18 months

Sierra turned 18 months on the 1st - WOW, how did that happen?!?! it seems like she just turned 1

she had her well check this morning and is growing like a weed, just as suspected. everything checked out really well and our 2 only concerns are excema (the worst is on her little face) and allergy to peanut butter (which we hope goes away and isn't all forms of peanut! please pray against that!!).

a snapshot at 18 months.....
height: 90%
weight: 75%
head: 97%
feet: big! haha, that didn't come from the doctor, but seeing her other stats i now understand why she has such big feet! :)

sierra LOVES to be outside - she could play outside all day. rocks, acorns, bubbles and her "new" cozy coupe are her favorite outdoor toys. but just running around screaming is fun too! oh yes, screaming. we're working on that one because she has this high pitch shriek that she does when she's happy and just to get someone's attention - we're trying to distinguish between outdoor/indoor voices. so far it's not going so well- ha!

sierra LOVES to be around other kids - especially older boys. but other kids just give her lots of energy. her best friend right now is Cannon. it's is awesome that we live so close and are able to spontaneously get together to play often! she asks about him all the time and when we're with a big group of kids, she's always asking where Cannon is if she can't find him. so precious  :)

sierra still LOVES peas and fruit. her love of cheese has waned, but she is eating more meats now. she can still be pretty picky but is much better than a few months ago - she does not like strange textures and is often not consistent one day to the next. she has become a lover of bread of any kind and i end up sharing my breakfast with her most days because as soon as she sees the toaster, she knows i'm having some kind of bread/bagel/english muffin!

sierra can still be clingy and is definitely still a momma's girl, but LOVES bath time and tickle time with daddy! it is sooooo sweet to hear them giggling and laughing together before bedtime. she has become more afraid of loud noises and will crawl up on my (or anyone's) lap with this look of terror when she hears loud trucks, motorcycles, thunder, etc.

sierra still LOVES to talk!!!!!!!!!!!!! i can't even imagine what it's going to be like when she can start asking questions and speaking in sentences!! i love it, it's so fun  :)  i can't even count the words she knows now and seems to learn several new ones each day. she repeats everything we say, which can be pretty funny when we're driving and hear a word we just said coming from the back seat. she is stringing words and concepts together so we often can have basic conversations - when did our baby get to be such a big girl?!!? here are a few examples, so i can remember our first conversations...
     me: "we're here. we're at the store."
      S: "Gu?" (holding up her bear asking if she can bring him in)
     me: "no, Gu stays in the car. Gu can sit in your chair" (this is always the answer, but she always asks just in case!)
      S: "O-tay" (puts Gu in her chair)
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      S: "det down, det down" (while standing in a chair)
    me: "yes, sit down please"
      S: "fall" (pointing to the floor)
    me: "that's right. sit down or you will fall"
      S:  "owie" (with a sad face)
    me: "yes, if you fall you will get an owie"

sierra is SO expressive. everything is dramatic! she has facial expressions for everything, it's hilarious. people have always told me that i'm that way too (my friend Meli says i have more faces than she's ever seen), so i guess she is copying what she sees me do! uhoh, i have to be careful how i react - she is watching me!!

sierra still LOVES her stuffed animals and babies. they bring her so much joy and comfort. when she reads a book and sees an animal, she say it and then starts to look around saying in the animal's name in a question voice, looking for hers. once she finds it, she hugs it and says "awww". she has started doing a lot of pretend with them too - Gu "falls" down (aka - sierra throws him) and she says "oh noooo. Guuu. fall. owie" and then picks him back up and hugs him. she also makes her animals/baby cry and says "sah" (sad).

sierra has started referring to herself in the 3rd person, "sahssah". it's precious. i'll do a separate post on this.

ok, that was long but i hope it helps me remember this stage. it is so fun!!! (...and challenging! we have re-entered the throwing things from the table stage - ugh. and sharing is a big challenge - she's rather steal toys and say "share. nonononono". she also thinks it's funny to run from us when we say to "stop" or "come here" - not good. that one needs to get resolved before baby brother is born or mommy is in trouble. yes, discipline is our biggest challenge right now. but that's not as fun to remember!)

