18 Months

Annabelle turned 18 months on Thursday.  Where does time go?  We cannot believe that she is already a year and a half!  This past month has been filled with a lot of outside time, which is her favorite place to be.
I have really noticed the increase in her vocabulary. Each week I feel she is learning new words and things that she mimics us doing.  Along with the increase in words comes the increase in "no" and a handful of meltdowns.  They are very short lived, but the girl knows what she wants.  I feel they most commonly take place in Target where she does not want to leave, or is not getting what she wants :)  Imagine that. 

She is such a sweet little girl and loves to show her affection.  She knows how to give the best hugs and sloppy kisses.  Her food intake has remained the same and she is slowly starting to try more foods.  She loves applesauce and LOVES to feed it to herself.  I love watching her use her spoon and trying to do more things on her own.  She is a great cleaner and will get the mop and try to help clean up.  I think she gets that from her dad :)

Some of this month's highlights:
- She goes down still about 7:30 and sleeps until 7ish. 
- She is in size 5 diapers and 18 month - 2T clothing. 
- At her 18 month appointment she weighed 26 lbs. 11 ounces (80%) and 32" tall (75%).  She still has some rolls on her legs and her tummy, but is thinning out.
- She only naps for about an hour to two hours once a day
- She loves the pool and playing outside.  Some of our closest friends moved in a few doors down in May and she associates outside with their son Knox, so we are constantly saying, "Outside, Knox".  It's pretty darn cute.
- She took her worst spill yet and got pretty banged up.  We were at Kristi and Heath's house one night just hanging on their back porch and Andy came strolling down the stairs and Annabelle went running after him, but did not see that the patio had a stair to it and went toppling down.  She scraped up her face pretty bad and was an unhappy little girl.  Thank goodness she did not get more hurt than she did, but it left a good bump on her head and scrape on her chin.
- She adores Avery and gets so excited when we get to go play with her. 
- Favorite words this month - outside, Knox, Avery, bebe (Binky), sit down, lovey, milk, doggies, shoes
- The other night we were getting ready for bed and reading "No More Monkeys" and at the end she said "no more monkeys" while pointing her index finger out like she was scolding them. 

Lots of changes to come for our family in the near future...I'll write more later!