19 Months

The pictures for this months post are extra special because they are the first pictures of P in her chair in our new house!  Yay for us!  This last month really seems like a blur.  We packed up our old house, moved to my parents for what was supposed to be 2 weeks but turned into 4 weeks, and then finally moved into our new house.  There have been a lot of adjustments this last month in the Bradford household and Miss P struggled at first but is doing much better now that we are in our own home and she is back in her pink room with her things.

It's hard to even know where to begin!  This little girl is something else!  She has SOOO much personality and is constantly making me smile and laugh (as well as want to pull my hair out at times)!  Right now two of her favorite things are to hear the songs Row Row Row your Boat and Happy Birthday.  I'm not so sure where this came about but she is OBSESSED with these two songs to the point that I will have to sing them over and over and over again to get her to go to sleep at night.  I also have to put them on repeat in the car because she refuses to listen to anything else. If I let the CD go to the next song she will say "no, no" and shake her head.  Where she once loved watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the mornings she now likes to watch Doc Mcstuffins and will actually say "Doc" to let me know that she wants me to turn it on.

Something that she has started doing that I think is hilarious is copying me.  Since we have just recently moved, she has been watching me clean things with a dusting cloth or rag and now takes it upon herself to grab any kind of little towel that is in her reach and start cleaning the floors or the cabinets.  Now if I could just get her to learn how to use the vacuum....

Peyton also loves swinging and would probably be content spending most of her day doing just that.  Unfortunately, we don't have any trees at our new house to hang her swing on so we haven't been able to do much swinging except at my parents' house or the park since we have moved. It's amazing how much she has learned over the past few months. She can now point to most major body parts including nose, ear, mouth, teeth, tongue, hair, head, fingers, hand, toes, knees, belly button, as well as say most of their names.  She is saying new words at an alarmingly fast rate and is beginning to recognize cars, including mommy's, daddy's, and GP's cars. If we are anywhere on the main street in Homewood she will say "cookie" because she knows that Savage's is there and that I will take her in there to get a gingerbread man cookie.  Isn't that crazy!?!?  Sometimes it's so hard to believe how quickly my little baby is growing up but I can honestly say that as she gets older it gets more and more fun!

18 Months

P, as we like to refer to Peyton, is growing and changing right before my eyes. Sticking with what I said about her last month, she is becoming more and more aware of everything around her. One of the newest things she has started doing is putting her hand up to her ear when she ears something and she wants to know what it is...for instance, a bird chirping in the background, someone driving by on a motorcycle, an airplane flying above us. It's amazing to watch her face as she takes everything in. At times, this can be very frustrating though. She knows what she wants but can't always verbalize it to me which results in one frustrated baby and mommy. I sometimes joke and say that I am afraid that we are entering the terrible two's at 18 months old because she has now learned how to throw a full blown tantrum when she doesn't get her way. I have to admit that I am shocked that this has started so early (or at least it seems early to me). Just to give an example of this, we were in a store not long ago and Matt told Peyton "no" because she was trying to mess with something that she shouldn't be messing with, and she just flat out laid down on the floor and started crying. I could not believe what I was seeing. Shocked and embarrassed that this was my child, I said "That's fine. You can throw a tantrum if you want but I am walking away." It didn't take long before she realized she wasn't getting any attention from us so she stopped crying and started crawling across the floor...seriously?!?!

This is what she did when I asked her to show me how she goes "night night"

Still pretending to go "night night"

On a lighter note, as bad as the tantrums are, they are nothing compared to how much fun we are having with her right now. She has so much personality and keeps us entertained all of the time. She is loving her baby doll right now, and enjoys pushing her around in her little stroller. It's so sweet to see her take on a nurturing role at such a young age. Two of her biggest loves right now are playing outside and swinging. We have a huge deck in the back and she loves to go out there and run around. She has also started wanting to go run around in the yard while I sit on the steps at the deck and watch her. As I have said before, she definitely knows what she wants...when we go outside she will pat on the glider as if to say "sit here" until I sit down; or if she wants to play in the yard, she will run over to the stairs and then pat on the step until I walk over there and sit down there. I'm beginning to worry about who is running the show in our household! Peyton continues to love cheese, fruit (especially grapes), raisins, pasta, and meatballs. She has also started to follow after her daddy's footsteps, developing a strong love of m&m's. Although this little girl keeps us on our toes all of the time, we wouldn't have it any other way!

18 Month Stats:

Weight: 24 lbs. 6 oz. (50-75th percentile)

Height: 33 inches ( 90th percentile)

Head Circumference: 18 inches

VCC Easter Egg Hunt

We joined Vestavia Country Club at the end of the summer last year and haven't really participated in many activities up there so when we saw that they were doing an Easter egg hunt this year we decided it would be the perfect time to change that.  Only neither Matt nor I were prepared for the competitiveness that an Easter egg hunt for 1-2 year olds holds.  They had this little area marked off with yellow tape and inside of it were a bunch of Easter eggs.  Everyone was standing outside of the circle waiting for them to say "go" and when they did it was a mad dash for the eggs.  I wasn't sure who was worse, the kids or the parents!  And Peyton was just standing there eating her chocolate chip cookie, oblivious to the craziness surrounding her.  It was as if I blinked and all of the eggs were gone!  Matt and I were so naive to think that we could put Peyton in there and she could pick up eggs and put them in her basket on her own.  She didn't stand a chance next to these other kids!  Poor thing might have gotten 2 eggs in her basket.  Not to mention I hear these parents in the background telling their kids "I want you to get as many eggs as you can okay"...I mean really, these are 1 and 2 year olds!  

