Leah is 20 months old! She currently weighs 25 1/2 pounds and is 34 1/2 inches tall. She is wearing 18-24 month clothes, size 6 shoes, and size 3 diapers. (She was being a little silly for pictures this month.)
Leah's ability to communicate continues to grow. She babbles a lot, but new words are coming out every day. Each night as I'm bringing Leah to her room for bedtime, Daddy says, "Goodnight, Leah!" and Leah will wave to him and say, "Bye! Bye!" The other night she gave an obvious attempt at "Goodnight!" back to him. Her favorite word continues to be "kittycat" and she frequently uses the sign language for "please" accompanied by the word and some desperate eyes. Besides that, she regularly uses the words mama, dada, bye, light, bubble, fishie, shoes, done, yeah, no, mine, doggy, pee pee, poo poo, uh oh, tree, baby, nose, eye, book, ball, hot, and probably a couple more that I'm missing.
Leah continues to be very observant and helpful. I'm pretty sure she knows where all of my dishes go at this point. One day I was emptying the dishwasher and she picked up the noodle strainer and then pointed to the top of the refridgerator where it goes. I was pretty shocked. She likes to clean up trash and will run and put anything you ask into the trash can. She really likes being helpful and will run and grab things like your shoes or phone if you ask her. She got a 4 wheeler Powerwheels for her Grandma and Grandpa S as an early Christmas present this year and she absolutely insisted that she help.
Leah still loves getting in the fridge, but her new favorite place to cause trouble is in my top pull-out drawers in the kitchen. She slides the dinette chairs up to the counter and spends several minutes pulling everything out of my silverware drawer or junk drawer. Her favorite time to do this is while I'm preparing dinner. Nothing in those drawers or on the counter is safe now. One night daddy left the manicotti pan out on the stove and Leah had a second saucy dinner.
During the winter, I usually like to light candles in the house to make it feel more cozy. Leah really enjoys watching you light the match to light the candle. She blows out the match each time and shoos the smoke away with her hand afterwards. We had to move the location of the candle and the matches because she is so obsessed with them!
At nursery in church, Leah has picked up even more songs, but her absolute favorite one is, "The Wheels on the Bus." She will start rolling her hands immediately upon hearing the first part of the tune. She also like to do the part where the mommy says, "Shh!" She will also do all of the motions for "If you're happy and you know it!" She has developed a little bit of separation anxiety when I bring her to nursery. I used to just be able to drop her off, but now she usually wants me to put together puzzles with her and then I wait for her to be distracted to sneak out. Just last week, I gave her hand to one of the nursery leaders that was walking in and she didn't even realize I was gone. We'll see if I can be that successfully sneaky again or if she'll catch on.
We are lucky enough to have lots of little friends for Leah to play during a weekly playgroup we are a part of in our small town. Leah loves playing with other kids even though she has an initial warm up period of about 10-15 minutes when she arrives at some place new. All the other kids in the group are older except for the recent addition of a newborn and Leah has learned some new play skills from her older friends. She has started doing some make-believe play with her toys. She was "microwaving" food at a play kitchen for a little boy at playgroup. She likes to fill up cups with the faucet on her play kitchen as well. She also has a little doll baby that she sits on a play potty to go to the bathroom. She can play independently longer now, but she still prefers to have a buddy to play with. She doesn't like to play alone and I'm pretty sure that's why she always keeps me company while I cook dinner. She also like to pretend that she's mommy by walking around in my shoes. (The red pair is her favorite!)
Drawing continues to be one of Leah's favorite things to do. She likes to have you trace her hand or draw an animal. (A kittycat is her usual request.) Surprisingly, she actually holds her pencil correctly. Her drawing is only scribbling, but she makes likes and circles and likes to color in my drawings. She doesn't like drawing with thicker writing utensils and prefers a pen or pencil to a thick crayon. She draws pretty often with chalk on her easel in the front room as well.
Leah loves to read books before bedtime... But NOT with mommy! I can only get her to sit on my lap for a few minutes while I read her favorite book, "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear." Each night during her "independent reading time," she pulls out the books one at a time, opens up each one, points to the words saying, "eeh, wah, tee" or some other three syllable nonsense words, and then closes the book - starting immediately on the next one. Some nights she forms a pile of perfectly lined up books and other nights they are scattered everywhere.
Leah has started to watch a little television and likes to play with my iPad and smartphone. She has a little game Talking Tom that she loves to play with and another one where she takes care of a virtual kitten. She also likes to watch animated cartoons on an app called PBS Kids. She only likes the music in the beginning of the shows and barely gets past the opening credits before switching to another show. She can turn on both devices and navigate to her games. She loves to take pictures of herself and will say, "Cheeeee" whenever she opens the camera on my phone or iPad.
