The Reeser

Our little cutie pie is 16 months old today. I haven't done an update blog on her in way to long, so really this is just for me to look back on and remember....

This stage of our little punkins life is just sooooo fun! I feel like we just laugh all day at the hilarious things she does and says. I wish I could record every one of them.... but since I forget so quickly what she did yesterday, not to mention last month, I'm going to do my best to record random things every day- or as often as possible :) We'll see how it goes.


At 16 months Reeser loves to:

::SWIM!!!! she is a serious water bug! I mean this girl LOVES the water! We play at the pool, at the lake, we have several "beaches" in Columbia that are super fun, in our backyard baby pool - one of these pretty much EVERY single day this summer. at 9am she starts saying "poo" (aka pool) holding her hands up like 'where is it? and when are we going?' She dunks her head in the water, plays with her little cups, gets sand in her shovel and fills up her bucket, loves to splash, and wants to swim and blow bubbles like the big kids.

::TALK! She repeats most things we say and can say lots of words and even a few two word phrases. I've been trying to keep a list of the words she can say but haven't been very good at it. here are the ones i can think of right now....

-mama
-dada (she says YAY DADA all the time bc I taught her to say this and run to the front door when Mark gets home! It's adorable!)
-up (i think this was her first word - she learned it on the airplane going to Portland at 13 months)
-chi chi (Gigi - my mom)
-Bapa (papa - my dad)
-Uhneeee (Honey - Mark's mom - she says this almost every time she sees my laptop because she knows we get to see Honey on the computer :) too cute!)
-Bop (Pop - Mark's dad)
-Eck (Uncle Eric - My brother)
-Hi
-byebye
-DD (blankie)
-ahhh duun (all done)
-ball
-buppy (puppy)
-baa tee (bathtime)
-uh oh
-ohh-nn-duce (orange juice)
-appoh (apple)
-peas (please - sometimes she even says this super dramatic like peeeeeaaas mama. so funny. who knows where she gets that!! :)
-tane tuu (thank you) so polite! says thank you to everyone! even at the grocery store check out :)
-no no
-baby
-chisha (jesus)
-bi bow (bible)
-ehhhmow (elmo!!!)
-cheee (cheese)
-teee (tv)
- guuh gurl (good girl)
- Amen
-On (this means on, up, in, sometimes out or off too)
-at (out or off)
-hat
-wa wa (water)
-pooo (pool)
-quack
-duck (another one of her first words)
- can make pig sounds, cow sounds, duck sounds, dog sounds
-esss (yes)
- oh tay (ok)
-free fry (french fry)
-dooo (shoe)
- ahhtt (hot - she says hot when we give her almost any food and she blows on it :)

::DANCE - this girl has got some moves :) its too cute!! she bends her legs, stomps her feet, moves one arm like a bird flapping and then spins in circles!! she tries to do forward rolls too

::SING - she tries to sing 'Jesus loves me' and says "yay chicha ... me... bibow" melts my heart every time! she also does the motions to itsy bitsy spider. and she has learned to sing justin bieber !! haha she says "baby baby ohhhh baby" over and over! hilarious.

::BE OUTSIDE - pretty much the only time she throws a tantrum is when we have to come inside

::PLAY with her toys. She is really good at having independent 'creative play' time. I try to do this at least 10-20 minutes every day. She loves to play with her balls, blocks, little people, noahs ark animals(still her favorite toy). She has even started moving people or animals around like she's playing "pretend." adorable. She also loves to play in her garden tent that is now permanently set up in her room :) I'm only allowed in there if she grabs my hand and invites me haha if i try to go in there and play she will come push me out and say 'nono' - she's developed some sort of little bossy attitude sometimes when she plays with her little friend Sam. got to nip that one in the bud now! spanking and time outs are slowly coming into play already.

::ELMO!!! she has somehow become obsessed with elmo! its so cute. she'll go sit in her little green chair and point at the tv and say "teeee" and "elmo" and "peeeeeeeas" she absolutely loves it! I usually record sesame street and then let her watch it in increments throughout the day and she also likes to watch 'Sid the Science Kid' (which is mommy's favorite too) and sometimes she watches whatever the spelling show is on pbs. she laughs at the dog every time!

