Elsie Marie- 21 and 22 months

I decided to do a combo post again-mainly because I have been working on this post for weeks but failed to get it completed so it is all blending together.  She is growing and developing leaps and bounds and she is so much a toddler and at times see this little girl.  I am soaking up everyday because she is just so much fun!!!!!

GROWTH:  Elsie is definitely in 2T clothes and size 6 shoes.  Her boots are size 7 and seem to work okay which is nice so she can grow into them over the winter.

EATING: Our days are hit and miss in regards to food.  I do know she prefers things seperated vs in a casserole or soup.  She still doesn't like potatoes or beans and absolutely loves apples.  She could eat them all day-good thing they are in season right now.  Sometimes at dinner she hardly touches her food.  I am okay with that but require her to stay at the table until  John and I are done eating.  Most of the time she will eat more while sitting there. I feel pretty good that between her 3 meals a day and two snack times she is getting plenty of nutrition.

SLEEP:  There have been a few changes in the sleep department over the past couple months.  The first being that at home she will sleep for two hours for nap instead of 60-90 minutes!  It is so nice and she wakes up so much happier!  I am not sure what triggered this change it just happened.  She is still going to bed between 7:00-7:30 and goes down without any protest.  She is waking up anywhere between 5:30-7:00.  I would say around 6:00 is the norm and when she does wake up earlier than that she will lay with us in bed and doze some more.  One of our biggest challenges is she would wake up throughout the night crying for her paci because the one she went to bed with fell out of the crib.  To solve this problem we now put a pacifier on each corner post of her crib and she knows if she needs another where to look.  It is kind of fun to watch her in the monitor.  The first time she did it I was so excited to have found a solution to a problem that we had been facing for some time and for her to remember where I put it.

DEVELOPMENT:
Wow, I just don't know what has happened to my little baby!   I love how her little mind is developing and seems to come up with something new every day!  She is definitely becoming more independent these days.  Her favorite phrase is "I Hold It/I Get It/I Do It".  She wants to do everything herself which can sometime lead to battles when it isn't appropriate for her to do it/hold it/get it.  I am also allowing her to make more choices.  I will let her choose between two different things like which sleepsack, which pajama, etc.  The clothes wars have begun in our household so this is helping with that a lot.  Especially with shoes.  One day she was upset because I picked out a coat that she didn't want to wear.  Well finally I found out why..she said she needed a hood because it was windy out.  Well, not is so many words I think it was more like "Hood Up" "Windy" so once I got her a jacket with a hood she was happy.

One thing we struggle with is counting.  She will count 1, 3, 9 instead of 1, 2 3.  I am not sure where she got that from but we have been working on it for the past few months and has gotten us no where.  One of these days it will just click I'm sure.  We have also been working on colors but this too is coming slowly.  Just when we think she has a color down she calls it the wrong thing.

PLAY:
Ahh she is so much fun right now!  Seriously!  I loved her and had fun with her when she was younger than 12 months but from 12-22 months it has been a blast.  She still loves books and likes to pick out which books we read before bed from the bookshelf.  She loves playing with play-doh.  I found a big bag of playdoh toys at the consignment shop for super cheap but they are really random items but she loves it!

She likes to sing, especially in the car.  We have a list of songs I have to go through by her request just about anytime we ride together.  First, Wheels on the Bus, then Five Little Ducks, and finally B-I-N-G-O.  How she asks "Bus, Duckies, and Doggies"  The other day on the way home from JoJo's I was just listening to her sing.  I finally, asked what songs she was singing and she replied "Rosies"-Ahh Ring Around the Rosie.  In addition to singing she loves to dance.  The other day I put a dress on her and she ran over to the radio, turned it on and exclaimed "Dance".  In the kitchen I will plug my phone in and play some "dance music".  Her favorite song to dance to right now is "Chugga Chugga" which totally reminds me of my days working at Camp Manitou!

She loves bath time and loves her bath toys.  I think bath time could last well over an hour if I let her.  She likes to color with her bath crayons, sing, play with bubbles, and splash in the water.  She is more sensitive to us pouring water on her head than she was previously.  However, she doesn't mind sticking her head under running water.

Oh and he hugs are getting soooo good!  She now puts her arms around your neck and gives you a good, long squeeze.  I just can't get enough...and to top it off she is saying "I Love You".  No perfect, more like "I-OOOOH"  :)  and them sometimes it sounds perfect.  I guess it depends if she wants to be lazy.  She also loves to give kisses.  We are actually working on getting her to not demand kisses so much from everyone.  Like for example:  One day Owen came over to play and we were saying goodbye.  She grabbed his face and planted a big wet one on his lips...not sure he was ready or wanted that.  So kisses are reserved for family :).

She loves for us to swing her in her blanket like we showed in a previous post video and she is really into helping me do things around the house like cooking and cleaning.  We have been making muffins a lot and she loves to eat them.  Another one of my favorite moments of the month is when we talked about the word "special".  I LOVE hearing her say this word.  One night at dinner she went through the whole family and asked if they were special with a little bit of questioning in her tone.  I just about died from laughter.  It was so sweet.  After family, she moved on to friends :).

POTTY TRAINING:  
We still aren't really potty training.  Most of the time she asks to go potty every time we change her diaper and pretty much goes every time. We always make a big deal of it.  By no means is she dry when we change her diaper so she doesn't really get the idea to tell us when she has to go and I will admit sometimes she says potty as we are walking out the door and we dont' take her.  I know this has to change but for now we will take it a step at a time.  I am not ready to potty train both Elsie and Tally at the same time.  Once we get Tally down, it will be Elsie's turn-hopefully around her 2nd birthday.

Elsie Marie - 19 and 20 Months

As you can see from the title I missed Elsie's 19 month post.  I thought about taking her pictures quite a few times but never got around to doing it.  And finally, I cut myself some slack and decided to combine the two months because things got pretty blurry.  I had a lot of fun taking these pictures because we decided to go to the park.  Our yard is ugly right now due to lack of rain and I thought a change of scenery would be great.  Plus, John was able to come with us to the park this day so that was fun too!

GROWTH:  Oh boy!  I can't believe how much Elsie is growing.  She are completely out of 12-18 months, and 18-24 month clothes are getting too short for her.  I dug out all of the 2T clothes and washed them and got them into her closet.  We are ready :).  She is somewhere between 24-25 pounds on the at-home scale.  I haven't taken her height measurement lately.  I should do that to get an idea.

EATING: I am sure like most toddlers, Elsie goes through ups and downs with eating.  Some days she will eat just about everything we put on her plate and other days/meals she won't touch a thing.  We don't make special food for her but we do keep in mind things we know she doesn't like or has ever liked such as beans and potatoes.  If we give her the fruit first she will eat that otherwise most days she won't touch the fruit once the meat and veggies hit her plate.  Her favorite foods these days are peppers (she loved to pick them off the plant and eat them like an apple), grape/cherry tomatoes, cheese, cheerios, crackers, and nutrigrain bars.  She is ALWAYS asking for a bar.  Most time we distract her with something else but she just loves these things.  She really likes to eat her food like a "big kid".  Like a whole apple, a whole banana, a bigger piece of toast, instead of being cut up into little bite sized pieces.  Most of the time we oblige to her requests but keep a very close eye on her when she is eating.  

SLEEP: The past two months sleep has been pretty good (if you are close to me you will remember that Elsie had a week long stretch of terrible sleeping-this will come in the next post).  Because it is summer time and we end up playing outside later she has been going down around 7:30 PM most nights.  Some nights earlier and a few nights later but 7:30 seems to be pretty standard.  She has been waking up between 6:00-6:30 sometimes John has to wake her up in the morning so she can get ready to go to JoJo's.   She still is going down great for naps.  A big sleep change is that at JoJo's she has moved to sleeping on a cot!  Wow, she is growing up so fast.  Another little note is that we are still using sleepsacks for bedtime.  She still has made no attempt to climb out of her crib and I say it is because she can't because of the sleepsack.  I did purchase two new ones that are made for toddlers so she can stick her legs through but it seems she doesn't like the leg holes and keeps her little feet inside the whole time.  I also know by using them she is staying nice and cozy because she still moves around so much she can never keep a blanket on. 

TEETH:  That darn incisor still is trying to work its way out. 

DEVELOPMENT:
On my I feel like she is developing leaps and bounds lately.  She is really getting into singing lately.  It is so much fun to listen to her.  She sings along with me to some of her favorite songs such as "Wheels on the Bus" (she loves to do the actions), the ABC's, and "Who Built the Ark".  One day we were in the car and I started singing "Who Built the Ark" and she responded with "Noah, Noah".  I just had to laugh.  She picks up on things so quickly these days.  And I just love to here her little voice.  She is also beginning to use two sentence phrases such as "Here you go", "Mama Sit Down", and we have spent so much time working on "Thank You".  It is so rewarding to work on something with her and for her finally just to get it.  At first she would just sign it and now she says it almost all the time that it is appropriate although we do have to remind her once in awhile.  Another big thing that is new is that she is getting so good at going up and down stairs standing up using the handrail vs crawling up.  Another thing that she does all the time is whenever we are out and about and she sees a baby she says "shhh, baby" puts her finger up to her lips and then points to the baby.  She can name just about every body part (well maybe not things like shoulder, or knee or something like that but all the major ones :).

Something else that she has started the past couple months is getting shy when we go some place new or are around new people.  Up until this point she wasn't shy at all but now she will cling to us not wanting us to let her go.  Eventually she will warm up to others but it takes a little bit of time.

POTTY TRAINING: 
Although we are not officially "potty training" Elsie is using her little potty in the bathroom.  It all started about a month ago John and Elsie were eating breakfast and she told John she had to go potty.  So he swooped her up out of her chair and brought her upstairs to the potty.  And sure enough, she just didn't pee but actaully had a poopy!  We made a huge deal out of it.  Now just about everytime we change her diaper she wants to go sit on the potty.  Sometimes she goes, some times she doesn't but she tries and she gets so excited when it happens.  So for now we are just celebrating those moments with her because she is so proud.  We aren't forcing anything and there is absolutely no pressure-after all I still love our cloth diapers and I'm not ready to give those up ;).  

PLAY: 
Elsie is so much fun right now!  I know I have said it before but I just LOVE this stage.  Although she will throw a fit every now and again, generally speaking she is a pretty happy girl.  She has now discovered how to play hide and seek by shutting herself in the room and she thinks that is so funny.  The dark bathroom does not scare her at all.  She also now hides behind our new full length curtains in the dining room.  We have spend a lot of time at the park these past two months and she is getting so brave and wanting to venture from the little playground to the big one.  She also wants to swing in the regular swing vs infant one.  Her new favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  I think that she was watching in at my parents with Allie so then she started to like it.  What Allie likes, Elsie likes :).  She still loves her books and she is so particular about what books she wants to hear before bedtime.  She also likes to look at pictures and point out who everyone is.  Even my brother's dogs :).  She also loves to swim.  I ended up buying one of those "puddle jumper" life jacket things and she loves swimming using that vs. her life jacket.  We did swim lessons in June and although the water was cold she was fearless :)

The last thing I want to touch on and remember is how amazing Elsie does riding in the car.  This has become even more evident when I am by myself driving up to MN.  I normally time our long drives to correspond with nap time but there has been an occasion or two we have had to leave in the morning hours.  We still have her rear facing because the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping them rear facing until at least two years old.  I think we will try to keep her rear facing as long as she fits in her seat rear facing and as long as she stays happy.  She normally sleeps about half the time and then she will looks at books for a good chunk of the other time.  I keep a bag of toys and extra pacis next to me on the passenger seat so I can just grab something and pass back to her.  I do have a tablet with some Barney flicks on it but we have yet to use it because she does pretty good keeping herself occupied with out.  I hope this behavior keeps up because we make quite a few trip to MN solo.  

I am so looking forward to what the next month has in store for us!  I just love my little Elsie Belsie :)

Elsie Marie-18 Months

Wow!  I have been a slacker blogger lately.  Things have been busy, real busy but filled with lots of fun!  I actually took these pics shortly after June 14th.  It was actually on June 19th.  However, it has taken me the whole month to get this put together and posted.  It is actually almost time for her 19 month update so I think I will keep this short and sweet.  I do know that in the last month things have changed...some good some naughty ;)  But I will do my best to keep this as much about her life May-June as possible.

GROWTH:
As I posted previously on her post about her doctor appointment, Elsie weighed in 22.5 lbs and 33.5" long.  She is growing out of her 12-18 month tops (they are getting a little short).  She is in size 5.5 shoes and of course 18-24 month pants/dresses.  One interesting thing though is that we used disposable diapers for two weeks, including the time I took the pictures.  She is wearing the same bottoms in her 18 month pictures as she is in her 7 Month post.  Although they fit her differently, they still fit :)  During her stint in disposable diapers we had to dig out some shorts from last summer which were 6-9 months because the 12-24 month shorts fell right off.  Those cloth diapers add just enough bulk to keep them up.

EATING: 
She is starting to get a little bit pickier with her food.  She has her good meals and her bad.  Her favorite foods are bananas, avocado, cheese, cheerios with milk, strawberries, and most vegetables.  She does not like beans still and most kinds of potatoes (just fries of course).  She loves to eat with a fork and spoon and we completely got rid of the high chair in our kitchen and she only uses the booster at the table.  We all like this way more!

SLEEP: 
Well when Elsie was healthy, sleep was fantastic.  She did a great job of not waking at night at all and was even sleeping in later than the 5:00 hour.  This makes us very happy but with her ear infection, virus and cold her sleep got a little sketchy there for a while and we were up A LOT with her.  Things eventually worked itself back out and she got back onto a good sleep schedule.

TEETH: 
Fifteen teeth in all right now.  Her other bottom incisor is still working on coming through.

DEVELOPMENT:
She is in such a fun stage!  I think the biggest development this past month has been her speech/language developement.  She tries so hard to repeat just about everything we say.  It is so nice too because she can now tell us what she wants instead of whining for it.  One day during dinner we were talking and out of no where she says "Cows say mooo"  haha.  She is getting pretty good at saying names too-at least the names of her cousin, aunts, and uncles.

PLAY:
I can't keep this girl inside!  She loves it outside which is great! She enjoys playing with bubbles, riding in the burley (we hardly ever go for walks no...always bike rides), drawing with sidewalk chalk, "mowing" with her new bubble mower, and pushing her cozy coupe around.  She is still obsessed with Barney which we let her watch in the mornings while we either get ready for work or keep her occupied in our bed when she wakes up before six.  Inside she enjoys playing with her new Little People camper set she got from Emma and Olivia, playing with her dolls and little doll pack and play, and of course looking at books.  She can still do this all day long!

Elsie Marie - 15 Months

We had such a great month, despite lots of snow we have started to venture out of the house more often which makes Elsie a lot more happy and make Mama a lot more happy too :)  She still amazes me with everything she is learning!  She is getting so big!  I know I know!  I say this every month but it is the truth!! Unfortunately life got busy and I am just getting around to taking her picture a couple of days ago but all the information is current from when she turned 15 months (two weeks ago).

GROWTH:  At her 15 month doctor appointment Elsie weighed 20.2 lbs and was 31" tall!  She is groving out of some of her 12-18 month clothes, especially her pants and I packed away her last pair of 12M pajamas.  The other day I put on a pair of her jeans and I couldn't even get them buttoned haha...which leads me to my next section-eating.

EATING:  Elsie is such a good eater.  There really isn't too many things she doesn't like.  One day I think she doesn't like something and the next she eats it all up!  We switched from YoBaby yogurt to Chobani Greek yogurt and that is somethign she doesn't like.  Especially when there is fruit mixed in.  One day when she was eating her yogurt she ate all the yogurt but on her tray was a little pile of blueberries that she sucked all the yogurt off of and then took them out of her mouth and put them on the tray.  Her favorites foods are cheerios, peanut butter toast, and goldfish.  She LOVES goldfish.  New foods this month were fish, peanut butter, and strawberries.  

SLEEP: Sleeping for Elsie hasn't been too bad this month.  She has cut down on the amount of times she wakes up for her paci at night but she is still getting up early (5:30-6:30 AM) and her naps have been inconsistent.  I think she is starting to cut out her morning nap for real this time.  This has been happening just in the past week so we will see.  I really don't like getting up at 5:30 but we are lucky in that she will fall back to sleep in our bed most of the time.  So we fall back to sleep for a little bit too.  She is still going to bed at 7:00ish each night.  Sometimes a little earlier.  She always goes to bed really well and always seems ready to go to sleep.  There have been a few times that she doesn't even want me to finish our routine and she wants to be laid down in her bed.  I know we are so lucky in that regard and hope this behavior follows through into her toddler years. Ha we'll see about that!

TEETH:  Well another molar made its appearance.  One thing I realized is how long these suckers are taking to come through.  I thought last month they were through but that was only one part of them.  The tops ones are taking FOREVER!!! Poor girl!  So this bring her to a total of 12 teeth.

DEVELOPMENT:  Oh my goodness I feel like she has reached so many new milestones this month. Besides all the new words she is saying, she is doing so many new things.  It is amazing what she is picking up from us doing things.  When she spills she finds a towel to wipe it up.  When she gets home she puts her hat away.  Before we leave I tell her to go find her hat and put it on.  She can find it, she can try to put it on but she isn't quite able to yet.  She will throw stuff away for us.  She puts her clothes in her hamper.  She helps pick up her toys.  She is just our little helper around the house. A couple of other things she can do iss scribble with a crayon and kick and throw a ball (those were things that we had to check off at her dr. appointment.  

PLAY:  She is still loving her books!  She just can't get enough of them. 'In fact now, she is picking out which books she wants to read and will push away books we pick out that she doesn't want to hear.  Her favorite books are: Happy Easter Mouse and Hooray for Fish.   She is still climbing all over the place.  Some of her favorite things are: her stuffed animals, her magnetic animals, my scarves,  looking out the widow and wave goodbye when people are leaving, push her lawn mower around, and carry heavy things around the house.  Her play kitchen also keeps her really busy and she got new play fruit and she loves to play with that.  

SPEECH: I can hardly keep up with all the words she is saying these days :)  To be honest, can't remember which words she has been saying in the last two weeks vs prior to her being "15 months".  I do know one word that she was attempting to say was "octopus" haha.  Next month I will list all the words I can think of up to this point.  But her speech is definitely developing.  At her dr. appointment he said that she has the vocabulary of an 18 month old.  

Although we definitely have some challenging days we are so blessed to have this little girl in our lives.  I am just in awe of how much she is growing up and how fast.  Slow down just a little bit please :).  

Elsie Marie-14 Months

Well another month has gone by!  These days seems so fleeting!  And she is seriously doing something new everyday!  I LOVE this!  Of course she is a busy busy little girl which makes it hard to get some pictures but I got a few this time...and she is even smiling.  They might be a bit fuzzy but she is smiling!  Taking her pictures this time around started out good until she saw her pacifier in her bed and then just HAD to have it!  

Throwing a fit because she wanted her pacifier...

Happy because I gave in...

But only for a little bit...then I tricked her into giving them to me and I hid them.

GROWTH
Every day I look at Elsie and can't believe how much she is growing and how she is no longer our little baby girl but a full blown toddler!  It is just unreal to me.  I measured her against the wall this month and she reach 30.5".  Also she was weighed at the doctor when she was there for her ear infections and was 19 lbs 13.5 oz.  I can't believe she hasn't hit the 20 lb mark yet.  Close though.  For clothes she is wearing 12-18 month dresses and shirts, lots of pants but some are starting to get a tad short on her so we have started moving into 18-24 month pants.

EATING
Boy this girl can really eat!  Some days I can't believe how much food she puts into that little body of hers!  This past week her appetite has been at bay due to a double ear infection but normally I feel like I can't put enough food on her tray for her.  She still prefers meat/grains over fruit and veggies but overall she does pretty good.  She is loving avocado right now.  I would say this is her favorite food this month.  Not much has changed in her eating schedule.  She is back to signing "more" when she wants more and is finally doing "All Done" the right way.  She would sign "milk" when she was all done but now has figured it out.

Yummy snack of avocado and animal crackers

SLEEP
Sleep has been pretty consistent this last month except when she wasn't feeling well.  Morning naps were a bit of a struggle one week and we thought maybe she was ready to drop her morning nap but she worked herself out of that and is back to taking her normal morning nap.  She is taking a 45-60 minutes morning nap around 9:00 AM, a 60-90 minute afternoon nap around 1:30PM and still goes to bed around 6:45-7:00 PM.  She still goes down wonderfully with very little protest. We are still on the same routine too...I am sure we will continue this well into her toddler years...it seems to be working.  She sleeps through the night for the most part.  Occasionally she will wake up in the middle of the night trying to find her paci and then gets upset when she can't find it because it fell out of the crib so we have to go in there and give her a new one.  And she still mainly wakes up around 5:30 AM.  We will then bring her into bed with us and she will sleep for another hour or so.  About 1/3 of the time she will sleep in her own bed until 6:30 AM.

DEVELOPMENT
This girl is practically running around the house.  I can't believe how fast she is!  She is also now a climber!  She loves to climb up on everything.  She really enjoys standing on her chair so she can look out the window.  Climbing also means falling so we are constantly watching out for that.  This also means we bolted everything that could tip to the wall such as her dresser, bookshelf, and her wooden play kitchen.  This was well overdue anyways but the fact that she is trying to climb up makes it even more dangerous.  She also wants to do everything that I do.  The other day I mindlessly set my coffee down on the end table (thank goodness it was not hot) and she grabbed the mug and it spilled. So I went into the kitchen and got a towel of the drawer to start to clean it up.  She then went into the kitchen and pulled the towel off the oven door and started to help me.  It was so cute and I was amazed how she found the towel by herself and thought to do the same as me.

She has also started to point to her body parts when we ask her to.  The best is when we say "where's your belly" and she pulls up her shirt and points to her belly.  She also points to hers (and our) nose and mouth and hair.  She also does a great job at following directions.  She will put her paci on her bed through the slats when we ask her to, she will go get just about any toy we ask her to find (we did this for like 20 minutes one night and I had like 15 different toys on my lap), she will sit down when we ask her to, and give us hugs, kisses and Eskimo kisses when we ask :).  We have also noticed how she will hide behind the shower curtain, the living room curtain or put a blanket over her head to "hide" for hide and seek. Another new thing I noticed her doing lately is helping to pick things up and put things where they belong.  With all of our colds going on we were even working on blowing our nose and she was doing it for a little bit yesterday...progress haha. Oh she is also "blowing kisses" with sounds now.

Being naughty...you know you are supposed to sit down in th big chair.  

TEETH
Well another tooth has popped through.  She now has her bottom left molar for a total of 11 teeth. So I had no idea how long it would take for those molars to come through.  Last month I saw them and thought they were through but those teeth are huge!!!! Looking at them now I can tell they aren't completely thought yet after a whole month!!!  The bottom one has come in much fast and is completely through.

SPEECH
Previous Words: mama, dada, woof-woof, uh-oh, up, hi, night night.

New Words:  Nice-she does this when petting Cinder or with her stuffed animals, Aubrey-sounds more like "Ah B" and Hopie (referring to Hope-a little girl at daycare), down, out, bye-bye when waving, and no.  This last one "no" I have a feeling will be her favorite.  She even told the doctor "no" last weekend haha.

PLAY
She loves putting toys in things such as my boots or my slippers which are boot like.  There have been a few times I have gone to put on my boots to find little toys hidden inside.  She also LOVES going downstairs these days.  A few weekends ago we set up our camper mattress downstairs for some friends that were going to be staying with us and now Elsie LOVES to play on it.  It is just the right height that she doesn't have to climb up on it and she can bounce and play on it and it is easy access to the loveseat and the couch. Also what I love is that she "asks" to go down.  She will stand by the basement door, reach up for the door knob, look at us, and say down.

She is really enjoying reading her Llama Llama books-we can now read paperback books instead of board books.  I also love how in the car she will "read" her books.  She has them open on her lap and is talking which I am assuming is her reading.  She still loves playing in her kitchen (see below).  The other day she threw a fit until we went outside to play (looks like I am not the only one getting cabin fever), and of course still loves to play with Cinder.  Now she likes to "climb on her"  Thank goodness Cinder has patience.  

Still loves her books!

I love how she gets up on her tippy toes to try so hard to reach things that are out of reach.

It has been a pretty good month...some sickness thrown in there but she is definitely our little toddler now!