16 Months!!!

Maura turned 16 months this week! Hard to believe. Having a toddler is so fun! Looking back, not sure why I was so sad as her birthday approached!

Here's her bunny chair pics from this month and last:

{Really?! This was like the best photo out of the bunch that day.}

We've had a busy and big couple of months. We now have a talker:) She started saying real words at the beginning of December, like right as she turned 15 months. Not putting more than one or two together or anything, but its amazing how fast she picks up words now. Some words she says correctly (like "chair" and "baby" and "bear"), some words she can only get out the beginning part of - like "no" for "nose" and "Maur" for her name (although I see progress all the time - a week and a half ago she couldn't say any bit of "Gram" when we asked her who my mom was, and just a couple of days ago we went to visit and she kept calling her "Grer" or something!), and for some words she just makes up her own version ("cookies" are "coo coos", blueberries are "boo boos" and pineapple is "papple"). Some animals she calls by their real names, like "doggy" and "pig" and "birdie" and then others she always refers to them by the sounds they make (sheep are always "baah", chickens are "bock bock", cows are "moo" and owls are "hoo hoo")!


On the food front, she is finally starting to eat some real veggies. She loves cannelloni and kidney beans. And corn. And she likes home-made eggplant parmigiana. And sometimes she'll eat carrots. We started practicing with a fork and spoon a little while ago and she is really good with the fork. The spoon still needs some work.

{Thanksgiving Day...will not look at the camera}

We waited until after the craziness of the holidays to try getting rid of the bottle. So, we just started the other day with nap time - keeping the same routine except swapping out a sippy cup of milk for the bottle. So far its going so so, some days are good, some days not so much. After a few weeks and once we feel like she's comfortable doing it this way, we'll attempt to take away the bottle at bedtime (I am really dreading this).

In other developmental news, she's getting 2 of her bottom molars in - one on each side, completely symmetrical and at exactly the same time.

{Maura the movie star!}

In November we spent a great day walking around Boston Common and the Public Gardens with my sister and brother. Seeing the ducks started out innocently enough and ended up with my brother having to defend Maura with her stroller from some aggressive geese! (That's what godfathers are for!)


In early December we visited a tree farm to find our perfect Christmas tree. Let's just say we left empty handed but the hay ride out to the field was fun!

{I guess she's not seeing any trees she likes?! Hopefully she doesn't take after her dad in this regard - he only likes the trees that are perfectly triangular and symmetrically cut!}

None of my pictures from Christmas came out very well, but here she is that morning playing with her new Melissa & Doug Jumbo Knob Fruit Basket puzzle (with her great-aunt Peg).

And here's the outfit she wore Christmas Day - my kilt from when I was little (that my sister even wore too)...isn't she so cute?!

It didn't even seem to hinder her later on in the day at my sister-in-laws when she test drove the little Radio Flyer tricycle my in-laws gave her (of course she totally doesn't know how to pedal yet, she just sits on it and presses the buttons).

The weather here has been so mild (outside pics in November with no coats on?!) and we just had our first snow the other day (and it was just a dusting! Unheard of for up here.) So this was the first time Maura really got to play in the snow (if you can even call it that since there was so little of it)...this time last year she was too little to understand it or to really go out in it.

{getting used to her snow boots}

{I love this one - an hour later...she looks like a snowboarding pro, like she's about to strap on her board...I told you, she will not look at the camera!}

Some of the things she is loving right now:

• the movie Cars
• the Jake and the Neverland Pirates soundtrack
• the Fisher Price Zoo Talkers Zoo
• the FP Little People Dance 'n Twirl Palace
  

• her Little Tykes Push and Ride Car that she has nicknamed "Mater" (apparently her fave character from Cars, although when she says it, it sounds like "Mayor")...we push her in this inside/outside/wherever, she pushes it, she loves it!
  

We still try and get outside every day to play. These are some of my favorite times together with her. We go for walks (her in her wagon or car, or she just walks herself), play on the swing set, go to the playground, explore the yard, kick our soccer ball around, get the mail and still collect pine cones.

{she's like me and loves the beach anytime of year...she still tries to actually go in the water every time we go though!}

{'hiking" in the woods on our property...I love this shot!}

We are really blessed to have such a wonderful, happy, smart, inquisitive little girl! She's seriously like my best friend:) We even have matching coats - which I did not do on purpose!