::Dress Up - she loves to change her shoes about a million times a day and she also thinks its really fun to dress up in mommy and daddys shoes. If she finds our clothes or the laundry she loves to pull things out, bring it to me and say "on on on" until i put it on her :) she also i finally liking to wear tiny little bows in her hair. she'll find one and say 'on' or try to make it stick in her hair :) and then look in the mirror and say 'ooooohhh!' with the cutest little smirk. like she knows she just so cute! ha.

At her 15 month check up Reese still only weighed 18lbs 7oz (in the less than 3%) and her height was 28.5 (9%). Since we now have a new dr in Columbia he said we need to be a little more proactive to have her gain weight. She has always refused to drink milk since we stopped breastfeeding at 12 mo. so he thought that was probably a huge factor to helping her gain weight. He told us to get the nasty jug of strawberry milk or chocolate or do whatever we have to do to get her to drink it. He also said to try and feed her more "kid" food aka chicken nuggets, french fries, spaghetti o's, etc. He said to put butter on everything too. haha. So, I left the dr and went to the grocery store and filled my cart with nasty frozen nuggets, pink milk, gogurt, fish sticks, fries, buttermilk biscuits, eggo waffles, etc. haha! most unhealthy grocery store trip i've ever had! So,  now a month later mommy has gained 5lbs ha! and I think reesie has too! ha. She loves to have smoothies in the morning with whole milk and fruit and yogurt (and don't tell her but i throw in cauliflower and spinach sometimes too), she has always LOVED cheese and would eat it all day, loves grilled cheese, spaghetti o's, french fries, yogurt, ravioli, broccoli?, orange juice, and throughout the month we've transitioned from the pink milk jug to whole milk with a tiny bit of strawberry flavoring mixed in. She'll only drink milk if it's right before he nap or bed time, but hey, i think thats awesome! Just in the last week she's started really wanting to eat off her fork so now she can finally eat more of a variety of things!! We go back for her "weigh-in" on sept 1st. So we'll see if she's made it over 20lbs yet :) Our precious little peanut. I think she might just be little like her gigi. Maybe she'll be a gymnast like her too!

We also had a very scary evening after her 15 month dr appt. The dr told me it was ok to go ahead and give R some peanut butter - even though she's not two he said it should be fine and she needs the good fat too. So I put a little peanut butter on a ritz cracker. She ate about half of it and then didn't want anymore. About 10 minutes later her eye started looking a little swollen and red and she was itching her face and practically scratching her eyes out. It just got worse by the second. Her eyes got so swollen she could barely see and she was biting her skin and scratching everywhere. It was soooo scary. Praise the Lord she never got short of breath and we made it to the Dr office right before he left for the night so we didn't have to go to the ER. They were so helpful and wonderful and just gave her benedryl and said she'd be fine by the morning. He said there are two types of peanut allergy and Reese has the more mild one but we need to stay away from it and maybe try it again when she's three or four and see if she's outgrown it. Oh man. What a crazy day. I eat pbj practically every day for lunch so this is a huge thing for me that i can't give it to Reeser. and now we'll be the annoying duo who has to always say, "she's allergic to pb." oh well. hopefully she'll outgrow it.

She naps just once a day for about 2 hours (+/-) usually around 1-3pm. We've also mostly transitioned to her falling asleep for her naps and for bedtime on her own instead of in my arms. She still has some tears sometimes but for the most part just grabs her 'dd' and her dolly and falls asleep after we read a book, say our prayers and sing jesus loves me.

We also LOVE our new friends the Snyders. Kara is just the sweetest friend- my answer to prayer for sure! Her husband, Charles, is awesome too and is in residency with Mark and they have a precious boy, Samuel, only a few months younger than Reese. Thank you to all who prayed with me that we would find a sweet family in this city where we knew no one! The Lord provides and they are just the best! We feel like we've known them forever and we see Kara and Sam all the time! To go on walks or just play. Reese and Sam are starting to be buddies too!! its adorable.

She still only has five teeth - two on bottom and three on top.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll think of something and come back and add it later....

Love you Reeser!!! and I absolutely Love watching you learn and grow every day. Such a huge blessing to be your mommy.