16 Months

 It's been a minute since I did a baby update! My baby who is feeling much closer to a toddler than a baby these days. 

Taking her first selfies. 

Loves being a part of anything the big kids will include her on and does NOT like being excluded. She used to not really notice or not care, but now she knows that when the playroom door is shut, she is being left out and she will cry and bang against the door in protest of not being let in. It's rough being one when the Legos come out. 

She loves toddling along outside, exploring the wonders of the outdoors. She gets so excited to go on walks with dad when he takes little breaks (perks of working from home), and will run right over to the shoe shelf and grab her shoes. Sometimes when we are all just hanging out inside, she will bring Darin one of his tennis shoes as a sign that she would like to go outside, or she will take her shoes over to the door and stand by in fussing until we get the message :). She loves outside...

...not so much being strapped to my back outside, haha. She deals with it, but definitely likes her freedom in the outdoors more. 

She had her first tastes of candy last month during the Fourth of July parade. There was so much candy being thrown around and lucky girl got her hands on a sucker. 

She threw up for the very first time this last week (other than baby spit ups). Happened in the middle of the night. She woke up fussing and I went in and smelled something terrible. It ended up being one of the worst diapers I've ever changed, but before we got to that point, right as I lifted her out of the crib she threw up alllll the things, all over me. Poor confused baby in the bathtub in the middle of the night. It just happened that one time (thank goodness) and she was fine after that. 

(Sick baby picture from June when she had a little cold and was a bit more knocked out than she was this time around).

Usually she looks more like this: 

Aunt Amelia and Ibu have discovered that a make up bag is the best kind of car entertainment. (Learned this after a pretty horrible drive up to Pocatello for the 4th of July where Emery cried for a substantial portion of our drive).

Generally, she still only sucks her thumb when she is holding Wolfa. She used to have to have the stuffie up in her face to generate the thumb suck, but now, all she has to be doing is touching it and the thumb is in her mouth. After initially being really opposed to her sucking her thumb, we have come to embrace it and we are all really really obsessed with watching her cuteness the second she gets Wolfa and that thumb goes in her mouth. So gosh dang cute. 

She REALLY loves that stuffed wolf. And I mean, REALLY. Like, heaven help us if we ever lose it. 

She loves getting the vaccum cleaner out of the cupboard and then will walk around the kitchen/dining room as though she is vaccumming. Recently though, she can't just have it, it also has to be on. Noticing the finer details of life she is. 

She says a few words, none of which is mama which makes me very sad. Her first word was "up" and since then she has added ball (baw), wolfa (ul-fa), amen (en-en), thank you (ank uh), daddy (but not mommy!), water (wa-wa). She can point to her nose and knows a handful of animal sounds (dog, lion, elephant, gorilla). 

It's been so fun to see her understanding simple commands more, like "get your shoes" or "sit down" or "fold your arms."

She has a knack for taking things from one room and leaving them in another. She also loooooves visiting the house a couple down from ours where a mama cat just had babies and they wander around the driveway. Her excitement when she sees the kitties outside is just adorable. 

She generally sleeps from about 7 to 7, give or take, and then takes a midday nap around noon that usually lasts around 2 hours. She doesn't usually fall asleep while we are out, in fact, it has only happened three times that I can remember and she transferred to the crib just fine each time when we got home, which was a relief. We go on morning walks a lot and she fell asleep one of the mornings which was shocking! Must have been reaaaaaalllly tired that day because that never happens. 

She climbs everything. It's her new thing. I got ready this morning with her climbing on the toilet and being very excited about reaching a new cabinet of fun. She then pulled one thing out at a time, swiftly dropping the items in to the trash between us. She always wants to be on a chair, which usually leads to her being on the table (or piano), which leads to me taking her off the table, which makes her very sad (aaaaand repeat). 

Trying to remember how I survived these toddler years twice already because she is already giving me a run for my money! She may be non-stop busy, but she sure is cute. 

She has 8 teeth between those cute front and bottom ones, and then 2 top molars and 2 bottom molars poking through, so just about 12 all together! The molars have made her a little crankier and we had a week where she was waking up at night quite a bit, but we seem to be past that for now. 

We love how she is always jabbering as though we should understand everything she is saying and how much fun she has wrestling around with her siblings. She eats just about everything we give her. Fruits are her favorite (grapes, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, watermelon -- bananas are hit or miss). She loves looking through her board books (Emma, Dear Zoo, Wheels on the Bus, and Dinosaur Dance seem to be her favorites). 

Love you Miss Emery Sol!