After Thanksgiving, we set up our tree and a small HO scale train that some friends gave us. Leah was initially afraid of the train, but she warned up to it rather quickly. Daddy has taught her how to pump her arm and say, "woo woooo!" She can turn on and off the train on her own, but usually likes to get mommy or daddy to play with her.
We've had an unseasonably warm start to winter and on Veterans days we were able to go for a jog along a canal path nearby. Leah really loves being outside and is rather content even if I'm pushing her in the jogging stroller. The temperature dropped for a few days and we got a couple inches of snow which Leah really enjoyed.
Something amazing happened this month ...Leah is officially posing for pictures!! Leah JoAnn currently weighs 25 pounds and is 34 inches tall. She is wearing mostly size 12-18 month, but she is starting to wear some 18-24 month. She is in size 6 shoes and size 3 diapers.
Leah is gradually picking up new words although the most common words out of her mouth are uh oh, momma, dada, and no. She now calls for our cat Lucky and even says his name right. She has picked up two 2-word phrases - "No. Mine!" (Usually when stealing some sort of electronic device) and "More Please!" (For food or her Halloween candy... accompanied with the sign language for please) We had a first last night at story time before bedtime. She has a first words book with pictures of everyday items. On one page, there is a picture of an apple. I pointed to it and said, "Apple" and she said "Apple" back... Several times!!! This is the first time she has tried a new word repeating it after me! She has been trying to tell me things that seem very important to her, but she has yet to find the words for it so I just hear very urgent nonsensical talk. I love hearing her little voice!
Leah is very observant and is making connections daily. She is an absolute sponge right now and it is so much fun! One day I was in the other room and the microwave started beeping. Leah ran in ahead of me and when I finally arrived in the kitchen, she was standing pointing at the microwave with an oven mitt that she had taken out and put on.
Leah is becoming quite the independent eater. Even if she is starving, she refuses to be spoonfed by me. This makes eating time rather messy especially when yogurt is involved. She is a pretty good eater and tries almost everything that I cook, but she has decided that she doesn't like potatoes at all... amd that includes French fries and my tasty potato soup. :( Luckily, she is still a champ at eating her vegetables, so I don't have to worry too much. She's also good at eating her Halloween candy.
Helping is one of Leah's favorite things to do these days. She helps feed the cats and the fish on a daily basis usually being the one to initiate if she thinks that the kitties are particularly hungry. She helps to load and unload the dishwasher. (I almost have her trained on how to put the silverware in!) She runs to the washer or dryer when they make their finishing sounds and insists on moving the clothes over or into the basket. If there is a piece of trash on the floor, she will throw it away when asked. (As you will see in the video though, I have to keep an eye on her when she is being helpful. Haha!)
At nursery, Leah is still the youngest, but does her best to keep up with the tons of three year old boys. (This should make the dating scene interesting in our ward one day.) She loves music time and likes doing the motions to all of the songs. She always ends, "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" like this... At least she knows where her nose is? (Oh wait, guess I don't need to worry about boys with this picture. Hahahaha!)
Leah's favorite place to play right now is definitely in the fridge. Any opportunity she gets, she is in there reorganizing, snacking, or just playing. One day, she was left alone for a short amount of time and she took most of the stuff out of the fridge and placed it on the edge of the counter.
Or this time when she reorganized my eggs without breaking a single one!
Leah's favorite thing to do still is basically to make a mess. It seems like every time I turn around, she has "reorganized" another cabinet, drawer, bin, etc. She helps to clean it up sometimes, but honestly it is a stage that I'm hoping she finishes with soon. I just want her to play with all of the TOYS she has!!! Grandma H. was the recipient of some delightful reorganization as you can see below.
We've gotten into a pretty good schedule lately. She wakes up around 7am each morning. Now that it is cold, I usually grab her and bring her into bed with me for some cuddles, but she usually just wants to play with my iPad. We eat a breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, Cherrios, and a banana between 7:30 and 8am. She plays pretty well around the house while I clean up after breakfast. We're usually out the door by 9:30 for the library or a local play date. She gets lots of social time and then we are back home by 1pm for nap time which lasts until around 4/4:30. At that point, I'm getting dinner together and we're eating by about 5ish. We usually watch a tv show and play around a little bit until bath time at 7pm. She likes to play in the tub for a while, but throws the soap at me when she is ready to finish up. We do lots of story time, fishy feeding time, brush our teeth, and then she's in bed by 8pm. I'm still nursing her about 3-4 times a day (usually at wake up and before nap time and bedtime).
