18 Months Old

8/22/2014
21.6 lbs
30 and 3/4 inches
size 4 diapers
size 12-18 month clothing

So we finally moved Brooklyn into size 4 diapers, not because she grew out of size 3, but because I had over 400 size 4 diapers sitting up in her nursery that I wanted to make sure got used before she was potty trained and I got tired of buying smaller packs of size 3 thinking she would out grow them soon.  Anyways they are ginormous on her but they stay on so I figure we are good to go.  Brooklyn's favorite thing this month is playing copy cat.  She does something and wants us to copy her and then she'll do something else and we are supposed to copy her and so on and so forth.  Most of the time it consists of folding her arms (which she does really well during prayers), clapping her hands, touching her nose, and reaching her arms up in the air and she will go on forever if we don't stop her.  If we accidentally copy her doing something then she thinks we have started the game and there goes 5 minutes of our lives.  She just broke through her last 1 year molars, so her tooth count is up to 12.  She has started to enjoy bell peppers and loves anything with carbs, especially pasta and rice.  She learned a few new words this month including cheese, chip (she is obsessed with Pringles, she even knows what it sounds like when Craig opens the lid and she'll run into the kitchen), teeth, keys, and hat. Every once in a while she will say a word like up, hi or chip without me asking her too, but other then that she just jabbers until I ask her to say something.

She loves all of her stuffed animals.  She has started bringing them in the car with her.  She also likes to make them say Hi.  She will wave their hand or paw and say hi.  She will also try to wrap them up in a blanket or one of her burp clothes and put them to sleep. She still loves her baby and now she will burp the baby after she feeds her and then rock her.  Craig also thinks its funny to tell her to spank the baby.  She learned a few new body parts, knees and bum-bum.  She still likes to dance and sing songs.  She is getting better with the hand motions for head, shoulders, knees and toes, itsy-bitsy spider, wheels on the bus, and is really good at patty-cake.  She loves to dance to the music on her new guitar.  She still loves going to the gym and she has gone to nursery at church for about an hour the last few weeks and did fairly well.  A new thing this month was that she puked for the first time.  A few weekends ago she was having a rough night and I was trying to let herself cry back to sleep, but I finally go up to her room and it stinks and there is a couple piles of puke in her crib and the poor thing had puke all over her face.  We got her cleaned off and in new jammies and a new sheet on her crib and she went right back to sleep and woke up the next morning like nothing happened. I felt super bad that I made her hang out up there in her puke for a little while, but she had never puked before so I wasn't expecting that.  Luckily she wasn't really sick and it just happened that once.

She loves play group and is finally interacting more with the other kids.  We are so sad to see so many of our friends leaving for their externships.  Brooklyn and I are going to be really bored the next 8 months, I guess I might have to actually try making friends.  We have had so much fun over the last 3 years and can't wait to see everyone at graduation next May.  We had one last get together down in Mississippi with everyone.  Brooklyn had a ton of fun swimming and petting the dogs.  We are really going to miss everyone.

All of the kids from playgroup

She has been making a lot of funny faces recently

Rockin out with her guitar and crazy hair

She likes to help me cook and loves to stir things so I have started to give her a pot and spoon so she doesn't make a mess of the real food.

Playgroup at Overton Park

Lovin on all of her stuffed animals

She was obsessed with these dogs and just kept sticking her arm in to pet them and they would lick her.  Luckily they were very friendly dogs.

She did not want to get out of this car.

At the splash pad with the playgroup from the ward

Cooling off in the backyard

She didn't want a slice of pepper, she wanted the whole thing

Trying out a dum-dum for the first time, she loved it.

17 Months Old

July 22, 2014
21.2 lbs
size 3 diapers
size 12 month clothing

This past month has been really fun with Brooklyn, her personality just continues to blossom as she continues to learn and understand more.  One of my favorite things from this past month is that she recognizes Jesus in pictures and can say His name.  At our church building there are a ton of pictures of Christ along all of the hallways and so one Sunday I was in the hall with her and just started to point out Jesus in all the pictures and by the third picture she could point Him out and say His name.  It was so cool and it just makes me think that she might still remember Him.  She is also now saying out, bath, baby, kitty, ball, and says hop hop for bunny rabbit.  She can climb down from the couch and any chairs safely and is so close to being able to climb up onto the couch by herself.  She still loves bath time and will drop anything and everything when we tell her it is time for a bath.  She loves to blow kisses and wave at everyone.  When we walk into the gym she just starts waving and when we leave she blows kisses at everyone.  She has really gotten into her stuffed animals and baby doll this month.  She will try to feed them her food and give them drinks from her sippy cup.  She also will lay them down and try to put a diaper on them.  She likes to wrap the baby up in the blanket but if she can't find the blanket she will grab a dish towel.  She has been doing better this month with eating her vegetables.  She absolutely loves stir fry veggies and frozen green beans.  Her favorite food is still fruit of any kind, she recently tried a plum for the first time and loved it.  if I let her she would live off of fruit. She got in one new tooth this month so she is up to 10.

