19 Months and Counting

I barely recognize Mara in photos from only a few months ago! She continues to change right before our eyes. Today, she put on her shoes by herself!!! Granted, they were her velcro sandals, but she put the correct feet into the open sandals and put the velcro down on them. We were amazed, and SO proud! She is talking more and more and repeats almost everything you say! She said Cheerio today, and other words that I've now forgotten.

Little Mo had a busy week! Aunt Kelly and Uncle Sean came to visit.

Aunt Kelly has all of the pictures from our adventures to the Farmer's Market and Putt Putt. But we had fun at home as well! We played Musical Binkies...

She was tickled with wolf puppet, and Mara pretended she was a dog complete with lots of "WOOF WOOF's"

Uncle Sean showed her the most important skill in life.

And Mommy got tons of snuggles.

Although, really, Mommy was just in the way of the TV.

I have never seen Mara so happy or hear her giggle as much as she did while we had visitors. I think she likes entertaining.

We did venture outside for a few minutes to take some shots.

 And Mara loved giving her Aunt Kelly tons of kisses. But I only caught the stare.

 Check out the gams on this chick.

 After Aunt Kelly and Uncle Sean left, it drove Mara to drink...

Just kidding. That's her moving a cooler around at Aunt Claire's/Uncle Travis' house after we dropped off Aunt Kelly and Uncle Sean at the airport.

Well, that's it for now, folks. We'll be back!

Happy July!

June came and went so quickly.

Mara is growing by the minute, it seems.

Yesterday, I was dosing off on the sofa while she was watching a movie (about Elmo), and she smacked me on the back and said "areyouokay" in one mumbled sentence. I was flabbergasted awake at that point... having my daughter ask me if I was okay! I mean, we tend to ask her that a lot, but it came as a shocker to hear it from her lips! She's adding new words every day.

She is quite good at this puzzle and enjoys holding the pieces by the small red knobs (as shown above). She also tends to do this...

During our extended weekend at home (due to the July 4th holiday), Mara asked to go to school every single day. She would walk to the door, hit it, and sign "school." I had to explain that we weren't missing school, but that she couldn't go back until xx number of days. That usually satisfied her. The same can't be said for when we tell her "not right now" when she asks for a walk (as I'm dragging myself into the kitchen in my jammies, or when it's mega-hot outside), or when we say no to TV.

We did participate in the Stiz's annual slip and bleed (I'm SO sore). I tried to take Mara down a small portion of the slide, but she cried and cried and I think the sprinkler was in her face (not that she complains during waterplay at daycare when she sprays herself in the face).

And about 5 days ago, she learned to say Mommy and Daddy instead of Mama and Dada. We are beyond thrilled! Although, she does tend to annunciate the MEEE at the end... but who cares! Here ya go:

 

18 Months Old

I knew our child made a lot of faces (and let's face it... we all know where she gets this from), but I didn't think an entire photo shoot could be plagued by so many different scrunchy expressions.

 18 months old, she knows it all, and has no trouble saying so. Or screaming about it if she can't.

Her leg seems to be recovered from last week's strange 17 hours period of not putting weight on it. Her xrays came back clean as can be... and the doctors could not classify what was bothering her. She seems to be back to her normal self! Although, eating a lot more. Check this out.

Is that a belly or what? And sometimes, it gets bigger. Friday night, she ate at least a cup of macaroni and cheese, half a banana, 30 mins later, she ate the better 90% of the dried yogurt drops, and then 20 mins after that, ate 2 slices of cheese pizza. Regular slices, not the crusts. BUT STILL! That's more than I put away. She definitely doesn't have my twiggy leg problems...

Here's what she does if I tell her to SMILE or SAY CHEESE!

 

Here's what happens when she spots a bug:

And here's what happens what I'm not looking:

SEE YA!

One more cute video

June Videos

Here's a video of me trying to get Mara to talk for you - she can probably say about 20 words, but you can see she was a little distracted. She learned the word "Mike" because her gym teacher's name is Mike and Daddy showed her the microphone, which they shortened to mike. I'll try to get her to talk on camera some more this weekend so you can hear some of her vocabulary.