Leah knows her schedule and will "remind" me of the next thing that we usually do. At night time after she is in her jammies, I usually say, "It's time to brush our teeth!" and Leah will run out the door toward my bathroom. I usually hang her bath towel up in her bathroom as we are passing by. She usually just runs straight to my bathroom, but the other night she ran first into her bathroom and pointed at the towel rack for me to hang up her towel. Haha, thanks for the reminder. She is very observant!
Earlier in October, we took the opportunity one Saturday morning to go to a local pumpkin patch as a family. Leah had some difficulty navigating the vines sticking up everywhere, but she was able to eventually choose the "perfect" carving pumpkin. She did great on the tractor ride and even successfully took a selfie with my DSLR.
Luckily, Leah was napping during the majority of the pumpkin carving this year, but she enjoyed playing with the guts afterwards and kissing the finished pumpkins.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year! Leah was a black kitty because kitties are basically her favorite thing in the world! The costume was a simple Pinterest idea and I especially like how her tail turned out!
In the week prior to Halloween, Leah was able to wear her costume FOUR different times. The first night we put on the costume was for my parents' ward trunk or treat. Her first experience trunk or treating it took a little while for her to understand what to do, but she was a pro by the end of the night. Her Grandpa S. from Utah was actually here visiting and was able to take her around a little bit. (This is unfortunately the best picture I got all night. It has Grandpa S. helping Leah and Grandma H. passing at candy.)
She also got to wear her kitty costume twice at the library that week and once at a local play date. Group shots with toddlers in costume are always interesting.
By the time it was actually ready for Trick or Treating, we were experts at getting Leah into her costume. She started out the evening a little shy, but by the end of the night she had no problem just walking up to a house and grabbing candy directly out of their bowl. She was so cute in her costume that she actually got away with grabbing 3 full size candy bars at one house. She was all business and lasted the whole two and a half hours of trick or treating. She has quite the collection of candy that we're still working on.
Even though it is November, we have been lucky enough to have some really nice days in the 60's. Leah loves being outside, so we definitely took advantage of that time. Mommy picked up some ride-on toys for outside for sweet deals on the Facebook Yard sale site... One of which was an awesome pink tricycle which actually had to stay in the house for the first couple of weeks because Leah wanted to ride it all the time and thought I was returning it to the owner whenever I would bring it outside.
The other ride-on toy is more of a ride IN toy. I picked up a cheap cozy coupe and decided that I would redo it after Pinterest interfered with my simple idea to buy new decal stickers. Leah loves climbing in her daddy's S2000 and honking the horn and such, so I decided to copy daddy's car. The results were even better than anticipated and Leah loves her new car!
This little girl is SO much fun and we have a great time together!
My dearest Leah is a year and a half! She currently weighs 24 pounds and is 33.5 inches tall. She is wearing 12-18 month clothes, size 3 diapers, and size 5-6 shoes. No joke, I told her we were taking her monthly picture, got her all gussied up, sat her in her rocking chair, and she smiled just like this.
30 seconds later though... (Yes, my flash was a little out of control.)
Haha! Anyway, here's the update on Leah.
Communication-wise Leah is understanding more each day, but she still isn't saying much. She likes to chant mama or dada quite frequently. She regularly says uh oh, kitty cat, bubble, bye bye, no, and yeah. Ball, baby, fishie, ba (pointing at a banana), "booh" for book and "Dar" for our cat Darwin are new this month. A lot of her communication is achieved through pointing and grunting at this point. I just add words to what I think she is trying to say before completing the requested grunt. Sometimes, she talks to herself in a nonsensical language while playing. Here is a little video I captured of her in the tub. It sounds half like talking and half like singing to me.
She was able to identify her belly button first back in June when we were visiting Utah, but now in addition to her belly button, she can identify her head, nose, eyes, feet, hands, and most of the time her mouth and ears. The song, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" is very educational! :)
She "reads" books to herself using inflection. She likes to toss a bunch of her books behind the rocking chair in her room and then she sits behind the chair to look through them. She is mostly gentle with the paper pages. We only run into trouble if the book has existing rips. Her favorite book right now is "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear" which was actually one of Doug's when he was little. She waves hello to the little mouse in the beginning of the book and points at the strawberry on the different pages. We also picked up another book recently at a yard sale for free where you have to find a red fish hidden on each page. She loves flipping through the book and pointing quickly at where the fish is.
Leah's understanding some basic things that we ask her to do regularly. You can ask her to find certain objects and she will look for them. She will also go get her favorite book if you ask her. She runs upstairs to her bathroom if you say it's time to go potty and she will get shoes for everyone in the house if you mention anything about going outside.
