16 months

It seems like in the last month, Aubrey has done so many new things. Now that she has the walking thing mastered, she has started focusing on language. It seems like everyday, she says something new. It is amazing to see what she learns and shares with us each day.

Milestones this month
*Can point to her nose and belly and my nose
*Can cover her eyes playing "peek-a-boo" and says boo when she covers her face
*She knows her shoes and can follow the command to go find them. The girl is a true girl because she loves shoes and is always trying to put them on herself
*She loves, loves, loves books. She will look at them forever, tote them around, constantly empties her bookshelf and her face lights up when it is time to read a story
*Knows that water comes the fridge and takes her sippy over to it and bangs when she wants more water
*She threw her first on-the-ground-screaming-and-kicking temper tantrum that made me laugh---I know, bad mom. But it was funny
*She pats Bailey on the head every morning before she shuts her crate door for me to lock
*She is finally getting over her fear of grass, as long as she has shoes on
*She is working on saying her first 2 word combination which we think is either "all gone" or "all done"
*When she wants your attention and you have your back to her, she pats you on the leg and then physically tries to turn you around to face her
*She had her first hair cut
*She started eating with utensils


The only way to get this month's shot was to give her a book. Whatever works.

Outside Fun

We have discovered over the past few months that our child LOVES being outside. She will stand at our back door and stare outside and gets giddy when we open the door. She plays outside at day care and her teachers say she loves it. Our only outside dilemma is finding enough to keep her occupied. She really doesn't like the grass so we are limited to things that fit on the deck for this point. I really want to get a toddler swing set, but those are rather pricey and we have some other house projects that need to be done first. So, we'll stay on a mission for small outside toys for the time being.

We bought a picnic table for her and she loved being able to eat her lunch on the back porch. We have learned she does not sit still when she eats if she is not in her high chair so that leads to this pic of her standing while she eats.



Our newest outside purchase is this water table. Words can't describe how much she loves this toy. Best $40 we've spent at this point. Lesson learned from this toy is that is needs to be in the grass. When the deck gets wet, it gets slippery and slippery deck + new walker = DISASTER. Luckily she gets over falling pretty easy and goes right back to playing.



We decided to branch out of the yard and took her to our neighborhood's play ground for a bit, but there is not a lot for her to do. For some reason, she doesn't like the baby swings so we really only played on the slides and the she sat in our lap on the big swings.



I love that she is walking and we can enjoy the outside together. It's so much fun to watch her experience these fun summer things. Last year was nice to sit outside with her, but now that she can move, it just makes things even better.

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day turned into Mother's Day weekend and it was fabulous. It started on Friday when Todd decided to go ahead and give me my gifts. Aubrey "made" me a tissue paper flower with her face in the center. It was my first Mother's Day gift from her and I love it. Then, Todd gave me a spa gift certificate which I can't wait to use.
Saturday we had a fabulous dinner after discovering HT had lobster tails on sale. We baked those bad boys up and enjoyed every last bite of them.
Todd got upset about Sunday's breakfast because we forgot to buy breakfast food at HT and he wanted to make me breakfast in bed. So, when we woke up Sunday morning (after realizing Aubrey let us sleep until 8!) he asked me what I thought about IHOP for breakfast. Do you really need to think about pancakes? Yeah, me neither. So off we go and I had some fantastic pancakes covered with strawberries and stuffed with cheesecake. We spent most of the day just hanging out, including me and Aubrey taking a 2.5 hour nap (heavenly). We then got the food ready for grilling with his parents and then enjoyed an awesome steak dinner.
It was such a great weekend and I hate that I forgot to take pics of us on Sunday. But, I got to spend the day with my little family and that's what I'll remember the most.

Learning to use utensils

Todd and I decided that it is time to start working with Aubrey to use utensils to eat. We've never quite been brave enough until this weekend when we gave her mashed potatoes to eat. We thought "it can't be that messy, can it?" Hah, this picture proves that theory all kinds of wrong.
But, she enjoyed it and that is what's important.

First hair cut

Aubrey has had quite the mullet going on for the past few weeks and this weekend I decided the mullet had overstayed its welcome. Now, for those of you that understand the constant motion of a 15-month old, you can understand that dilemma I faced in determining how to get her to sit still while I have sharp scissors near her scalp. After some thinking, we decided the bathtub was as good a place as any because she play contently with water and toys for minutes(!) at a time. Plus, she twirls her hair so much it is curled up and getting it wet made for easier straightening. So, we finished her bath and Todd manned the camera while I took on the challenge. And challenging it was. She does not like having her back to us. She wants to see exactly what we are doing. So, she kept trying to turn around, which was not helpful. Then, she wanted to lean out of the tub to watch the water as it drained. I did the best I could in trimming everything to make it even, but I see a "real" hair cut coming soon with someone much more training in toddler haircuts than me because it's a little wavy in the back. But, we said good-bye to the mullet so task accomplished in my book.

15 months

We've been so busy lately so I am a week behind on this post. We can now officially say we have a toddler! Aubrey took her first few steps in March and now a month-ish later, crawling is a thing of the past. It's so cute to watch her drunken shuffle. I do have video and that is next on my list to upload.

15-month highlights
**Walking alone...alll over the place
**Her favorites words are ball and uh-oh. She also says something that we think is yeah. And she has a whole list of sounds in her "language"
**Moved into size 4 diapers
**She now has 12 teeth..she only has the canines and 2nd molars to go
**She's becoming a blankie girl. She likes to snuggle with a blanket while she sleeps
**She's getting better at following directions. It seems like she is understanding a lot more of what we say.
**She is an outdoors girl. She loves to be outside as much as possible.
**She took her first visit to another state to visit Todd's sister and brother-in-law in Virginia