{Happy 18 months!!!}

Holy cow. In these last 3 months our little girl has grown up so so so much.

[These pictures are from the doctor's office and our visit to get froyo afterwards. We'll get some great 18 mo and Eater pictures this weekend - get excited!]

We went to the doctor today and she is 33.25 inches tall [85%], weighs 26.2 lbs [75%], and has a head circumference of 47.5 cm [70%]. She got 1 shot and a prescription for some cream to help with her eczema which has flared up in the last couple months. 

As far as life goes, she sleeps between 12-14 hrs at night. She goes to bed somewhere between 7-8 every night and wakes up between 8-9 every morning. She has pretty much switched to 1 nap a day, right after lunch, which has been a little bit hard on everyone, but we're getting used to it.

She drinks whole milk and uses her 16 teeth to eat everything we eat. She's mastered a spoon and almost a fork and loves to eat pretty much anything. Spinach or lettuce is hard for her to cut through and she still doesn't like tomatoes very much, but we're working on it. She loves fruit snacks, raisins, pizza, spaghetti, noodles, peas, mexican food, chili, bananas..... everything. She eats a lot. When I make scrambled eggs for the two of us in the morning I need to make 5 eggs. 5!!! She has 2.5 eggs and half a piece of toast and jam in the morning. Seriously, this girl can down it.

Her communication skills are incredible. She doesn't say very many words, but you can pretty much always figure out what she wants. Some of her consistent words that she can say of her own accord are Daddy, Momma, yes, please, cheese, snack, leche, oh no, poops.

Some more signs that she made up to help us communicate with her are - snack, car, bug, brush teeth, chapstick, lotions, bath, ball, elephant, water, pacifier, paint nails, sleep, more, blues clues, airplane, poop, sit down, lay down. If she doesn't have a specific word she wants to get across it will turn into a game of charades until you get it right. Then she usually applauds, which makes me feel a little dumb - ha! "Good job, Mom.... you finally figured out what I was trying to say!"

Her animal sounds are incredible. We've got 20ish or so down - never mind the lion, tiger, bear, shark, and dinosaur all make the same sound. Her favorite animal noises are the elephant and octopus. You'll just have to ask her in person what an octopus sounds like - it's great.

She understands everything. Seriously. She's brilliant.

She's also learned about puzzles! She loves them! She can match up the puzzle piece to it's picture on the board 100% correct every time. We're just now working on "twisting" the piece until it fits right.

One of her favorite things nowadays is to go bug hunting. We have a pretty awesome side yard full of weeds that are the perfect breeding grounds for lady bugs/rolly pollys/etc. She could go bug hunting all day if I let her. Her sign for bug is to use her right pointer finger to scratch the top of her left hand to emulate a bug crawling on her hand. She doesn't like to touch bugs, but will watch them forever. It's kind of nice because if it's not a good time to go bug hunting I can say, "No, Babysita, the bugs are taking a nap! Why don't you take a nap?" then she agrees that that's probably a good idea. I use it for meal times, sleep times, if it's too cold outside, whatever. it's great.

Another favorite thing is getting her nails painted. She knows where the polish is kept in the bathroom so she'll go up to the cupboard, point to the box, and then gingerly tap her finger nails and look up at me all concerned. She would let me paint her nails 10 times a day...I don't, but she would let me.

Another favorite thing is cars. She loves loves loves loves loves to drive. She begs to drive our car and to push all the buttons. I let her do that a few times, but then I realized that letting her think that the car is a toy is probably not a good idea. But she loves her little play car. She plays with it all the time. She even has her own little set of keys.

She's a good little Momma, as well, to her babies. She loves to carry her babies around, feed them, give them baths, tuck them into bed...it's seriously adorable.

She's also turned into quite the social baby. She loves to play with other kids and has a couple close friends that she just adores. It fun to see her interact and share her books, toys, and treats with her friends.

Evette also loves tickles. She loves to get them and she loves to give them - mostly to and from Daddy. They are growing quite the special little bond and it's freaking adorable.

As always, she is continuing to develop that quirky little sense of humor that she has and that big ol' bright personality. She's quite the character. Now that's she's getting older and we can communicate more, most days are just downright fun! [don't get me wrong, there are horrible days as well... but they are usually few and far between.] I mean we just get to hang out all the time! We play and read books and visit friends and go to fun places. 

She's a sweetheart and she is the light of our lives.