A few of her favorite things...

August is a very busy baby and I love to watch her.  She is such a delight (unless, of course, you tell her 'no' in which case she gets mad and cries really hard). She loves so many things right now and she is really starting to understand our words, which makes everything so much cuter!

For instance:
"Let's change your diaper." = she falls (lies) down on her back wherever she is at that moment, whether its on the edge of the bed or in the living room.

"Let's take a bath." = she pulls on the top of her shirt by her neck and runs to the bathtub to wait for us.

"No bye-bye" = She stops walking away from us and comes back.  This only works if used sparingly.  Whenever a door to the outside opens, she heads out the door and down the street. Most of the time I have to go catch her and bring her back flailing.

"No touch" = stops touching, but in the case of the grill for our campfire she kept looking back to see if we were watching as she kept trying to touch it.  You should have seen the look of triumph she had in the morning when she finally touched it.  There was no fire, then, thankfully!

"Clean up" = she helps put one or two toys away

"Do you want to wear this?" = She decides by shaking her head NO if she doesn't want to wear something or half-grunts if she approves.  This is how she picked her sippy cup the other day and how she tells us when she does or doesn't want to eat something.  Can 1 year olds really do this?!  Yes!  It's crazy.

Here are a few of her favorite things at 14months:

1) She loves to draw and has already drawn all over the cover of a book. Thankfully it was in pencil and I could erase it.  I'm just waiting to find her drawings on the walls. This girl is going to need all of those markers that work only on paper or the aqua pens, I think.

2) She loves to give high fives, even with fingers sticky with food. And she makes us all laugh because she wants to give the whole family high fives until she is satisfied.  She will hold her hand up until Joe walks all the way around the table to give her a high five as well, and then she starts the rounds again, Mom, X, Dad...

3) She loves her family.  She says enthusiastic "HI!"s to us after her naps or when she sees X after school.
4) She loves cats and meows whenever she sees them.  At granddad's house this weekend, she learned the sign for bird and signs it whenever she sees them in a book now.  She does hilarious growls for ducks and dinosaur sounds.

4) She loves clothes and shoes.  She loves picking out her clothes and we have a great method.  I open up the doors to the nightstand where her clothes are on shelves, she grabs what she likes, and gives it to me.  Then she lies down so I can put it on her. She is starting to be a tease though and swings her legs away as I put them on her.  She thinks she is sooo funny.  :)  Her daytime fashion sense may need a little honing...pajamas seem to be a favorite.  As far as shoes, everyone's shoes are fair game but she especially likes visitors' shoes or small shoes

5) She loves toothbrushes.  Beware any visitors who leave toothbrushes out.  She loves to steal anyone's within her reach (and she is quite resourceful for getting things despite being small) and it is not easy to get them back without her having sucked on them a good while!

6)  She loves Xavi's light saber. It's one of her favorite things to play with when X is at school.

7) She loves baths.  So, as soon as I can upload the picture, I will show you how after her bath time, she then climbed into Xavi's bath fully dressed.  She just loves the water and goes wild as the water drains, wanting to splash until the last drop.

8) She loves to be outside.  Okay, who gave her that gene because the rest of our family prefers inside activities.  Sure, we can be outdoorsy, you know, a camping trip once a year, some good time spent on the trampoline, a walk up to the parking lot of a hiking trail to look for rocks, and yard work, but that's about what we do. (I do want to try cross country skiing though - that's on my bucket list).

9) She loves books. This is definitely a combination of both Joe and I because we love to read, too.  She has several reading nooks in the house, but her favorite is Joe's closet.

10) She loves herself.  It's important to be self-confident, right?  This baby, like most, loves to look at herself in mirrors. I showed her the shampoo on her head with a mirror the other night during bathtime and she thought it was great!

Oh so sad!!!!

Much better

I am just constantly amazed at her growth and abilities.  Love you, baby girl!