Ella at 18 Months

My baby girl is a YEAR and A HALF!! Pretty crazy. Its so fun to watch her grow up and become a little person. A very opinionated and demanding little person;) 

And while she's gotten a little bigger the last few months, it isn't much. At her 18 month check-up She weighed in at a measly 20lbs. The same weight she was at her 12 month check-up, she did go up a few ounces though! But that means her weight has now fallen to the 7th percentile and her pediatrician recommended we buy sticks of margarine (since she's still allergic to dairy and can't have butter) and mix it in with everything she eats haha. She was pretty much right at the 50th percentile for height and head circumference--just a skinny minnie! She still wears 9-12 month bottoms, and fits into some of her summer clothes from last year, including her swim diapers that I bought when she was 7 months old!

Another big development since the last time I posted, is that over the last few months she's grown increasingly clingly, timid, and scared of strangers/everyone but me. It started on our cruise, but has grown worse and worse over the last couple months. Kyle calls her "obsessed" with me. She always has to be with me and is glued to my hip all day long! In our teeny tiny apartment, she follows me every step, I cannot go anywhere without her and if I manage to slip into another room without her noticing, a minute later she'll start crying and yelling for me and come running until she finds me. She will never ever go back into her room to play without me. If I am around no one else can hold her, read books to her, color with her, etc. She'll grab it out of their hands and bring the item/book...to me. The only way for me to ever get a break is to physically leave her. Or for her to sleep. If I leave the apartment, and Kyle is the only one around then she'll allow him to read to her, and hold her and such, but only if I am not there. And she's really super afraid of all guys (except Kyle and my dad) If a guy ever acts like they're gonna touch her or pick her up she'll completely freak out and bawl her eyes out. 

She's also just very timid and sort of scared of many things/new environments. We took her to a new splash pad and she was completely terrified and clinging to me and would not get close to it. Same thing at the ocean, was scared of the water and wouldn't get in. 

And, just like from the time she was a baby, she still has more of a fussy, whiny, can never just be content personality and always needs/demands my attention. And when mixed with her constant clingly-ness and timid and sensitive personality it often makes for very long, exhausting  (physically, mentally, and emotionally), and often frustrating days. Add this to the fact that she's still not the best sleeper and you now know why we are not expecting baby #2 yet ;).

All that being said, I love her with all my heart. She is also sweet, and adorable, and funny, and does precious things that make my heart melt, and I know that a lot of the harder things about this stage will pass as she gets older.

At 18 Months Ella:

-folds her arms when its time to pray and says "amen"

-loves music and will ask for "songs!"

-will NOT let me get anything done in the kitchen, if I go in there it's pretty much a constant tantrum, until I leave the kitchen. If I want to cook I pretty much have to do it during nap time.

-loves to help make the bed by handing me the pillows, also will help unload the dishwasher for a couple minutes and then she'll resume tantruming

- has so many new words and will try to repeat most of the things we say, some of her new words are: frog, neigh, roar (for lion and dinosaur), barney, waddle waddle, blub blub blub (for fishes), fly, chair, Mo for her Cosmo bear, puffs, beans, grapes, water, flower, bounce, down, moon, heart, sun, star, eye, nose, mouth, owie, arm, toe, elbow, head, hair, up.

-loves to jump and bounce, her fav activity these days is to climb onto our ottomans and couch and jump and bounce around

-she'll often just jump and bounce and dance and spin around our living room for minutes at a time

-loves going to the park and swinging and going down slides

- refuses to sit in her high chair, she now sits in her booster at the table like a big girl

-is a picky eater, and just does not eat a lot, which is why she's so small. Current favorite foods are: grapes, tomatoes, black beans, corn, crackers, chicken, cereal, puffs, ice cream/whip cream (just a little bit since she is technically allergic--but her allergy is not life-threatening just causes indigestion, gas, gross poop, etc) She no longer loves eggs like she used to which is too bad since it was such a good source of calories for her, if we make them she'll still eat a couple bites, but that's it. She still like strawberries too, but not as much anymore, grapes have replaced strawberries. Likes pretty much all fruits, and will eat quite a few veggies depending on how they're prepared and her mood. And we can sometimes get her to eat bread/muffins.

-sleeps through the night most nights. She'll still wake up in the middle of the night once a week or so and just cry and cry and cry and we'll finally go get her and she'll be up for 2 hours or so before she'll finally go back to sleep. We still have to strap her down to get her to sleep, we tried taking it off for 3 weeks when she was 17 months old and it went horribly and we just all got too sleep-deprived and cranky and gave up and put the strap back on.

Ella and Grandpa Jenson.
He heated up the hot tub to warm so they could go swimming back in March:)

me and my girl

Ella and her dada

First time feeding ducks, she loved it!

Easter Morning.
She caught on to the egg hunt right away and totally loved it! 

Grandpa Jenson built her this awesome sand table!

And he bought her this super fun water table too!
Now she has fun things to play with in their back yard whenever we go visit.

She loved her chocolate bunny!

You can tell she's their only grandchild:)
My parents also got Ella this little play kitchen.

Easter dinner with friends at our apartment in Galveston.

She got a small chocolate egg the day after Easter and completely demolished it!

Daddy and Daughter <3
She's wearing the super cute Easter dress that Kyle's mom gave Ella

Ella loves baby Dahlia (my good friend's baby)

And here she is with her best buddy Clementine who Ella calls "Tine!"

love that little smile!

While she's scared of the water, Ella loves to play in the sand!

Pushing her shopping cart around

She just looked so cute in church I couldn't resist snapping a quick picture

LOVES older girls and will always follow them around and try to play with them if we see any

In the toy aisle of Target, every time we go she carries stuffed animals around

Her and Clementine cozying up to some Barney
(This was late at night for them, we were watching Clementine while her mom was in the hospital giving birth to her new little brother!!)

At the Children's Museum in Galveston playing with the babies in the medical station

More from the Children's Museum, they have this cute boat and fishes and rods and nets

Ella was trying to wake a sleeping Daddy, so she kept kissing him, it was really adorable,

Riding around in our wagon!