20 Month Update

I'm a little behind on this update, but better late than never... right? (Five more weeks of school... then I can update whenever I please!)

This little girl is amazing! She is growing and changing so much! She is such a big girl! She is so smart and makes the most amazing connections. I feel like I am copying a lot of what cousin Ava is doing... these little girls are both so much fun and so big!!!

(this is from Allie) kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkiii88888888880009999hjhh23

She has been pretending a lot more lately. It is adorable to watch. She likes to feed her Bert and Ernie and give them drinks. She also does this with her baby doll, though she isn't as attached to her.

She loves to have her hair done. Sometimes she will bring me a hair tie and ask to have her hair done. :) I love this! Her hair is getting long enough to do one pony tail in the back!! It is so curly in the back too. I love it! When we wash it, it goes past her shoulder blades- but because it is curly, it only comes to her shoulders when it is dry. ;)

She loves strawberries and pears and pizza and tacos. (These are all new favorites! :) )

She follows simple directions and seems to comprehend very well what we are saying. We've had to start spelling things because she knows what we are talking about.

She has temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way. This is not my favorite at all, but she has definitely started with them, and they are more frequent than they used to be. We try to redirect her or distract her, but it doesn't always work. We've sat in time out several times. Sometimes she gets this streak and just all of a sudden try to hit. I'll say, "Do you need to sit in time out", and she'll say "Uh-huh!" and march herself ON HER OWN over and sit against the wall. There are plenty of other times when we put her there and have to hold her there until she calms down enough to be let free. One evening, she was cuddling with me and all of a sudden just bit my shoulder blade. (Hard enough to leave a mark!) I put her in time out and told her we do not hit, and teeth are only for biting our food. As I was scolding her and talking to her (in time out), she reached out and hit me! Then, she started saying sorry in her sign language, only it was a "I'm mad at you, and I'm saying it only because you make me do it" hard signing (hitting herself against her chest to do the sign). She was MAD. Um... that's not a real sorry girlie! She calmed down again and all was well with the world.

She loves to crawl in our bed and lay on daddy's pillow. She doesn't stay put for long, but it is pretty cute. I noticed cousin Ava does the same thing! She also loves to play on our bed in the mornings when she wakes up and we aren't ready to get up yet. (Wake up calls on Sunday mornings at 6:45.) Way too early, so we bring her into bed and she plays and jumps and climbs and snuggles with us for a while. :) She's never been one to sleep in our bed and so it is not a go back to sleep time, but it is still fun.

She has started really wanting to walk when we go shopping. We went to Lowes the other evening to check things out and she did so well. We make her hold our hand, or we put her back in the cart. She did such a great job. It was so much fun to have her walking with me and holding my hand like a big girl. She does a good job of keeping a hold of me too. She knows she has to I think! :)

She is talking up a storm. It is amazing to listen to her! There is NO WAY in this world I could even begin to count the words she says. Sometimes she just repeats things she hears us say. Last night I was putting her to bed, and we were saying her prayers and daddy came in. When we were done with the prayer, daddy kissed her good night and told her he loved her. I whispered to her to tell daddy she loves him too and she did her, "wuv-uooo!" and then he said sleep good, and I whispered say, "you too!" and as clear as day, she said it! :)

My favorite words to hear her say are; home, Melmo (elmo), oh my!, oh boy oh boy!, birdie, mess!, dirtee, bus, car, beep beep!, pizza and tacos and of course daddy and mama! It is cute to hear her say Nana too because it used to come out Yah-yah! but now she knows the right way and says Nana! She says papa really well too. We're still working on Grammie and Gramps. She says the aunts and uncles pretty well too.

Uncle Joe was here to help pull bushes one day with daddy, and Allie was watching through the window. He pulled the bush with his blazer and daddy was standing beside it. Allie said, "Uh-o! Bush! Daddy!!" :) Too cute! She knew it wasn't supposed to do that! :)

She has gone potty on her little potty several times, and just recently has started to really comprehend that she is going. We aren't close to being potty trained, but we are getting there... ever so slowly. She will tell us "poof!" if she has gone potty in her diaper. A couple times she has woke up from her nap and is dry, so I'll sit her on her potty and she'll go. She doesn't seem to have much interest right now, so I"m not forcing the issue. Maybe this summer we can work on it more seriously. It would be awesome to be done with diapers! :)

She loves to draw and color. I got the twistable crayons and this works well for her. She likes to try to eat the others, so this way, there is only a little bit sticking out and she can't eat it. :) She likes to get them all out and draw. (Scribble!) She loves it when we draw Bert or Ernie. She gets all excited. :)

She has been saying random letters when she colors, or when she sees letters (like her name in her room- on the wall). Last night, we did the whole alphabet- where I whispered her a letter to say and she repeated it. It was adorable! I wish we would have gotten it on video. Some of the letters she gets the sounds wrong, but they are all so close! :) She also knows the colors blue, yellow and pink fairly consistently. She can identify them if you ask her what something you are holding is. We're still working on the others! :)

She is about 29 pounds, wearing 2 and 3 toddler size clothes. She is still in size five diapers. She has all of her teeth, except her 2 year molars. She identifies her body parts and lots of animal sounds. All in all... she's ornery, and smart and absolutely adorable! :)