Almost 15 months....walking, talking toddler!

little drummer girl at Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe Christmas is right around the corner and in ten days, Olivia will be 15 months old! This Christmas will be so much different than last year (see last year's Christmas post HERE). Olivia will be able to be an active participant this year. She will be able to actually help open her presents, realize what they are/get excited about them, and play with them!

trying to fit herself in the cabinet

I have found myself being so excited about Christmas this year. Christmas was always fun and exciting as a child, but once you find out your parents are Santa, it loses some of it it's magic. Not to say that Christmas wasn't still fun, just different. One of the joys of being a parent is that I now get experience the magic of Christmas again through my daughter's eyes. It's almost like getting to be a kid again myself! :)

I just reread my last post in which I said that Olivia was walking a little bit but still preferred crawling. Wow...things change a lot in a month. Olivia walks all over the place these days. Sometimes she "runs" or at least tries to before he gets ahead of herself and falls down. She also knows and says a lot of words, although her favorite and most frequently used words lately are "no" (accompanied by head-shaking) and "uh-oh" (accompanied by throwing her hands up in the air like "what happened?).

carrying around her beloved backscratcher

She may be getting an early start on the terrible twos. She is very smart, precocious, and opinionated. The little girl who used to pretty much eat anything has become a picky eater (like someone else I know ;) ). She will ask for "mo" (both saying the word aloud as well as using the sign language for it) even when there is food on her plate. What she means is she wants more of something else.

Her favorite foods right now include cheese, bread (or any sort of carb), and Trader Joe's cat cookies. We told her she had to say please if she wants them so now she goes to the cupboard where they are and says "plllleeeease" (said like she's blowing a raspberry). Pretty cute and hard to resist. Her most recent favorite food is kale, which surprised me. I made kale "chips" yesterday and she can't seem to get enough. She keeps asking for "mo". I think she likes the salty flavor and its light, crispy texture. The same light crispy texture that leads to little flakes of kale ending up all over her and everything in her path, but I can't complain - I'm glad I found a healthy snack that she'll eat.

messy kale face :)

I decided to make a list the other day of all the words Olivia knows the meaning of and can say. Of course, there are many more words she understands but cannot yet say. Here's the list in no particular order:

• no
• uh oh
• please
• teeth
• keys
• chair
• shoes
• dog
• mama/mommy
• dada
• hair 
• hi
• hat
• hot
• mo ("more")
• nana ("banana")
• eyes
• nose
• mouth

A few other things about Olivia at this stage of her life before I forget. She's still pretty petite. I just weighed on our scale at home today and she was 20.8 lbs. Judging by the pencil mark we made on the office wall in October, she's not too much taller either. She's just a little munchkin and that's fine with me because my back hurts from picking her up as it is. 

She has seven teeth now and I'm pretty sure she's working on her molars right now because she's been extra fussy and clingy and chewing on her fingers a lot. I can't wait til she finally has all her teeth; teething stinks!

That's all I can think of for now, although I'm sure there's more. Next up: a very belated Thanksgiving post and a Colorado post. :)