", and "eat".
• You take 1 nap per day, about 1-1.5 hours long, and sleep for 11 hours at night (down at 7:00, up at 6:00).  You go down without a fight and sometimes even wave at me and say "bye!" when I walk out of the room. 
• You love to play with your baby dolls, patting their backs, "shushing" them and feeding them their bottles. 
• You have 12 teeth (6 on bottom, 6 on top, including 4 molars).  You LOVE having your teeth brushed!
• Your favorite shows are Clifford and Barney.  I love it when you dance around to the music and point to things on the screen that you recognize and then name them.  We watch Sesame Street sometimes, too, but other than when Elmo is on the screen, you really don't care for it too much.
• You LOVE music!  I play kid music around the house and in the car, and you are always saying "more! more!" before the song is even over!  Your favorite by far is the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I've probably sang it a thousand times this past month :) 
• You haven't used a paci since you were 9 months old, and you aren't really attached to any blankets or lovies either.  You do like to snuggle with Baby and Hoo Hoo when you go to sleep, but you can sleep just fine without them too.

talk about precious!

• You have started to do some cute girly things lately, too.  You love to put on ALL of mommy's headbands, brush your hair, pretend to put on makeup, wear pretty jewelry (mardi gras beads...), and play in Grandma Peggy's makeup case - especially with her nail file and lotion.  You rub your hands together, smell them and say "ohh nigh (nice)!".  Oh, and you like to wear purses (around your neck!).

• You sweet blonde hair is growing longer and poker straight!  Not a curl in sight.  Mommy loves to put your hair in ponytails and pigtails :) 
• Your eyes are still bright blue and beautiful.

• The Christmas season is here and I have taught you who "Ho Ho" is.  However, you were not too keen on him when we took you to see him at the mall!  You just sat on his lap and reached your hands out to me with these two tiny tears going straight down your face saying "Mama!?  Mama!?"  You've never squeezed me so tight as when I took you off his lap!  Afterwards you kept saying "No more.  No more.  No more."

• With the exception of 4 days around Thanksgiving, your daddy has been gone since November 1st working hard up in New Jersey and New York.  We missed him so much and were so happy when he came home this afternoon!!  Now the Christmas season can officially begin :)

Hailey Rian, you continue to make your daddy and I so happy and proud.  Happy Half Birthday, Sweet Girl! 

Great Grandma feeding me some nummy applesauce

fun afternoon at carondelet park with mommy

naptime with dolly

hooray for me eating off a real plate!  and yes I gave her way too much food.  She probably ate about a fourth of each section.  Sigh. 

ooh, i'm so stuffed after that big thanksgiving dinner!  (NOT, I only ate applesauce and a biscuit.)

stacking blocks with uncle day-bed

morning snuggles

pinkies up!

feeding cheerios to dolly and hoo hoo



taunting bucks with a stick

dinner party!

no shoes and no coat playing outside in december?  sure!

Feeding Papa a cookie

smooches from great grandma

pure sweetness

happy 59th birthday papa!!

st. nick's day 2012

back off, blondie, this is MY toy

baking cookies with my favorite 4 year old

attempted cousin pic while waiting for santa...

 

And last but not least, an update on one of the Christmas projects I'm working on.  A huge thank you to my dad for working on this while Rian was away.  And Rian and I still have lots to do before Christmas to get it complete!  Paint, countertops, oven chains, stove top, back board, hang picture/curtains/shelves, etc..........  And here is where we stand today: