15 months

We celebrated Elise's 15 month birthday by heading to Waco with Sarah and John. The kids played at Books a Million while I did a little shopping next door at Ann Taylor Loft. Then we all went to lunch at Panera and headed to the Children's Museum. E and J had a fabulous time in all of the "discovery" rooms. I am amazed that they both lasted so long without needing a nap. We didn't head home until 4:30 and Elise was asleep in the car before I even got on I35. What a fun day! One of the interesting exhibits involved seeing an overweight mom who was feeding her (crawling) baby french fries and fruit loops. How sad! I actually got this on video, haha. I have several fun videos from today but I can't figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer.

Here are a few things I want to remember about Elise at 15 months. This will hopefully be the last post that Mike sees before he gets on a plane, so I want him to know what he's coming home to :)

Elise is a VERY busy girl. She's still only awake for 9ish hours during the day but when she's awake, she is like the Energizer bunny. She loves to play outside, go to the park, go to the store, play with her friends, play with her toys, etc. She still loves the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Learning Home and I think that will be a hit for months to come. She likes ride-on toys and pull toys.

She just cut her third molar and has 11 teeth. The molars have bothered her more than her other teeth and she was teething off and on this month. She is a fussy eater when she is teething. Thankfully, she still slept very well, even during the worst teething days. I tried for a week to get her to take one long nap instead of two, but she is not ready to drop her morning nap yet. She usually wakes up around 8. I let her play in her crib for 15-20 minutes before I get her up. This gives me time to shower if we are heading somewhere in the morning. We are in the weaning process right now and have only nursed in the morning for the past week. Then she usually has some water and fruit and Cheerios or a package of Sprout baby food for breakfast. She goes down for her first nap between 10:30 and 11 and sleeps for about 1.5 hours. Then we have lunch and drink milk. She has been starting her afternoon nap around 3/3:30 and we have a snack before or after the nap. She wakes up around 4:30/5 and we eat dinner and play until 7:30 when we take a bath. She's in bed by 8.

She's very talkative and gets really excited when she sees things that she knows. She is very proud of herself when she is understood. Some new words in the past two days include horse, neigh, fish, nose, and eye. I think she says 75ish total. Her vocabulary is growing exponentially! By no means is her pronunciation perfect... I am quite sure that many of her words are only understood by her mama. Sometimes even I have to use my context clues (usually a frantic point, haha) to figure out what she is saying.

She has started telling me "no". Today it happened once while I was trying to feed her mashed bananas, once when I told her "let's change your diaper!" and once when I was trying to put her clothes on. "No no no no no!".

Sometimes she points at herself in the car mirror and says "lise!" She is still a happy car traveler but I will probably turn her car seat around soon so that she can face the air vents. Today she got really sweaty in the car on the drive to/from Waco.

She loves to make animal sounds for cow, horse, dog, lion, sheep, etc. She has figured out that she might get to stay up for a minute or two past nap time or bed time if she says something cute. Today I walked into her room to put her to bed and she started pointing to her stuffed animals and telling me the name and the sound. Yesterday she started pointing to parts of my face and telling me what they were. She's figured out how to say a whimpery "pleeeeeeeeease!" that is just heartbreaking!

She gets really excited when I ask her if she wants to go to the park. She usually makes a beeline for the swings, then turns back and smiles at me and says "please! please! please!".

She is very affectionate and loves giving me hugs and kisses and laying her head on my shoulder or chest. Her favorite things are mama, dogs, balls, balloons, certain books, moving vehicles ("go go go go go!"), John, and saying "please". She loves her grandparents and has gotten to spend a lot of time with them this month (which is wonderful for all of us!). She likes to put on her socks, my shoes, sunglasses, and hats, though hats are usually the only thing that she can put on correctly.

What a blessing she has been throughout this deployment. Thank you Lord for keeping us all safe and healthy this year and for being faithful to reunite us very soon!