18 Months Old!!

The Life of an 18 Month Old:
Things I love: Playing with balls, balloons, stuffed animals, and baby dolls; reading books- "I'm very gentle and get to read paper back books now,"; coloring with crayons; playing outside -"especially if there are balls to kick around"; Learning letters and numbers- "I love to show off so go ahead and ask me what sounds the letters make!"

Favorite Color: Yellow

Favorite Animals: Lenny, Meow, and Tweet!

Favorite Phrases: "Boo-ya!", "Silly Mama!", "Good Lenny!", "Nice Baby!", "Hey you!", "Whoa, fun!", "Help pease!", "Daddy home soon!", "I want dat!" "I so funny"

Lizzie isms: "I've noticed that all the best things in the world end with sound ie/y like Mommy, Daddy, Lizzie, Lenny, Kitty, etc. So, I've decided to add an ie/y sound to all things I love!

My conversations with Lizzie sound like this:
Mom: What do you want to drink? Liz: Botty of Waty!
Mom: We're going to visit Papa! Liz: Poppy!
Mom: Guess what time it is? (as I turn on the shower) Liz: Showie!
Mom: Are you hungry? ( as i hold up an apple) Liz: Appie!

Favorite Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Favorite Song: Old MacDonald and I'm a Little Fishy
Lizzie's "singing" is very amusing. She will sometimes sing along with a "Doo doo doo doo!" when she approves of the song. Or with "Old Macdonald" she will join in to say animal names and sounds.

Lizzie Lingo:
"Fwop!" Translation: Egg
She picked this up from a computer alphabet game that she loves. The animated egg breaks and apparently thats the noise it makes. She will say "egg" when I prompt her, otherwise she prefers the term"fwops!" when referring to her breakfast.

"Peeyah!" Translation: Hooray!
She says this frequently when she is particularly excited. This is a regular part of her vocab, especially since it makes daddy laugh so hard each time.

"Double-noon" Translation: the letter "W"
Whats there to say? Its a hard letter to pronouce.

"LennyNmeow, LennyNmeow, LennyNmeow, LennyNmeow!!" Translation: Don't you dare pick me up out of this crib until I have a good grip on my lion and kitty.
She says this EVERY morning when I start to pick her up out of the crib. She's very concerned about her stuffed friends being left behind.


I have been trying to prep Liz for her soon-to-be-coming sister Julie. I'll say "Where's baby Julie?" Then she'll point to my big tummy. We also practice being gentle with her baby doll, rocking her gently, etc...hopefully some of this will help when the lil sis arrives!
At least Lizzie gets to enjoy some "congrats, its a girl" balloons and fun with a baby doll for the time being!

He's Back From New Orleans!

Congrats to Dave!! Over the past couple months he has been flying from Seattle to San Francisco then finishing up in New Orleans. Now, he's back from New Orleans and done with his extra dental training! He is now a Fellow of the International Congress of Implantologists and a graduate of the Misch Institute. He arrived home, certificate in hand, along with over 100 extra hours in dental implant surgery CE! Way to go!

Lizzie and I are just glad to have him back at home with us for good now! Liz was extremely excited by her "Dadda's" souvenirs. It wasn't Mardi Gras while he was there (for those worried about how he obtained those beads) but he was able to pick up some beads at a gift shop. Lizzie has been obsessed with wearing ALL of them all the time ever since.

If Lizzie Had a Twin..

If Lizzie had a twin brother he might look a little bit like her friend Josh. These two are only a couple weeks apart in age, both have brown hair/blue eyes, are in the same percentile for height/weight, and have fairly similar facial features.

They are not actually related at all but they sure are good friends! The other night Mary was babysitting Lizzie and put the two kids to bed. When I came back to pick her up and pulled her out of bed, she was very concerned that Josh was no where in sight. She kept asking "Joshy?" and looking around for him. (He was asleep in his bedroom)
So the next TWO days she continued to ask for him. Apparently, this disappearance of Josh was very disturbing and she was anxious to see him again.
So, we met Josh at the park and the two had a great time!