oh, Sierra Grace, we LOVE you!

this is the only picture i have uploaded from March so far. it's not the best, but it shows some of her best friends  :)

taken literally

sierra is picking up new words every day and loves to repeat what we say - she's our little parrot.

there have been a few times recently where our communication has gotten mixed up because she hears what we say literally and that's not always what we mean. i'll give some examples, it's pretty funny...

daddy (while helping her brush her teeth) - "good job on the top. ok, now can you brush the bottom?"
sierra - puts the toothbrush on her (actual) bottom
(i mean, she got it right! she brushed her bottom!! hahaha)
______________________
sierra loves to dance and we ask her to do it a lot because it puts her in a happy mood. right after her dancing, she always does some spinning around and we call it "turn around".

one day a few weeks ago she couldn't find a specific toy and i spotted it behind her. i said "sierra, turn around" and she did a complete 360 (spin) and just looked at me like 'ok i did a spin, now where is it?!". it was very cute. she was right...she did turn around - just all the way around!

this has happened a few times since also - when i'm dressing her or doing her hair or lifting her into a chair.

she sure does keep me laughing!

"Washington"

Sierra and I were driving to my parents' house the other day and she said "Poppa". I told her that Poppa wasn't there because he went bye bye, he was in Washington.

She then says "hands" and I look back to see her rubbing her hands together like she's washing her hands (the sign for "wash hands").

She thought Poppa was gone, washing his hands (when really he was in Washington)!!! Sooo cute!

The rest of the day, every time she or we said Poppa, she said "hands" and rubbed her little hands together.

pregnancy

my most recent pregnancy challange...getting Sierra into her carseat in the parking lot!!
why does it always seem like cars are parked too closely to my car??!!? i can barely open the door, but somehow i have to fit myself (with my big belly), holding a squirmy (and rather heavy) toddler into the cracked opening and lift said heavy toddler into her car seat...all without scratching the car next to me with my door. it is quite the challenge!! it's the first time ever that i have envied the moms with the minivans - those sliding doors must be nice!

and thanks to my sweet husband, the other pregnancy challenge of bathing Sierra has been eliminated for me. there is just no easy way to lean over the side of the tub at this point. kyle volunteered (without me even asking!!) to take over bathing duty a few weeks ago and it has been one less thing to strain my back  :)

10 more weeks until we get to meet this little boy! i hope we have a name before then...it's so hard!

much more Sierra Speak

i just want to cherish and remember all the sweet and hilarious things Sierra is doing these days - she is learning SO quickly and her spunky personality is blooming more and more!!

-  she's now saying "mommy" consistently and it truly melts my heart!! ...it also helps distinguish when she's talking about her paci ("mama") and when she's referring to me (now "mommy")!

- she is putting words together more. today in the car she saw a man riding a bike and then said "bi...mo bi...mo bi..." (more bike) and then followed it with "biiig caw...biiig caw...mo bi...biiig caw" (big truck). it was like she was so happy to hear herself putting words together, she just kept repeating them. also, she has been saying "bye  _____" and filling in people/things. this morning when my mom was leaving she said "bye  yaya" (Lala, one of my mom's names) and she often says "bye gu" to her bear when she hides him somewhere

- "bye-eeeee" - i love this one. she has added a syllable to the word bye and says it in the sweetest little voice. it's transformed quite a bit from the shouting, southern drawl "bahhhhh" that she used to say (although that too was quite funny). she has also figured out exactly when to say it. she can tell when i'm on the phone and about to end a conversation - she says "bye-eeee" about 2 seconds before i do! i still haven't figured out how she knows! she can be playing and acting like she's not even listening to me and she jumps in at just the right time to help me end the conversation! she also does it when we're buying something at a store - after i pay and say thank you, she immediately says "bye-eeee" - about 2 seconds before i do. she's really good at getting laughs and smiles from people this way :)

