23 Months!

My baby will be 2 years old in a few short weeks! I can not believe it! She is at such a fun age. I love every second of it.

She is talking up a storm and is starting to string several words together. Sunday when Cooper went in the playroom where Abby was sleeping the night before, Alex told him, "Coo Coo no no, Abby night night." She is a little parrot. When Josh gets home, I always holler, "hi Bubby (a little pet name)," from where ever I am. Alex has started saying "hi Bubby" to him too! She is the queen of NO. She says no to pretty much anything we ask her even if she means yes.

She is getting so much better about eating! She is slowly starting to eat meat again. Meatballs and McDonald's cheeseburgers (super healthy, I know) are current favorites. She LOVES fruit. She can eat a whole bag of grapes in less than a week. She loves strawberries, blueberries and bananas. Her favorite snack is grape tomatoes. She can eat with a spoon or fork, but as she gets to the bottom of the bowl, she can't resist the urge to dig in with her hands and ends up making a huge mess. I have to plans meals around baths. Nothing too messy if she isn't getting a bath immediately after the meal. Some days she gets 2 baths a day because she's decides to rub her hair when she had yogurt or applesauce all over her hands and then again at night because she did the same with spaghetti sauce! Good thing she loves her baths...come to think of it, she may be doing it on purpose, she loves her baths so much!

She climbed out of her crib for the first time last weekend so we are transitioning her to a toddler bed over the weekend.

She is starting to learn her ABC's. She will repeat every letter after I say it and will try to sing along when we sing. We count together and are working on colors and shapes. She loves music and songs. I think I'm going to enroll her in Kindermusik when her swim lessons are over. We start 2 weeks of swim lessons next week then gymnastics the week after her birthday. She loves interacting with other kids so I want her to have as many chances to as she can!

She loves giving kisses, especially when I ask her to kiss specific body parts. She loves kissing my nose, eye, ear and cheek, but my favorite are the sweet little kisses on the lips.

I am so excited about her birthday party. I'm in full planning mode since we are hosting a baby shower 2 weeks before her birthday party!

18 Months Old

**Actually 18 months and 1 day today**

We are halfway to Alexandra's 2nd birthday! Man, where has the time gone?

Alex is slowly starting to use her words. Some new favorites: oh look, oh here, oh there (for some reason, she adds oh to the front of most words!), kitty, tickle. My mom and sister could have sworn they heard an "oh shit" while we were running errands one day. Looks like mommy and daddy need to watch the language around Alex! haha!

She loves trying to feed herself. She is getting pretty good with a fork and spoon. She is very into playing with her snacks. She will take all of the Cheerios or puffs out of her snack trap and fill her teacups or any other bowl like toy. She will then move them back and forth from container to container. She can feed herself with a fork and now we can actually give her a plate or bowl and it usually stays in front of her instead of ending up on the floor! Since she has been sick, she has pretty much stopped drinking milk. She will drink most of her milk in the morning, but we are lucky if we can get her to drink 4 more ounces through out the rest of the day. Her likes and dislikes change pretty much daily. Example: we went to Red Robin for lunch, she ate 2 tomato slices, a few bites of mozarella and some onion roll. She refused to eat any fries or hamburger meat. She hates Cheetoes, mac and cheese and any Gerber toddler foods.

She likes to practice jumping, which usually looks like her getting to her tip toes. She still LOVES music. In the morning, she will take Josh into the office, get a record, hand it to him and wait for him to turn it on. He has started holding her up so she can press the play button. They spend about 30 minutes or so just dancing around to music.