18 Months!

I can't believe my baby is 18 months old! I know I start every monthly checkup post like this, but it's true!!!! Where does the time go? She's such a big girl!

Liv, you are such a joy. You truly entertain us all day long with your goofy personality and your contagious laugh. We are amazed every day with how much you know and your capacity to learn. You're a little sponge! You are also the cutest thing we have ever seen. Everywhere we go people always tell me how beautiful you are and they ALWAYS comment on your hair. They love how thick it is and the fact that there is always a bow of some kind included.

In the last couple of months, you have really made some big changes. You've really started to show interest in talking and repeating words. It's SO CUTE to hear you try and repeat some of the harder ones back. You've got a ton of the short words down. We go through your first words book and you say over 15 of them before we even point them out! Your favorite word right now are shoes, ball, juice, more and cheese. You can also do over 20 animal sounds.

You are in a "mom" phase and won't call me mommy or mama. It's MOM. It cracks us up because that's usually something you call your mom when you're older and mad at her! haha. You say, "MMMMMMMMMMMom" in a really high pitched voice with a smile and it melts my heart. You also HATE it when I leave your eye sight (major separation anxiety). It's all about mom right now and I'm secretly loving every second of it.

Here's a list of your latest and greatest:

- You've been loving "playing mommy" lately. I'll catch you quietly playing with your dollies while you dress them (well it's more like you lay clothes on top of them. lol) give them your snacks and walk around with them in your shopping cart.

- You love reading books! You'll sit quietly and read them to yourself. You also love to sit in our laps for a nice reading session.

- You love to run and run. You still need to work on your concentration skills sometimes because you get so wrapped up in the run that you trip. :)

- You will now ONLY WALK up the stairs. Apparently crawling up them is for babies so you insist on holding the railing and or wall all the up and take steps and laugh the whole way.

- You are very good with using utensils to eat by yourself. In fact, you really don't eat until the fork (or spoon) is in your hand. You don't demand them. You'll just sit quietly waiting for me to give you one. THEN you start eating.

- You are getting so much better at sharing. We just need to remind you sometimes.

- When we ask you what mama says, you say, "mama nooo noo".

- You walk around the room on your phone and have very serious conversations with the person on the other end.

- You still only have 10 teeth. We are waiting for more to come in. You still only have two of your bottom front teeth!

- Still going down for the day at 8 (up around 8) and taking a nice 2-3 hour afternoon nap.

- You love saying the blessing at dinner. You start us off every time!

- You LOVE counting to three before you do things (most of the time it's something scary like jumping backwards on the couch). It's adorable!!! Sounds like Too, Too, Tee. LOVE LOVE LOVE! You also walk around counting to yourself. Lots of "Too's". It's adorable.

- You are now obsessed with splashing AS BIG AS YOU CAN in the tub. You laugh so hard when you soak your dad and I. We usually jump up and you scream with laughter!

- You've been SO silly these days. You crack yourself up all the time. You run races with yourself from the tv area to the kitchen and that laugh when you get there. You also like to make faces and funny sounds and laugh at them. You crack us up all day long!

- You can eat an entire container of organic blueberries in 2-3 days. You would eat blueberries all day everyday if you could. You're going to be sad when summer is over and you don't get these fresh berries anymore. You also LOVE watermelon, oranges and banana.

Stats from the 18 month checkup:

Height: 34 inches (95%+)

Weight: 29 lbs 13 oz (this was with your pants and shirt on) (95%+)

Head Circumference: 19.5 inches (95%+)