She understands the trash can and its purpose pretty well. You can ask her to throw something away and she will run to the trashcan and throw it in. She has actually picked up trash and thrown it in without being asked if she is in the mood to do so. I always do a quick check to look in the trash can for anything that shouldn't be there and she usually does pretty good. One night she had gotten into my closet and was play with some lotion. She was trying to squirt some into her mouth and I said, "Yuck! This is yucky!" and she ran over and threw it in my trash can. Haha! I guess I have been referring to trash as yucky.
Go find mommy's phone is a particular favorite of mine. Leah has started becoming very insistent that I check my phone if it makes any sort of noise. A few nights ago, I was in the bathroom when I heard my phone (which was on the higher bar counter) make a single "pop" with a Facebook notification. I did not witness, but only heard the following... Leah scooted her play table over to the counter, climbed onto it, reached up and grabbed my phone, and then ran to bring it to me... Beating on the bathroom door. Wow.
The other day I was on the phone with my mom and Leah grabbed the kitty bowl and was about to dump it out. I firmly told her, "Leah, put the kitty bowl back (pointing)." She actually returned it! I exclaimed, "Wow! She actually LISTENED to me!" while on the phone. Haha.
Each night, Doug announces out loud so that Leah can hear that it's time to feed the fishies. She will squeal and run over to the fish tank. She points to where the food is up on the bookshelf and jumps up and down excitedly until Doug picks it up. She loves watching the fish and does a good job feeding them (besides that one time where she dropped her carrot in...).
This girl loves routines and many times will prompt me to start whatever is next in our daily happenings. In the morning if I haven't gone running by myself yet, we usually run together (I push her in the jogging stroller.) One morning, I woke up early enough to go by myself, but when Leah woke up she picked up our shoes and started putting them on my feet. She missed our run! She is pretty good in the jogging stroller and enjoys the wind in her face.
One evening, I was going on a long run (about 5 miles with some friends) where we ran through 3 different neighborhoods and into town where Oktoberfest was going on. There was a live band and many kids were on the dance floor, so I decided that I would let Leah out of her stroller to dance. Only, I looked down to discover that one of her shoes was missing (my favorite pair)! The next morning I retraced our route and luckily was able to retrieve her shoe about halfway!
Her nap/sleeping schedule right now is that she wakes up around 7:15-30am. We either go for a run or have breakfast. Depending on our day's activities, she may go down for a nap around 10am if she is getting grumpy or she'll last until noon. I was missing the two nap schedule, but she's not napping very well in the afternoon anymore, so it's best to wait until noon to put her down. She'll sleep between 2-4 hours. She needs a little crib time to herself after waking up or she will be a grump for the rest of the evening. If she is in a foul mood, we usually just put her back in her crib for about 10-15 minutes and that does a pretty good job of "reseting" her foul mood most of the time. We start our bedtime routine around 7/7:30 and she's usually in bed a little before 8pm. She sleeps well through the night. Sometimes she wakes up for a little while and cries early in the morning, but I just leave her in there and she's asleep within a minute or two. She is flexible if we don't end up sticking to this exact schedule which is really nice.
Leah has become very observant and likes to learn and copy things that she's sees me and others around her do. I have had to become more aware of exactly what it is I'm doing. One evening we were eating dinner and Leah dropped something mushy on the floor. I picked it up and flung it into the sink a few feet away from me. The next moment, I caught Leah picking up her food and flinging it at the sink... only her aim isn't as good. Oops!
Now that it is Fall and the weather is cooling down, we don't have as many opportunities to get outside. Leah showed a little bit of resistance to long sleeves, socks, and tennis shoes, but she has adjusted pretty well. She loves to crunch leaves on the sidewalk. I've also caught her crunching bugs in her hands. Ugh! So far she's gotten a cricket, a stink bug, and this poor snail we found on a walk. (I absolutely cannot squish any bugs, so this really grosses me out!)
We have scrambled eggs almost every morning for breakfast and Leah has been watching me stir up the eggs and add milk. She wanted to help so one morning I scooted over a chair and let her stand and watch. Now every morning she scoots over the chair, climbs up, hands me the eggs one at a time, and then mixes the eggs and the milk. (We've only had one unfortunate egg mishap!) One morning while I was throwing away the eggs shells, I caught her tasting the raw egg gook on the fork. Oops!
Leah's hair has grown to the point where I can put piggy tails in! Her hair is still rather thin and fine, but I can still get it back. She is actually pretty cooperative for this process. She stands up on her stool in front of the sink and plays in the water while I put her hair up. It's a good system... And I just LOVE how cute she looks with her hair up!
