16 Month Update

16 months is here! That means that now she's closer to a year and a half rather than a year old. Eek!

She's incredibly smart, like literally shocks me most days. So independent and strong willed!

She loves her dogs so much. Every morning when I get her from her crib, she doesn't call for mama, dada, or anyone else, she calls for the dogs! Most of the time at least one of the dogs are with me but if not, she gets whiny until she sees them and then giggles. She loves helping with them; feeding them, picking up their bowls, giving them treats, and most importantly funny, yelling at them

She hasn't been to the doctor in a little while but she's weighing in right around 24lbs but short. Finally getting a few more teeth, she is up to 7! Haha She is wearing some 12 month clothing, mostly 12-18 though. A lot of her 18 month outfits are still too big though. I was very grateful to scrape together enough summer outfits that fit her comfortably for our trip to Florida a couple weeks ago.

Still signs "all done" when she is done eating. Signs "more" some and "please" all the time. She pretty much dropped the sign for "eat", "water" and "milk" because she just says them "wah" and "mik".

She actually is starting to answer questions with yes and no which is exciting! She's starting to count, she will say 2, 3, 6, 8, 9...haha I'll catch her sitting alone counting to herself as she is looking at her fingers. Singing the alphabet is getting fun too, she will say E, E, E, E, E, E, E as we sing A, B, C, D, E, F, G... Then she will say the O, P, T, and Y in the right spots as I sing the song! She's not forming many sentences yet, other than "bye bye dada dada" haha but we can pretty much understand everything she's saying and she attempts any word we ask of her.

She is a lot better about getting her diaper changed, hallelujah, I think it is because I'm asking for her help and she loves being a little helper. I ask her to get me a diaper and she will bring it to me and sit down. Afterwards, I'll ask her to throw the dirty diaper away and it's awesome to see her walk it over, lift the lid of the trash can and drop it in!

Her sleeping habits are still pretty stellar! Sleeping all night, from around 8:30pm-8:30am. And napping mid-day for 2-3 hours. I'm still amazed that I just lay her down and she snuggles up with her bear or glow worm (sometimes both) and blanket and falls asleep all on her own. I'm still nursing her, at bedtime, but I do believe that will be phased out very soon since she's been pulling off after only several short minutes lately.

Florida

I, alone, took Hanley on her second trip to Florida! It was a blast to spend a week with my best friend and her (almost) 3 year old! We went about 2 weeks ago, it was a spontaneous trip since school started back up last week.

Michael had to stay back in cold Ohio since he had to work. Also, her house is on the smaller side, although we could've made it work, for an entire we would've probably got a hotel room and would've had to rent a car and the $$ just keeps adding up. lol We also wanted it to just be us girls anyway (her husband worked most days I was there also). So it worked out exactly how we wanted it actually.

We took Hanley to Florida last July (she was 9 months old). Michael, my mom, and I all went for my best friends wedding. She was so great on all the flights and I wasn't really too worried then since there was 3 of us to switch off with her and I nursed her as we took off and landed which helped a lot.

This time I was a little nervous for the flights and our time at the airports (since we had a layover). I wish I would've gotten a good picture because it was quite the sight as I was wearing a backpack as big as I was (packed full of food, snacks, cup, electronics, diapers and other essentials), pushing an umbrella stroller (with wheels that have minds of their own) while pullling luggage as I'm walking to the side so I dont trip over the luggage. With that said, I don't know why I ever doubt her or my ability to handle her on my own in that type of setting. She was undoubtedly the best behaved little one on every flight (to and from) and in the airports. She is such a good 'go with the flow' little girl! She listens very well and as long as she has food in her belly, her favorite show on my tablet, and her momma, she could conquer the world! =) She got so many compliments from flight attendants, airport staff, and fellow fliers.

Our time in Florida will be cherished forever. We packed our week full of fun things to do with the kids:

 

Palm Beach Zoo
Random playgrounds

Bike riding

Cool Beans

Hanleys first carousel and train rides

The Gardens Mall

Jupiter beach

Ice cream & souvenir shops

 

Hope, my best friend for nearly 15 years, lives no more than 5 minutes from the ocean. Hanley really is not a fan of the beach. The water wasn't exactly warm enough for me to want to jump in so we just hung out up in the sand and ate some lunch. Hanley likes the water and when the waves come up to her toes but not a big fan of the sand. She won't even sit in it, she will cry unless she gets to sit in a lap haha.

It was just so nice to see Hanley and Gavin interact and play together all week. She is at such a fun age and at the point where she can make some decisions and answer questions with yes and no.

Hope and I got to have a night out after the kids went to sleep, which was much needed and a lot of fun! We went to Cabo Flats and Dirty Martini.

While the weather was absolutely perfect, I missed my husband and get homesick very quick. It's always nice to be home!

She IS Her Mothers Daughter!

It's a rare occasion when someone says Hanley looks like me. EVERYONE always says she looks like her daddy, which is true...She does look a lot like him. I'm never mad about this, she is allowed to look like her father and for good reason. But Michael found a couple pictures at my grandmas house of me on my very first birthday. I seriously thought I was looking at pictures of Hanley! It was wild and of course I tried to find some similar pictures of Hanley to put side by side!

The second set of pictures gets me... That's me feeding cake to my mom and Hanley feeding cake to my mother in law, both from first birthday parties! The picture would've been even better if Hanley would've been feeding cake to me but the picture is still awesome nonetheless!

Baby It's Cold Outside

The temperatures tonight and tomorrow across the US all seem to be lower than average. It's quite scary to me. I heard the weather guy say that spending more then 5 minutes outdoors can result in frost bite!? Yikes! My husband and some family members work outside. We actually have a friend that is outside working in this weather as I type this tonight... That's just not right!

The other day we took Hanley out to Michaels parents house to take her sledding in their backyard. They have a fairly large yard that has a slight downgrade to it. This was literally her first time playing in the snow. Children don't really seem to have any concept of being cold, it seems like they could just play in the snow forever, long after red noses and frozen fingers and toes.

Hanley had so much fun on the sled; who am I kidding, we all had a blast watching her! We didn't keep her out too long, it's so hard to gauge how warm/cold they are when you are cold yourself.

Halfway through being outside I switched her mittens out because she kept scooping up the snow. I'm certain her feet were toasty and fairly certain her body was pretty warm with the layers I had on her. Her nose was a little rosy but her cheeks weren't pink much at all by the time we brought her inside.