18 Months

Ember is a year and a half old already!! Here is a quick overview of what this cute little thing has been up to! 

Ember is a very talkative and vocal little girl. She can say (her version) of most animal noises. She can easily say words such as: hi, bye, no (one of her favorites), nigh night, ball, banana, puppy, mama, dada, wa wa (water), walk, light, milk, avocado, cheese, egg, beach, play, bubble and many more! And she seems to understand about 10x as many words as she can say.

She can point to almost all of her body parts and facial features and she loves looking at books and having us ask her "where is the _______?" and then she points to it. 

She loves flowers, playing with bubbles and play dough, baths, walking to get the mail, walking Maci, eating, Elmo and Cookie Monster, reading books, coloring and painting with water. She does a really good job at cleaning up before her nap and then again at bed time. She is very good at not touching something when mommy or daddy say "no touch" and also listens really well to "stop" and "come to mommy." She is not a huge fan of her car seat right now and I often have to remind her to "not fuss" while we are riding to our destination. She absolutely loves being in stores once we get there and all the attention she inevitably gets with her natural cuteness and her saying "hi" to strangers. 

Ember had a lot more firsts during this 6 month period. She got to be babysat quite a few times. Mommy and Daddy do a date night swap with some of our good friends. Ember stayed her first time over night at another one of our very good friends house's and then she stayed her first weekend away from Mommy and Daddy with Grandma and Grandpa Flin. She did great!! She seemed to have some issues with teething so she had Teething Tablets and infant Advil for the first time. Ember learned how to feed herself with a spoon fairly well. We had to order her her own order of food at a restaurant - a side of scrambled eggs at Wildflower - since she eats so much these days. Mommy started watching a little girl named Emmerson for a few days a week recently and Ember has enjoyed playing with the "baby" who is 8 months younger than her. She had her first Easter Egg hunt and also her first ATV ride down in Mexico. Lots of good firsts.

There were also a few firsts that were not quite as good. Ember threw up for the first time. Luckily it only seemed to hit her for about 4 hours. She had her first bloody nose after falling and hitting the coffee table. She had to wear her first cloth diaper pinned with safety pins because we ran out of diapers one time at Mima and Pappy's and she was poopy. And she played in the toilet water for the first time in our bathroom (under Daddy's watch - I might add). 

Ember is completely done nursing and has officially switched to only one nap. She pretty consistently goes down for a nap at 12:30 after lunch, clean-up time, and a book and stays in her crib till 3:00. We feel very blessed to have such a laid back baby who doesn't mind hanging out in her crib peacefully till we come get her. Sometimes she sleeps the whole time and sometimes she plays quietly without crying for an entire hour. She goes to sleep at night at 8:00 pm and we get her up around 8:00 am in the morning.

Our little sweetie is such a copy cat and mimicker. She loves brushing her teeth when Mommy and Daddy do. She rubs lotion on her arms and legs when she sees us doing it. She holds our hands (or anyone who is sitting next to her) while we pray before meals and puts her hands up in the air when she sees others worshiping that way at church. Ember even kicks pine cones off the sidewalk now because Mommy always does that when we take a walk. And Ember has certainly developed into a unique character all of her own too. She loves stomping and running in a circle when she is excited, she squishes her face up against the top of her toy drum, and makes some of the silliest faces I have seen. Sometimes we all just find ourselves laughing and making faces at each other.

I am constantly amazed at how much our little 20 pound, 29.75 inch girl is learning and more able to do things every day. Every stage has been absolutely joyous and I am as always torn between being excited for what is to come and saddened that it is all happening too quickly. Happy 18 Month Birthday Ember! We love you so much!