Leah interest in the light switches in the house has definitely grown. Whenever we are leaving a room, she will point to the light switch and insist that I pick her up so she can turn it off. One of her favorite things to do is to turn off the lights around the house before we leave to go somewhere. She has such a look of achievement after she turns off a light. It hasn't been very clear, but we think we've heard her say, "ight" (light) while pointing up to the switch.
This last month, we were able to go on some fun outings. Leah and I were able to go apple picking with some friends. It turned out to be a misty, rainy day, but I think we still had a good time. The branches were low enough that Leah could pick the apples herself. Unfortunately, she is still working on developing her chompers (9 teeth at this point) so she didn't get any really good bites out of the apples. She did enjoy lobbing the apples at me when I was taking pictures and actually nailed me pretty well and knocked my phone out of my hand! She also liked to help by pushing the wagon everywhere when she wasn't in it. We made an apple pie with our pickings last week and need to make another one soon.
Every year, our small town throws a big Oktoberfest. This year, they had a fun little area for kids with games, little playground equipment, and bounce houses. Leah and her BFF Brooke rode in her red wagon together for the festival. They got to sit in mini little race cars, play little games, and win candy. Leah had her first lollipop and made quite a sticky mess of herself. She was so exhausted that she took a nap in the wagon on our way back home. I think they had a good time!
Leah has gotten even better at putting together puzzles and fitting the shapes into the correct places on shape sorters. She still has difficulty getting the pieces to wiggle into their places, but she understands now how to rotate them a little better. This picture of her below is at our weekly library program "Babygarten" where she is now the oldest in the class!"
Leah loves to listen to music. If she hears anything with a beat, she will start to bounce a little. She is also getting better at doing the motions for song that we sing. She will clap for, "If you're happy and you know it..." and she likes to roll her hands for, "The wheels on the bus." There is a song we listen to at Rhyme, Rhythm, and Tune Time at the Library called "Arms Up!" and after about 5 weeks of hearing the song she now listens and raises her arms, claps her hands, stomps her feet, and covers her eyes.
At church, she makes herself busy in the pew with puzzles, books, and digging through my bag, but every time the organ starts playing she climbs up onto the pew so she can see, grabs a hymnal, and starts flipping through it. Sometimes she even watches the chorister and moves her arms to the music. She had her first official Sunday in Nursery and did great! She barely noticed that I left the room and stayed in the whole time (over an hour and a half) without a tear or even a check-in from mommy. After church, she was trying to step in a puddle of water after church, so daddy flew her to the car to keep her out of mischief and I snapped this picture. She's holding her art from nursery.
I am very fortunate that Leah is a great eater. She recently has started liking spicy foods and wolfs down spicy mango and chicken curry with rice. She has to take a drink after every bite, but she clears her plate. She is also good at eating her vegetables (better than mommy!) and many times will eat 2 or 3 servings of carrots, peas, broccoll, etc. She has developed a love for dipping things, especially anything in ketchup! For Family Game Night this month, we had traditional Irish fish and chips. Leah ate THREE fried fish filets. She is getting better at using a spoon when she chooses to use one. Sometimes she'll eat with her hands, others times she will INSIST on having a utensil. She can scoop up her food pretty well... She just has difficulty getting that spoonful into her mouth.
Leah's love of drawing has continued to grow. She now can get the caps off of markers and pens, so I have to be very watchful. She loves to draw on her chalkboard and we've even caught her standing on the front tray so that she can reach the very top of the board.
Another thing that Leah has been doing lately is giving kisses. In one of her favorite books about kittens, she has a particular page with a meowing kitten that she likes to kiss. (I've had to clean food bits off this kitten on multiple occasions!) I also have an informational book about cat breeds that Leah likes to look at and give kisses. She started kissing the kitties in books, but she has moved onto kissing family members and babies. Her cousin Jacob (at 4 months old) came for a visit and Leah was constantly giving him kisses. We just had to make sure that she wasn't head banging him in the process. She gives kisses to Grandma and Grandpa H. whenever we are saying goodbye and has even surprised some of my friends with a kiss when they were expecting a hug.
The nighttime routine with this girl is fun because she gets a little crazy before bedtime. After bath, I bring her into her room for story time and close the door. Her room isn't that big, but she starts running from one end to the other back and forth while I sit at the rocking chair waiting for her to settle down for a book. Most of the time, I end up starting the book without her and she occasionally runs over to look at the pictures. The other night during this whirling dirvish, she realized that she could fit under her bed. She did this at least 5 times before I caught her to wind down for bedtime.