- "oh nooo" (starting high pitch and ending even higher with the "ooo"). she must have heard someone saying this or in a book or something because it started totally out of the blue. she always has this really concerned look on her face as she says it - it makes me laugh every time! if something falls on the floor, a toy is out of place, pretty much anytime she would say "uhoh", she now says "oh nooo" - and often uses both

- i love how she relates words - it's amazing how much they pick up. she has known for a while now which family members go together so for example if i say "Abuela", she says "Poppa" (my mom and dad). sometimes out of the blue she says "ah ee...shu shu...ah ee...shu shu" (kyle's brother and sister-in-law who live in denver). it's sweet. today she strung all these together, while looking me straight in the eyes as if telling me a story... "ama (Auntie Meli)...baby...patupatupa (Peyton)...mama (paci)...noooo". she said my sister's name and that made her think of my sis' baby, peyton, and then she thought about peyton's paci and that she is not allowed to touch it - wow!!! very complex, wouldn't you say?!

- "up-ee". this is for anything "up" - when she wants me to pick her up, to get in her high chair, on the couch, go upstairs, etc. one of her first words was "upa", which meant "up" and then she said it correctly. well, all of a sudden everything is "up-ee". cute

ok, i'll stop. i could go on and on. and i really need to figure out how to clear some space on this computer so i can upload more pictures.

oh how we looooooooooove our little sweetie  :)

trucks and school buses

Sierra has developed this LOVE (read: obsession) with all trucks and buses. i'm not really sure how it all started.

she used to point out cars and then once she learned what a truck was, there was no turning back!

- if we're inside the house and she hears one drive by, she stops what she's doing, points towards the window and yells "cahhhhhh" (truck is not an easy word to say! this was originally her word for "car", but now is how she says "truck")

- she now likes to add that the trucks are big. it usually goes something like this "cahhhhhh, cahhhhh, biiiiiiig". she puts her hands together like she's praying when she says "biiiiiig" - super cute, but don't know why! sometimes she says it in the right order and will proudly shout "biiiiiig cahhhhhh"

- that little finger is ALWAYS pointing when she declares that she's seen a truck

- as soon as the truck is out of view, she desperately signs and shouts "mowww, mowww, mowww" (more). i calmly explain that mommy cannot make the trucks appear, but that she'll have to be patient and look for more. haha, as if that helps! she just wants to see trucks, one after the other ...and of course she doesn't want to be patient!!

- one 4 hour car ride (just mommy and sierra) up a very busy interstate was filled with pointing and shouting in such excitement as we passed a LOT of big semi-trucks. while i would have loved to chat about something else, at least it kept her entertained for most of the trip  :)

- school buses are now equally as cool as trucks! we try to watch for them pass our house in the mornings and then if we're out running errands when school lets out.

- "apaa, apaa, aaapaaaaaa" is usually the way she referrs to the school buses. have you noticed that she can't just say it once?! i guess that's how she shows her amazement and excitement - by shouting the word and saying it over and over and over...it's precious and i love it.  :)

i'm going to have to study up on my trucks so i can start to tell her what each kind is - especially with the construction trucks that we see almost daily. and that is super cool because they are working with dirt, rocks and concrete!

i don't know if this is common for little girls or not, but i sure didn't expect it! with her greatest obession still being babies, she's certainly not a complete tomboy  :)

new words!

last night sierra started saying "daddy" for the first time and she was soooooo excited about it!! she still says "dada" first and then switches right away to "daadeeee" with a lot of emphasis on the "deeee".

it is precious.

later in the evening i asked her to say "mommy" and she paused and said "mamuuu". haha, close! i did hear one "mommy" this morning but so far "mama" is still winning out.

she is also starting to put two words together. they are not the clearest of words, but we know what she means! it helps that she repeats everything OVER and OVER in a very loud voice (some may even call it shouting).

she said "yeah dada" after kyle's marathon. it sure was perfect timing  :)
and her new favorite is "beiiii cwruwr". translation: big truck. there is a lot of inflection that happens in the word "big"! (i've noticed that i say it like that when i talk to her, haha).

trucks will be the next post. oh my, how we are obsessed!