16 Months and Counting

Our little Mo turned 16 months yesterday. My goodness, how time flies.

She's got some sweet bangs, courtesy of the Dardens, I think.

She's been all smiles and happiness the past few days, which was good for me since Zack's been down and out since Thursday (fever, exhaustion).

Mara loves pinwheels and we have to stop almost daily to see the pinwheel garden at daycare. It's there to recognize domestic abuse month, I believe, but we're fiercely reminded to stop and admire them on our way in and out of school.

She's been able to blow the fan a little bit, but she mostly likes to swing it around, as shown in the above picture. She loves bubbles and can say the word! It's not even Ba Ba - it's Buh Bull. SO CUTE! She loves trying to blow on the wand and has been successful at making her own bubbles a few times. She prefers to dip the wand in the bottle and fling soap everywhere... When I tell her to blow, she usually starts well before the wand is anywhere in range - she does the same with hot food when I tell her we need to blow on it. At least she's practicing!

I got her a little plastic camera so she can get some revenge on me for the 16 months of photos... but I think she's so used to only seeing one end of the camera that she doesn't know how it's supposed to work. HA!

She's still awalkin and atalkin... more talking than ever! She was reading a book on the way home this evening and we both swear she said Baby Bird. Definitely came out a little muddled, but there was a chick on the page she was looking at, and I do tell her it's a baby bird. Regardless, she's still learning more signs and I need to go look up some more.

Mara got lots of compliments on her clearance dress from Target:

She still points out just about every car or truck she sees and likes to bang on ours:

Little Mo skinned her knees about a week ago and reskinned them at daycare yesterday when the resident toddler bully yanked on my keys (which Mara was holding) and she screamed and held on for dear life! Good for her! But she landed on her knees on the only little concrete pad by the door from the playground to the classroom. This bully kid about drives me crazy - he pushes and kicks and he was on his belly on the floor gnawing on the tips of my shoes. I mean, what??

I need to get a new hummingbird feeder. Mara's been carrying around this one and putting the plastic flower back in the hole (it's broken).

I hit up the local flea market with Arson on Sunday while Mara and Z were napping and came away with a little Thomas the Tank Engine train (paid too much for it, but I wanted it). I am so glad I did b/c Mara adores it. Get a load of these smiles:

I snapped all these when Thomas was on his way back to Mara, which she loved.

Just FYI - I really have to make an effort to anticipate (wild guess!) which direction Mo is gonna take when she out awandering... and I dive in front of her to try to get whatever shots I can. But THIS is my usual view:

BIRD! (she can spot them yards away, hidden behind a tree leaf. I dunno how.)

Thanks for listening!

Happy little Mo

My two favorite people in the whole wide world are fast asleep right now... so it's the perfect time to download pics from my camera and give you all a post!

Little Mo had a fever against yesterday so I had to leave a little early from work. Who knows what's going on. She seems fine otherwise. I love that she's been in a snuggly Mommy mood the last week or so. Makes me feel special and loved! She likes to throw the ball and frisbee for the dogs:

The other day I thought she was walking around Arson when suddenly I see her collapse on top of him and give him a giant bear hug. He looked at her like, uhhh, then put his head back down. He didn't get upset until she started rubbing him with her whole body. Haha. At least he's semi-tolerant. Mara loves going outside, as you can see from these pictures from last week.

The bees make me nervous... but so far she just points them out. She helped me plant flowers, which was fun, but I've caught her playing in the dirt several times since then. If these flowers get unearthed, nobody can blame their deaths on me!

She's still rearranging furniture and our trash can.

She can't walk past an open door, cabinet or drawer without closing it. And today she picked out a red shoe from the pile in my closet, brought it to me while I was dressing, then went back and selected the partner red shoe from the pile. I was impressed! Matching shoes.

I like this pic because I caught her in the middle of playing and she obliged my "Mara! Mara! Look here!" with this.

And if I'm taking pictures or brushing her teeth and said "Say CHEESE" these are the cute faces that she makes:

That's all I've got for now. :) Oh, but I've learned to be careful if my head is near her. I got a baby finger in the ear today which made me scream in surprise!!! Her finger is small enough to fit far in there and give you a nice tickle. At least it wasn't a wet finger. Haha.

Happy Saturday.

April already?

Since I haven't uploaded any photos, and you've been without videos for a bit, here ya go.

Mara at the park!

And I didn't take any photos when the Dardens + Travis came to visit on Sunday. :( I'm a bad bad photographer. But we enjoyed a wonderful dinner, conversation, and time at the park (not this video... this was from today).

I was making a journal entry of the number of signs that Mara knows... and it surprised me! By "know" I mean she has signed something TO us. The rate limiting factor really is myself. I try to refer to my little sign language dictionaries often, but I can never predict what sign I'll need next so I usually end up talking about whatever we're seeing and having to apply the sign later if I remember. Some signs, Mara's gotten from the very beginning... and others we've been signing for months and she JUST signed back to us for the first time recently. Her language skills are pretty amazing (to me) for a 15.5 month old. I've tried to capture a few on video, but you can see she loses interest quickly once I have to refer to my list of what she knows. I chose a video where she did more than a couple. Here, you will see PIG (after she glances at the TV like what are you talking about, Mom?), CHICKEN, CRACKER (finally!), DUCK, HORSE (she didn't sign it this time, but she did make the noise), SHOE, and FROG (though you can't see with her binky in. She'll usually pop her binky out to stick out her tongue). Pig and frog are not the American sign language, and her signs aren't perfect, but she gets the point across when needed.