This next one is her having some giggly fun in the tub!

Goodness gracious, great balls of... poop.

Seriously, Mom?

The title of this post scares me.

For anyone who was "offended" by the naked baby booty picture I texted this weekend, (which was completely innocent, btw...), you may want to close this window now.

I (Chrissy) got to exercise my super-Mom skillz today! After Mara got drenched from some outdoor water play (pictures further down), she received a bath out of schedule. I, being in tune to her "regularity," knew that a poop might be on the way... and we know my luck with poop in the bathtub recently. After bathing her, I allowed her to play in the water for a bit... when I noticed a certain look on her face and she said "poo poo" to which I asked "You need to go poo poo?"

She nodded.

"Can you go poo poo in the big girl potty?" She nodded.

Fast as lightening, I yanked that naked baby from the tub and zoomed her over to the toilet, and mid-hover, there was a PLOP!

I think I screamed "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! POOPY IN THE BIG GIRL POTTY!!!!"

She looked like she still might be straining, so I tried to keep her there... but she signed "all done" which I tripled checked "Are you SURE you're all done?" since I peered into the tank and saw a single small floater. I knew the amount wasn't quite right. Well, she said she was definitely done, so I did my best at wiping a completely wet baby booty while holding her on the toilet seat... and set her down to say bye bye to the poopy (this process took a bit)... and that's when I noticed it. The great ball of poop, staring up at me from the bathroom floor.

Yep. My super-Mom skillz got half the load in the toilet. The other half was perched on the clean, dry, white towel I had laid out for her to dry. Lovely.

Well, we got to say bye bye to the poo poo in the big girl potty again. Score one for Mara, score, uh, half, for Mom.

ANYWAY.

Just for clarity, the following pictures are NOT a wet t-shirt contest. Sheesh. These are the reason we had to take said bath.

Wah-wah.

Yes, that's Mara's word for Water.

That is her sucking on her hands.

 Getting completely drenched with cold hose water, and enjoying it.

 

 And this is Mara... loving her Daddy.

And I think this face is, Mom, get MORE water NOW.

Check out her cute water shoes (well, sandals) that I ordered from Zappos. Took her a bit to get used to them, since they're so heavy and wide! I also had to take her shoe shopping for some regular shoes. Girl is a 4-4.5 now, and every glance at her I take, she looks SO MUCH BIGGER! It's like her growing is speeding up. Quickly!

And here she is, trying to whistle:

Hehe.

I took her to the Farmer's Market today while Zack was riding his dirtbike, and she looooved eating fresh strawberries, and raspberries, and then devoured some plums!

Friday, we stopped off at the library, and I have a video I intend to post but it doesn't do justice to how ecstatic she was to find so many books existed. We barely made it to the children's section before she was screaming "BOOK!!!!" then turning around... "BOOK!!!!!" and taking one off the shelves and screaming "BOOK!!!" all giddily. Wow.

I followed her up and down the aisles, just grinning at how happy it made her. We selected a few appropriate novels for her, a few of which she carried around herself (so proudly!). If she put them down for a minute, she would carefully restack them and pick the pile back up. She waved at people, and grinned and giggled and ducked into the next row. She wanted to sit in a library seat and read - which we did some of. I look forward to many more trips to the library with her.

Her talking is coming along faster than I ever thought it would. She went from just a handful of words/sounds, to almost being able to replicate any word we try.

Her longest "sentence" has been "Bye bye Blake" to her good friend at school.

But she frequently talks, jabbers on about nothing, or tries to sing. If she's too quiet in the car, I take a peek back there and she's reading a book, very seriously. I ask "Are you enjoying that book?" and I get a nod, and she's back to reading, turning the pages carefully.

 That's about all the updates I can think of for now.

I think I stare at her DAILY and my heart stops for a second because of how much she is changing. Her face looks longer, she is taller, her legs are stronger, she is... growing up. And TOO QUICKLY!