She still loves to read and we have started going to story time at the library most Thursday mornings.  We always check out 5 or 6 books so that we can have a few new ones to read at home.  She still loves to dance and will stop what she is doing to shake her groove thing whenever music comes on.  One day at the gym I went to pick her up from the child watch and they were having a dance party with the older kids, but she of course had to join them and she was going to town.  I just stood there and watched for a few minutes, it was too dang cute.  We will definitely be getting her into dance class as soon as possible.  She is totally gluds to her burp clothe, it just keeps getting worse.  She knows where I keep them and if she wants one she will just go stand at the closet door until I grab one from her.  If she is playing she forgets about it.  She always has one when we go into the gym but they say she forgets about it within a few minutes, so that's good I guess. I swear someday she will just have it when she sleeps, but man is it convenient to be able to give it to her and know she will calm down and be content.  I guess I will have to suck it up sometime soon and just do it.  She has thrown a few more tantrums this month, luckily not in public places.  Man when she gets pissed, she gets pissed.  One time Craig took a crayon from her because she brought out to the living room and she gave him the nastiest look ever and refused to go to him or even look at him for like 20 minutes.  Luckily she forgives fairly quickly and totally forgets about it.  If it is just me and her at home and I do something she doesn't like she will stomp off down the hallway to the laundry room for a minute and then will come grab a burp clothe and then will finally come to me.  Oh the joys of toddlers.  She has also started squealing and happy screaming at a lot of different things, it is so cute and you can't help but laugh. She gets so excited when Craig gets home in the evening.  She can hear when he pulls up and she automatically points to the garage door and says "daddy" and when he walks in she runs to him and then runs away and then runs back and gives him a kiss. Same routine every night but it is so cute to watch.

Her new baby doll

She loves to brush her teeth with mommy's tooth brush (it will keep her occupied for like 10 minutes)

She still loves the swings and the park in general

She likes to eat bananas all by herself now

She shoved about a 1/3 of a banana into her mouth

Fun at the botanic gardens

Going through the junk mail with daddy

I am now realizing how often she wears this outfit

Somehow I missed an arm when I was putting on her shirt

Lots of Family Fun

Craig had 2 long weekends in a row, he had the last Thursday and Friday of June off because the staff doctors all had a conference and then he also had Friday the 4th off and he took a personal day on Monday the 6th.  Brooklyn and I were very excited to have him around.  Since he had these long weekends we wanted to make sure to actually do things and not just sit around.  On the Thursday he had off we decided to go down to the Mud Island River Park.  It is an exacted replica of the Mississippi river from start to finish.  They even have water running through it and they let the kids get in it.  The Coles came a long and the kids had a lot of fun splashing and playing in the water.  After the kids played for a while we decided to grab some lunch.  We decided to try out an awesome diner downtown called the Arcade.  It was super good and would recommend it to everyone. I mean you can't go wrong with deep fried french toast, just ask Craig.

they had a map of the city and we were standing where our house is

Brooklyn trying out the water

walking over to see the real river

Brooklyn decided to step down all by herself and she scraped up her knee pretty good.  I definitely need to start carrying band aids in the diaper bag.

We made it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico

Memphis' skyline

Our 6th wedding anniversary was on Saturday the 28th, but decided to celebrate on Friday because we had free babysitting that night.  We dropped Brooklyn off at a friends house in the ward and headed out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  It was so nice to be able to eat slowly and not feel rushed.  We definitely need to get out more just the two of us.

The next Friday was the 4th of July and we went to a Redbirds game with some friends from school.  The weather was absolutely perfect, which is weird for Memphis in July normally we are burning up, but luckily we got a small break from that.  Brooklyn once again enjoyed the game and especially the fireworks.  One of our friends brought glow sticks for all the kids and she really liked that too.  She crashed on the drive home, which included waiting almost 50 minutes to get out of our parking garage.

the child watch at the gym drew stars on the kids on the 3rd

On Saturday we had some yard work to do and when I say "we" I really mean Craig.  Brooklyn did help me pull a few weeds and sweep out the garage while Craig did the rest.  Then we filled up her little pool and let her play.  She had a lot more fun with the filling up of the pool then the actual playing in the pool.  She also really enjoyed her Popsicle, she even shared a bite with me and Craig

had fun sticking her finger in the hose and spraying herself

she totally did this on her own

yummy popsicle

Then on Monday the 6th we decided to go to the zoo.  We hadn't been in a while so we thought it would be a good time.  It is a lot easier to go with Craig because Brooklyn likes to get in and out of the stroller to see the animals and that is much easier with two adults.  She gets to see more animals when Craig is with us.  When we first got to the zoo there was a worker out front with a tortoise and Brooklyn made a bee-line for him.  She just kept following him around and petting him.  She also loved the ducks in the farm area.  I think she could have stayed there all day chasing them around.

It was so nice to have Craig around, but sadly he had to get back to his normal schedule this week.  It is always hard to have him go back.  We had a great couple weeks, Brooklyn loves spending time with her Daddy.