Jessica

Since Jessica is going to be 18 months soon, here's a little update for all of those who have not given up on our blog :) This first picture shows her doing what she does best - CLIMBING! She is a little monkey. I believe my mom once told me that I was quite the little monkey at this age too. We have actually moved all of our kitchen chairs onto the carpet and only put them at the table when we are actually eating a meal. Otherwise we find her on the table or pushing the chairs across the tile to climb up on a counter. So far, she hasn't been able to move the chairs when they are on the carpet. (When that happens, we'll probably move them back into a bedroom where we can close the door) But recently we realized that if we placed the chairs too close to the back of the couch, she will climb up and flip herself over the edge and roll down the couch. (laughing hysterically the whole way down!)

This next picture cracks me up. The look on her face says it all. She's not too happy that mommy barged into her room while she's still waking up and starting using a camera with a bright flash. I was trying to capture the incredibly cute moment in the morning where she wakes up and starts to read her animal book. She used to wake up screaming every morning as soon as her eyes popped open, but ever since we started putting her book in bed with her she will quietly "read" and feel the fuzzy pictures of the animals until I come in to get her. This is her favorite book and has been much loved. The front cover actually fell off yesterday so I think we will be performing some surgery with duct tape soon to correct that problem. :)



Jessica has also recently developed a love for fruit leather. I kept trying to get a good picture one day when she was walking around with a piece hanging out of her mouth, but this was the best I could do. She kept turning around and running away because she thought I was going to take the fruit away from her!



Her hair is long enough now to do the 2 ponytail hairstyle. I am just LOVING the cuteness! Sometimes she'll keep them in all day but most days she pulls them out within an hour, so if I want a picture with cute hair, I have to take it immediately. In this picture you can barely see her strawberry birthmark on the top of her head. It has flattened out substantially, and you can only see it now when her hair is pulled up. When she was an infant, people (mostly children) would ask how she got hurt or 'why does she have an owie?' and I would have to explain that it was a birthmark and it would go away someday. Christian and Declan liked to tell people it was her "angel kiss" where the angels kissed her before she came to earth.


Here's Jessica with one ponytail desperately trying to hang on. :) This is what her hair looks like most of the time. She had a great time sitting on all the lincoln logs. Then she would try to stand up and reach down to get some more out of the box, because she couldn't pull them out while she was sitting on them.



I love this picture of Jessica with Andy. This last General Conference, in between Saturday sessions the boys went outside to fly kites. It was quite windy that afternoon. When Jessica woke up from her nap Andy wanted her to have a chance to fly a kite too. So here she is, still snuggling in her blankie and flying a kite.


In this last picture, Jessica is rockin' the one ponytail hairstyle! I was trying to just keep her hair out of her eyes. She was really enjoying this cupcake at her cousin Emmalyn's first birthday party. It is so nice to have cousins so close by! And Jessica and Emmalyn are very close in age too, so we hope they will be good friends as they grow up.

Jessica has one Sunday left with Mommy and Daddy at church and then she will be old enough to officially go to nursery! Hooray! It will be so fun for her to play with the toys and have a snack with her friends and it will make it much easier for Andy and I to do our callings without having to hold her.

She doesn't talk very much but she is good at communicating what she wants.
She can say 'ma-ma' and 'hi' and occasionally 'da-da'
She will make kissing noises or put her pointer finger to her mouth if she wants a drink. She will stand in front of her high chair and try to climb in if she's hungry, or just stand in front of the fridge or pantry. She will wave her arms across each other to say "all done" when she wants to get down from her high chair. She can also wave hello and goodbye.

She loves to hand me her blanket and then turn around like she's going to walk away. But she will stand there and wait for me to wrap the blanket around her shoulders and snuggle her.

Some of her favorite foods at this age:
Soy yogurt and soymilk
applesauce
nutri-grain bars
rice
corn, peas, carrots, beets
oatmeal
fruit leather
pizza (with no cheese)
chicken
graham crackers
dum-dum suckers
any type of cereal
pancakes
oatmeal-raisin granola bars


Some favorite games and toys at this age:
*'ride a little horsy' (being bounced on our knees)
*climbing, climbing, climbing. (did I mention climbing)
*riding slides and swings
*her pop up toy where you pull a switch, push a button, etc and a sesame street character pops up.
*ball popper toy (blowing air 'pops' balls up through a hole)
*blocks
*magnets
*climbing into our garden in the backyard and digging in the dirt


I know I'll think of a dozen other things once I end this post, but I better stop so I can start working on updates for Christian and Declan too.
Hopefully I'll finish those soon!! :)