Itty Bitty, 20 months and lots of change

Wow another 5 months have flown by! It's very sad actually.  When I first drafted this post, Sophia just hit 18 months, but it has taken me this long to publish it. Time keeps slipping away, and things, outside my blog have taken priority.  I can't believe it. There are many days that I think I am missing out on documenting so many memories, but then again, I am spending my time living them to their fullest and soaking them in. The last 4 months have been crazy. We bought a new house and have spent everyday since May cleaning our old one, getting it ready to find a renter (which we did!), packing, unpacking, garage sales, many trips to goodwill and the dump, and just getting settled in the new house. We are so happy with our decision to move. The new house has an AMAZING, HUGE backyard for our family to make lots of memories in. Did I mention there is a pool! The girls love it and so do we. It's a great, comfortable place for us to watch our girls grow!

So Sophia is now almost 20 months and my sweet sweet Emmy is closer to 4! Birthday planning will commence any day now, which is unbelievable. Because I don't want this to be the longest post in history, I will commit this one to an update on Sophia and then Emmy deserves a post of her very own. So here's whats new with Miss Sassy Sophia!

Words: SO MANY WORDS! Sophia has exploded with words, especially over the last month. At her check up the doctor said  she should have at least 28 words by the time she is one.  Well we counted and she is well over 100. Woot!  Some of her most used words are pancake (can cake), berry (blueberry), mine, no, hot (said in a whisper), jump, pinkie pie (one of Emmy's My Little Ponies), Kiki, Nani, drink (dink), hungry, snack (nack), bye-bye, nye-nye, bubble, please (peas), nose (no), thank you, "phia," bird and airplane. The last two she yells any time she sees either a bird or hears an airplane.  She babbles a ton and there are some phrases she says over and over that we are still trying to decode. She repeats everything  I am really happy with her word progress.  I am going to try and put together a comprehensive list so I have it because it's fun to see where she is to date.  

Signs: more, all done, please, eat, milk, water, sleep and thank you.
Stats: 12 month tops and bottoms, Size 3 diapers, Size 3 shoes. She weighs 21 lbs 6 oz and is 30 1/4 inches tall at 18 months and is in the 10th percentile for weight and height. She is teenie tiny.  It's funny because everyone always says what a chub she is.  She is actually smaller than Emmy was at this age.  She may be tiny, but she is also a very strong minded little girl. 
Things she loves:

• Singing- She sings parts of twinkle, twinkle little star and no more monkeys jumping on the bed.  She also sings to the tune of the ABCs.    

• Still loves dancing and music.  Her favorite song is I Don't Care by Icona Pop. Mother of the year right here. 

• books, but she would rather read them to you than the other way around

• Jumping

• Hugging and kissing Emmy. She sure loves her sister and the feeling is mutual.

• Laughing.  She is seriously so happy.

• Food- ALL FOOD.  She is a great eater.  She almost always clears her plate.  She also likes to snack, which we are working on.  Her favorites are any kind of berry, string cheese, broccoli, and pancakes.  

• Sleeping-She still sleeps amazing, although bed time can be tough because she wants to stay up and play.  She will whine for about 2 minutes and then will fall asleep for the night.  I usually wake her up for school around 7, but on the weekends she will sleep till about 7:30 or so.

• Sophia is very physical.  She has no fear, which is so different from Emmy who was our very cautious, verbal child.  I would say she is ahead of the game on her fine and gross motor skills.  She can climb up the stairs holding onto the wall. She jumps and climbs.  She can latch and almost unlatch the straps on her booster seat and depending on the shoe, she is pretty close to putting her shoes on by herself to name a few things.    

• We are working on numbers and letters.  She says words to the "tune" of our counting or singing the alphabet, but is not super clear yet for me to consider it counting or at getting past C in the alphabet. 

• Sophia has really blossomed over the last few months.  She is very sweet and super silly.  She is very outgoing.  Seems to be out of her stranger danger phase and has lots of friends.  Her words have exploded.  She is a master at throwing tantrums.  She does not like to be told no and she is very determined when she sets her mind to something.  As she learns to communicate more this will get better, but it's all about her learning boundaries and right from wrong.  Because her communication skills are still developing, she gets very frustrated and has been known to pinch and sometimes bite.  We are working on that.  Overall she is such a sweet baby and so much fun to be around!

What's New: We had lots of firsts this summer, including first time on an airplane, first ice cream cone and ice cream sandwich and first trip to the beach. Other than that, basically everything in our routine is new with the new house.  We are finally settled in and loving making this house a home.

The good stuff:

13, 14, and 15 months

Holy Cow!  Where did the last 3 months go! Sophia is almost 15 months old.  So crazy.  I feel like she has grown a ton over the last few months.  Her list of words gets longer by the day. She talks a ton, but a lot of it is chatter with a couple recognizable words here and there.  We are so happy to watch her grow at her own pace and see all the things she learns and soaks up from us.  She is such a sponge!  She'd rather show you what she can do, than have you ask her. So we are constantly surprised with the things she knows.  The last 3 months have been amazing.  I am ok with my breaks from blogging, because it means that more of my time is spent with my girls.