Lizzie's First Haircut

Lizzie recently got her first haircut! Ok, so it was more of a little trim of the bangs, but it was the first time scissors have ever touched her pretty brunette locks. I was too scared to do it myself so I took her to a professional. I only felt a little silly when the haircut consisted of a mere one straight snip across her forehead.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! This year was Lizzie's first Easter egg hunt! This was Josh's first Easter egg hunt as well, and these two were so cute to watch! We weren't sure if they would understand the idea behind an Easter egg hunt but they caught on really fast!

They each carried their baskets around and picked up as many eggs as they could see!

The most surprising part was that, afterwards, they sat down next to each other and enjoyed the goodies with very little conflict or "sharing" issues. Josh was content to dump all the eggs out of the baskets while Lizzie had fun putting them back in. And of course they both had fun stuffing their faces with candy and cereal.

Its so nice to not only have family nearby but good friends, too, to celebrate the holidays with!

17 Months Old. Sneak Peak Video

Lizzie is 17 months old, just one month short of the big 1 1/2 year old mark. She really seems to be growing up too fast. So fast that sometimes this pregnancy seems to just blur in with the pregnancy when I was carrying Lizzie. But no... Lizzie was born over a year ago; she walks; she talks; and she will soon have a baby sister.

I always thought it odd when parents would refer to their toddlers as being "17 months" or "18 months", etc. Why not just say 1 1/2 yrs old? Don't we refer to people's ages by the years? Can't we just do a little rounding instead of specifying the exact number of months a child has been alive? Now that I have a 17 month old, myself, I know exactly why we specify age in months at this point. This girl has changed SOOO much in the past month, its amazing. She has probably grown more, learned more, and changed more than I have in the past 5 yrs of my life.

This past month she has entered the "terrible twos" phase early it seems. She has been asserting her free will and independence at every turn. Tantrums and sour faces are a part of our daily life at this point. It can be frustrating in the moment, but at the end of the day I smile and appreciate the sheer will of such a young girl who is just trying to gain a little control over her daily activities. Apparently, its very frustrating to have so many wants, desires, and needs while having such a limited ability to communicate and control one's environment. I do give the girl credit because she has strong opinions, determination, and a long memory. There is no such thing as "distracting" tactics anymore.

Don't get me wrong though, she is still the sweet, happy girl who loves giving mom and dad hugs and kisses. She'll do anything to get us to laugh at her. She is just in a phase where her spunky side flares up a bit more often. Perhaps that is why her favorite phrases to say lately are "Boo-ya!", "Silly momma!", and "Silly Daddy!"

Warning: Beware of parent bragging about child beyond this point. Stop reading now unless you are a grandparent or a future/older Lizzie wanting to read lots of praise about milestones reached!

Lizzie- I've found that you learn in spurts. You'll go a month without too much change then, WHAM! You'll learn a million new things in a week. This month has been one of those spurts. I have also learned to take advantage of these "spurting" times because a couple weeks later you're interests have changed. Your latest interest is in letters, numbers, colors, and words. I introduced you to the ABC's by showing you the website starfall.com and a month later you now know all your letters and some phonics. You then learned numbers 1-10, basic colors, and you try to repeat every new word you hear.
Its so fun to watch you learn. I love teaching you. You're very quick for such a little girl. You're very cute. You're very funny. You're very clever. And very sweet. But this is not why we love you. We love you because you are YOU! No matter what you do- we are always so proud!

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We have looked forward to Lizzie being able to communicate her thoughts for so long we have recorded some of her favorite words and phrases over the past couple months. A little sneak peak into the mind of a 1 yr old:

Portland With Friends

This past weekend we headed to Vancouver, WA to visit Steve and Krista's new home, and to meet up with Briel and Kathryn. This was our first time getting together since everyone has moved and resettled away from Seattle, after dental school. We decided to make this year's annual vacation a very casual one considering 2 families just bought houses, 2 of us are pregnant, and Krista just had a baby less than 2 months ago! It was great to just have the chance to hang out again and catch up since graduation!


One of the days we spent in downtown Portland, shopping and exploring. Walking around Portland brought back some good memories which is unusual considering this was my first visit! It was so similar to Seattle! Every aspect of it, really, including the statues of pigs on the sidewalk!

Vancouver was a beautiful area as well. We were able to go on a mini hike and enjoy the beautiful outdoors! The kids especially loved it!

(That includes Dave of course..hehe)
We really had a great time and are already looking forward to our next reunion!