So after all of the excitement of the Easter egg hunt we decided to take a little ride on the train.  The plan was for me and P to go for a ride while Matt stayed back but she was not having in part of that.  Matt was ready to forgo the whole train ride all together but once he sat down with her she got okay and we had a nice little ride to the end of the street and back.  Then it was off to the balloon station where this lady made P a pink bunny.  Afterwards, we were all worn out from the excitement of the Easter festivities!

Love how sweet it is watching her hold onto Matt's arm!

Peyton playing peek-a-boo with her bunny balloon

Second attempt at a family picture before we hit melt-down mode

Miller Hill Easter Egg Hunt

Our soon-to-be new neighborhood held an Easter Egg Hunt today for the little kids.  It started at 1 and we had every intention of getting there when it started but P had other plans in mind.  She still like to take a late morning nap, and of course fell asleep not long before it was time for us to leave.  Since she is not the greatest napper, we didn't want to miss the rare opportunity to let her get some shut-eye so we just went a little late.  We got there about 30 minutes after it had started and to our surprise the party was wrapping up.  They had already done the Easter egg hunt and everyone was getting ready to gather there things and head back home.  Our neighbors were so sweet though to set some eggs out for Peyton so that she could have a little Easter egg hunt of her own.  Peyton was too young to participate in any Easter egg hunts last year so this was her first and she wasn't quite sure what to do.  Thankfully one of the cute little girls in the neighborhood was eager to help P out.  It didn't take Peyton long to catch on and oh how she loved hunting her some eggs!  

Once we got back home Peyton wasn't ready for the Easter egg hunt fun to end.  She was playing in her little cozy coupe and she was adamant that the Easter basket be in the car with her despite the fact that it was too big to fit. I don't know what it is about her Easter basket, but she LOVES to play with it.  I think that it has something to do with her being in this phase right now where she likes to carry bags/purses and put them up on her shoulder.  She is definitely all girl!  

Notice the frustration in her face over the basket not fitting in the car...

17 Months

If there was one word that I could use to best describe Peyton this month it would be AWARE.  I guess in the back of my mind I have known that Peyton was probably picking up on things that I do and say, but it seems like this last month she has grown leaps and bounds by the things that she is doing.  For instance, she has started "washing her hands" at her play kitchen sink, she shakes her head "no" and "yes" when we ask her questions (most of the time the answer we get is "no"....question: "do you want to go night night?" response: shaking her head no; "do you want to go brush teeth?" response: shaking her head no...guessing you get the picture haha).  She also follows commands such as "take it to daddy" or "put it in the trash can."

I am constantly amazed by how much she is growing up.  Her vocabulary is exploding, with her saying new words almost daily.  She is big into saying "truck" when she sees anything that remotely resembles a truck on the road or when she hears a truck driving by like a garbage truck.  She loves to pat, and will pat me on the back when I carry her.  She also continues to love looking at "baby" on my iphone (this is her way of asking to either look at herself through the reverse camera or look at pictures of herself on my phone).  She constantly is asking to "go go" so we stay out and about a good bit of the time.  She has got a mouth FULL of teeth that I have gotten to the point that I can no longer keep up with when she is cutting a new tooth.  These days she seems to be staying up later, until almost 8, and sleeping till about 8 the next morning.  She still isn't a great napper, but is pretty consistent with wanting to take a 1-1.5 hour nap around 11:30 in the morning, although she is very flexible and can push the nap back several hours if we have something going on at that time.

She is constantly making me laugh and reminding me of how blessed Matt and I are to be her parents.  Looking back at where I was a year ago, I remember thinking that there was no way that things could ever be better than they were then, and I was so sad that my 5 month old baby was getting so big.  I can now say without a doubt that I was highly mistaken!!!  Peyton has grown into a beautiful, loving, outgoing little girl and I am more in love with her every day!

Cutest Little Sweeper I've Ever Seen!

After I got home from work yesterday, I packed Peyton up to run over to our new house to check things out.  My parents and Matt ended up meeting me over there to look at something and by the time we had finished it had gotten to be dinner time so we headed over to Cracker Barrel at the Colonnade.  Peyton started getting restless as we were finishing up with our dinner so we pulled her out of the highchair so she could move around.  Little did we know that she was going to take it upon herself to grab a nearby broom and start sweeping up the floor!  Now if I could just get her to start sweeping the floors at home!!!

My Little Swimsuit Model

P and I were running some errands down at Lee Branch this afternoon so we stopped into Fairytales and Fireflies since it is rare that we are down that way.  I have very little control when it comes to buying clothes for little Miss and couldn't pass up the urge to get her a pink seersucker bathing suit for this summer, but not before first trying it on!  Peyton could have cared less about prancing around the store half-dressed, as long as it didn't get in the way of her playing toys.