Words: Mommy, Daddy, thank you, dog, woof woof, more (mo), here go(when handing us something), baby, Bodhi (Bo), Uh oh (most used word ever), shoes, book, Abby, please (peas), Emmy (memmy), night night (nye, nye), meow, kitty, cow, moo, quack quack, bubble, no (no, no, no. Can't be said just once).

Signs: more, all done, please, eat, milk, water, sleep and thank you.

Stats: 12 month tops and bottoms, Size 3 diapers, Size 3 shoes. She weighs 20 lbs 10 oz and is 29 inches tall at 15 months and is in the 15-20 percentile for weight and height.

Things she loves:

• Pat-a-cake and pointing at everything in sight.  
• Dancing and music. She is a dancing fool.  She especially loves some car dancing.
• Reading a good book
• Yoga
• Climbing up the stairs and very cautiously back down
• Snuggling and kissing her buddies
• Running around. She's getting super fast
• Food: Favorites are string cheese, cut fruit, especially blueberries, mac n cheese, sliced turkey/ham, hot dogs and chicken nuggets.
• Sleeping. She is still an amazing sleeper.  Never fusses, just goes right to bed, usually not later than 7:15.  On the weekend she will sleep in till about 8. Love her. 

What's New:

• Sophia is about a week away from being breast milk free.  I can't say enough how happy I am that my experience breast feeding was such an amazing one with her.  It was with Emily too, but I produced so much more and was able to offer it to Sophia for much longer.  She started transitioning about a month ago by us giving her one sippy cup a day of half whole milk/half breast.  She didn't seem to have any problems, so we eventually stopped taking the milk to school and she got a mixture at home and strictly whole at school.  It was such an easy process.
• With that we also ditched bottles for good.  She was only getting two day till about 13 months and then down to one a day till 13 1/2 months.  She gave it up, no problem. Dropping bottles also meant a change in our morning and evening routines and Sophia picked them up seamlessly.  She is such an east, go with the flow baby.  

The good stuff:

Crazy Hair, Don't Care!

Noni is so proud!

Loving Sushi

Little Stinker

She got a hold of a marker.  You can't tell but her mouth and hards are  dark blue

Sweet Girl

Daddy did my hair

Ballet

Emily had her ballet recital two weeks ago, and while she didn't dance for the group, she looked super sweet and super happy.  She has only been in the class for about a month and I would say more kids stood there smiling, than those who actually "performed." I don't blame them.  There were about 20 parents staring at them and I think they all got a little stage fright. I think as she continues with her classes, she will become much more comfortable.  She talks about ballet a lot at home and I am glad she has found something to be interested in. . Even the instructor said she was surprised at how shy Emmy was.  She said she normally dances around the entire class and is very outgoing. Here are some pictures of my sweet girl! Looking forward to watching her many performances to come.

Easter

Two months late...Better than never...I scheduled this to publish and then noticed that never happened.  Dang it! I have a terrible habit of not pulling pictures off my camera in a timely manner.  I am also having issues with blogger and uploading pictures from my Mac.  It's part of the reason I don't blog, like ever.

Anyway, we had a nice relaxing Easter.  The day before we took Emmy to a hunt in our parent's neighborhood.  There is a big park and every year they do a big hunt for the kids.  I would bet there were over 100 kids there.  It lasted all of 3 minutes, but Emmy had a great time and got to see the Easter Bunny.

Yeah, he as terrifiying.

On Easter, we woke up early, got dressed for church and went to explore what the Easter Bunny left for the girls.  When we were little the Easter Bunny would hide treats around the house (at least that is how I remember it). Apparently my mom was better at picking up our stuff because it was obvious what the Easter Bunny had left.  Not so much the case at our house, but the girls loved it.  We may rethink our approach next year.  Haha.

 After breakfast we went to Church and came home to get the girls down for an early nap.

We have gone to my Aunt Corine's house for Easter every single year, since I was little, and this year was no different.  Lunch was at 1, so we made sure that both girls got at least a little nap before we went over.  They both did great.  We haven't had smaller kids in the family for  a while, but this year, my cousin brought her kids over and we hid a bunch of eggs all over my aunt's yard for them to hunt.  Sophia had absolutely no desire to hunt, which Emmy loved, because it meant more eggs for her!  We filled the eggs with mostly healthy, kid friendly items, but some chocolate snuck it's way in.  Like good parent's, we hid the chocolate (to later be eaten by us) and the girls chowed down on the Teddy Graham and Goldfish filled eggs.  Both girls were pretty worn out after that. Basically Easter was a success and a wonderfully blessed day!

Wild woman

Soph made a buddy

 

Family photo-as good as it gets. :)

Some outtakes