18 months old!

On April 13th, Blakely Ann turned 18 months old!  

Here are a few things about Blakely this month.  

She got her 16th tooth.  It was her bottom left canine.  Now we just wait for the 2nd year molars.  I am thankful that she has not been a bad teether at all.  I have always heard horror stories about teething so I know that I got lucky with this.  

I know I have mentioned this before but Blakely started gymnastics once a week.  She gets better every time we go.  For the first five minutes they sit in a circle and "warm up" with some songs.  Blakely never wants to do this.  She just wants to run and jump on everything of course!  Her favorite is jumping on the trampoline and walking on the balance beam.  She can even do kicks while on the beam.  Now that she knows how to jump she wants to do it on everything.  Couch, recliner, floor, Daddy's belly...  

Thanks for the great idea Bridget!

She likes to "clean".  I'll give her a wet paper towel or wash cloth and she carries it around and wipes off the windows, window sills or the coffee table.  

She learned how to go down steps by herself this month.  We have a 2 level house.  The main level is the 2nd floor and our bedrooms are on the bottom level.  We have a door at the top of the stairs that we keep closed all the time but I thought she needed to learn how to safely go down the steps in case someone ever left the door open.  It took her all of 1 minute to figure it out.  She sits down and then scoots to the edge and plops to the next step.  She can now walk up the steps like a big girl just hanging on to the rail.  She can actually go down them this way too but I make her hold me hand for now.

She can finally climb onto our furniture.  She has always been a climber but our furniture was just always a little too big for her to get on.  Not anymore.  Lonnie even found her standing in the middle of our coffee table the other day.  It is glass.  Not awesome. 

She has gotten so good about letting me put her hair in pig tails.  At first, it took a bunch of bribery for her to sit long enough.  Now she gets excited when I put her on the counter and get out her brush.  And speaking of hair she has started playing with my hair while falling asleep.  She gets to watch Mickey before bedtime so she curls up beside me in the recliner and says HUH! HUH!  That means hair.  I snuggle up with her and she twirls my hair while sucking on the back of her other hand and we watch Mickey like the every day.  Best.  

Since the weather has been cooperating we have spend a lot of time this month outside.  She loves playing outside.

I figured it was about time to teach her my basketball skillzzzz....

And playing on the deck with Daddy.  

This is one of my favorite pics ever.  I was inside and they were outside just talking.  She was listening to him so intently.  I love their bond.  

We even eat dinner on the deck as much as possible.  

We have a few geese in our area and Blakely can now spot them and yells GEE!  GEE!  We feed them occasionally and she likes that too.

She is obsessed with birds.  She will stand outside and look up and yell BUH! every time she sees a bird.  It is so cute to see how excited she gets when she spots one.  

She can say almost every letter but only recognizes a few.  We have been working more on letters lately since she has no interest in colors...everything is PUH PUH.  

She says bye bye to everything.  I think that is her favorite word this month.  Bye bye to all the cars that pass, to the dogs when they leave the room, and to me or Lonnie when we walk out of the room.  

Blakely has definitely started throwing some tantrums.  They mostly occur when we can't go outside.  The other day it was pouring rain and we were under a tornado warning.  She was hysterical yelling so I finally took her out for a minute in the rain just to show her WHY we couldn't be out there.  I think that helped.  She is testing her limits (or our limits) about numerous things.  She wants to stand up in her high chair.  No.  She wants to walk around while eating dinner.  No.  She wants to walk at the grocery store instead of ride.  No.  She wants to play with my phone constantly.  No.  I am learning why it is so important to be consistent.  Hard but important.  I really can't complain too much because she does really well most of the time when I tell her no and explain why she can't do something.  She is just all about repetition so sometimes we have to go over these things 20 times before she moves on.  It can be a bit draining!  

She is still very interested in the potty.  I have not been pushing it at all but I will take her if she asks to go.  She has pee peed a couple of times but no poop in her little potty.  I do believe she is learning more about it though.  It is obvious when she is pooping so I have started asking her if she is pooping.  She will say yes.  She loves to watch us flush her poop in the potty.  She says BYE BYE!  A few times throughout the day I will ask her if there is poop in her diaper.  She used to always say no because she hates being still for a diaper change but now she will say yes if there is.  Definite progress.  

I can't believe my baby is a year and a half old!  It was so fun to watch her coo and wiggle back in the day and now I am enjoying watching her run around constantly and mimic every word we say.  Truly amazing!