18 Months Old

Where has the last year and a half gone? I can't believe our little girl is 18 months old already. I thought since I haven't posted an update on her milestones for a few months I would do so now. Everyday she becomes more and more like a little girl and no longer a baby. She has her Dr.'s appt on Tuesday so I'll have to post her height and weight and all that stuff later on. She is getting more and more independent and learning to do so many things.

Miss Kate still eats a combination of baby food and table food. Honestly I'm probably dragging out the baby food as long as I can because it's cleaner if I feed her and I feel like she's actually eating something other than just snacks. She tries so hard to use a spoon and a fork but still has those fine little motor skills of scooping or stabbing food to work on. A lot of the time she'll just hold the utensil in one hand and use the other hand to eat. Her favorite fruit seems to be grapes especially when she's with Grandma Joy. She loves all kinds of animals and loves to feed the horses at Grandma Hadlows and the dogs, chickens, and fish at Grandma Joys. She's very good at telling the dogs "no, no" when they are trying to jump on her. She LOVES the outdoors and loves to "blow" bubbles. Most of the time she just loves to play with the bubble wand and she has poured numerous bottles of bubble solution on herself and the sidewalk. :) She loves to swing and swim and just wander around outside. She loves flowers and especially enjoys pulling off the petals one by one. She has a current obsession with the Shrek movies. We own 1 through 3 and we'll watch one every day. I pretty much limit it to one a day, technically she probably shouldn't be watching any TV but I'd like to see the experts entertain an 18 months old for 11 or 12 hours of awake time. She is a pro at walking (and running) and is walking more and more on her own. Since I've been pregnant I'm trying to get her into the habit of walking to and from the car herself. She's getting better but sometimes struggles with the hand holding idea. She thinks she needs to run free in the grocery store parking lot. She is talking more and more and we're pretty good at communicating using words. I've been keeping track of all the words she can say.This may not be all of them, I think I've missed writing down a few. Other people may or may not understand her version of the word but these are the real words she is saying:
yeah, Yes, No, Please, Baby, Ball, Bubble, Mama, Dada, nana (Banana), Mint, Elmo, More, Shoes, Nose, Toes, Cheese, Pizza, Bear, Hi, Bye, Hello, Yellow, Milk, Fish, Up, Outside, Spoon, Grandma, Grandpa, Flower, Nice

Up and no are her most popular words. She says no to almost everything and she uses the word 'up' to mean: up, down, in, out, off and on. Like if she wants out of the swing, she'll still say up or if someone is holding her and she wants down, she'll still say up.

Kate has a total of 10 teeth including 4 molars, six teeth on top and 4 on the bottom. Luckily she is still taking 2 naps a day for the most part. Sometimes she'll skip and just do one depending on our activities for the day or church schedule. She usually wakes around 8 am and goes to bed about 8:30 with her naps at 11 and 3. She's fighting the naps and bedtime more simply because I think with the nice weather she wants to stay up and play.

I'll admit, she's kind of a mama's girl. Sometimes if she does wake in the middle of the night or when she wakes in the morning, if Keith goes to get her she may cry, say no and ask for Mama. She tends to fight Keith more during breakfast and her bath. I think she's just so used to it being me in the mornings that if Keith is the first person she sees it throws her whole morning off. I think Kate takes after me in that she's not a morning person and the littlest thing can put you in a mood until you're fully awake and ready to face the day. Just don't talk to us, turn on the lights, tv, music or make any noise etc. until we're ready, we wake up slowly.