18 Months!

October 21st

 

 

Natalie is 18 months old! That is a whole year and a half! I guess in another half a year, I will have to stop using months and only give her age in years! Hard to believe how fast time is flying. Natalie is such a fun loving little girl full of her own personality. She is talking so much and repeating everything! She continues to work on combining two or more words and phrases and is great at copying whole sentences word by word. 

Natalie loves to play outside still. Her favorite thing is to wait on the junior high buses. We have two buses that come around the same time each school day. Natalie loves to go out front and wait for the buses.  The second bus driver is so sweet and always waves to Natalie. Natalie gets so excited and starts jumping up and down, waving, and saying "hi". She is a little confused though with the song Row, Row, Row Your Boat. When she sees a bus, she sings "Row, Row, Row". For a while we thought Natalie heard bus instead of boat, until we discovered the sing along book at Poppa's house. The book has a bus on the cover and plays several songs- including Row, Row, Row Your Boat (as well as The Wheels on the Bus). I guess while learning the song she got a bus stuck in her head. Now buses remind her of the song!

Natalie loves to blow bubbles. She always asks to go outside and "blow". She has gotten pretty good at it and can blow bubbles with very little help. Natalie loves to color so we bought her special Color Wonder markers that only write on special paper. They fooled her at first, but I think she realizes they aren't the real deal. One of her favorite activities is to explore and learn new naughty tricks. She is such a little dare devil and tries everything. Even if she gets hurt, she is right back at it almost immediately! She knows Daddy is her main man in the trick department so they are always getting into mischief.

Showing off her new trick!

 Being a cutie and eating her fruit.

Showing a little bit of personality here!

Bubbles!

Natalie full of funny faces. This is surprised Natalie- her favorite face right now.  

Playing at the mall play area.

Taking a nap with Daddy in the big bed.

Natalie's favorite treat right now is M&Ms. We learned the art of bribery in record time, and Natalie is so great at it. We tell Natalie she can't have any M&Ms until she finishes her dinner. It is not something we have to do every night, but only when she doesn't love what she's eating (which is quite often). Since we are bribing Natalie with candy, Nathan and I decided to make it an educational experience. We are teaching Natalie her colors using the M&Ms. When we ask her what color, she always tries to repeat the word color first by saying 'ca'. After that her go to color is blue because it's the one she knows the best. We always clap and cheer when she gets one right, and she celebrates too. Sometimes she gets more excited about the celebration then the actual candy!

These two videos are hilarious. Natalie starts off doing well in the first video and then Nathan tries to mouth and whisper the color answers to her. She doesn't get the concept and instead is making ridiculous faces and expressions. We were laughing so hard we were crying, and I couldn't keep the camera still!

A sitting position is next to impossible these days!

In the middle of saying 'cheese'!