Right now, I count 35 signs that she's returned at one point or another. On top of those, she knows more sounds for things she can't sign (like sheep or lion/tiger/bear). And she has no problem trying to communicate by pointing, grunting, gesturing, and crying/whining. All in all, I think we communicate back and forth fairly well. She's been nodding or shaking her head in response for awhile now when we ask questions... no idea if she really knows she's giving an answer but we consistently do whatever she responded. I got great joy the other day when she "talked" to me, or made conversation, by saying it was cold, or she was cold, when I had the door open to let the dogs out. She must have gotten a blast of cold air and thus made the "comment". She did the same thing after touching my diet coke bottle on the floor yesterday. She grabbed it, then let go and signed cold (which it was). Clever girl. And so stylish.

She is trying to say some words and can get out a decent Bye Bye, I can distinguish "jacket", sometimes "dog" and she makes some unique sounds for her binky and for cookie (dog cookie believe it or not, she doesn't associate this with regular cookies). And here's a pic of her in her big girl carseat.

Hopefully, little Mo's fever will be gone tomorrow and she can return to daycare. For those of you still with me, here's the list of what Mara signs (I've probably forgotten one or two):

More, milk, water, please, hungry, cheese, dog, bunny, cow (and moo's), horse (and neigh's), bath, shoes, jacket, diaper, cold, book, car/truck, pig, chicken (same for bird and rooster, but she'll cluck for chicken and crow for rooster), duck, school, butterfly, brush teeth, sing (same for music), orange, cookie, binky, all done, frog, ball, walk, cracker, train, fan, fish.

Pinehurst Visit

This is my second post, so don't miss the first about the birthday party. We visited Super-Gammy in Pinehurst today and Mara was an absolute angel 98% of the time. She only had a 50 min nap on the way there instead of her 2.5 hour usual. She busied herself exploring and playing the piano.

Most of the time, she wandered around the downstairs eating.

 

She loved the gifts that Gammy gave her:

 She spent time opening... and eating...

 And snuggling with Daddy.

 And running around.

And most of all, practicing for the Easter Bunny!

Thank you, Super-Gammy, for a wonderful visit!

Birthday Party Guest - Marbles Museum

Mara was invited to her first birthday party for a classmate this Saturday at Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. We've only heard good reviews and decided it was the perfect excuse to check out the place. Mara made herself quite at home. She said her obligatory hello's (which she's quite good at now).

She checked out the party room. She chose her seat.

She selected her party favour.

 And got down to the REAL reason she came.

Food. Chicken nuggets from Chick Filet. Mommy went later and added some fruit to this plate.

In the meantime, the party continued on... Riley (who turned 2) opened some presents, blew out the candles on his Toy Story themed cake, opened some more presents... all while our daughter did this.

And since that chicken greased, slicked back hair look isn't for everyone, Daddy helped out.

And just to make sure she washes it down really well...

And then... some more of this...

And check out her rat-tail (Liz calls it a mullet...)

When she wasn't feeding herself, she was getting her servants to do it for her...

and holding her in her seat so she didn't break it with the excessive weight...

Presents being opened and all the other kids flock to the commotion?

Here's our daughter.

She spent practically the entire hour eating. Yes. Eating 9 nuggets, some strawberries, and a bite of cake.

She was the last one at the table.

It's like we starve our child and this was the first access she had to food in days. Notice how the room has pretty much cleared out? Everyone else went to play.

Then Mara hunted for more food.

Finally, Daddy convinced her that there was a world outside of the party room.

"Huh, there is? Hmm. Does it have food, too?"

 

No, Mo... but it does have your second favorite thing... WATER!

Now we're talking!

Mara had so much fun playing in the museum. Whether it was in a little treehouse:

Or at the train station:

Or in the world of plastic balls which she loved throwing and putting in all the various slots that sucked them up (like a bank teller tube) or dropped them into mazes. This is the best shot I got of her doing anything with them... Sorry. Yes, she has it in her right hand... but was throwing most items with her left.

She then ended the day in a familiar place... it's the only reason I can think of that she gravitated towards this.

Look similar to home? Either that, or she thought she'd found more food.

It wasn't until I was viewing these pictures that I realized I think she was dividing the dog food for her two dogs, since Arson's "big" bowl had all of the goodies.

So she made sure to give some to Endo's bowl. She also brushed the big fake dogs, and was literally the tiniest person running around this giant museum and made people do double takes as she waddled on by.

Zack actually had to drag her out, kicking and screaming. She didn't like waiting in the hallway for Mommy to use the restroom and the museum prepared to shut down. She got down out of Daddy's arms and started prancing her way back excitedly to the exhibits. I never would have imagined that in a million years, especially at this age.

She laughed and giggled and squealed and ran around throwing her arms up in the air so much... it was a JOY to witness. She had an amazing birthday party, and it wasn't even her own!