Lydia is 18 Months!

Lydia turned 18 months old on August 23! I can't believe that she is already a year and a half. The time has gone by so quickly. It has been fun to watch her change and grow and learn over the past months.I decided it would be fun to post some every day pictures of her instead of the usual ones I do for the monthly updates.

Here is a list of things that she has been up to:

*She still takes two naps, but is slowly phasing out the morning nap.
*She has her favorite blanket with a yellow duck on it that she has to sleep with. She rubs the yarn from the duck head under her nose.
*She loves her dog Daisy. Sometimes Daisy can help her stop crying when nothing else seems to be working.
*She gets more excited to see Daisy in the morning than anyone else.
*She likes to skype my parents on the computer. She tries to move my mom so that she can see my dad who is usually in the chair behind her.
*My dad is one of her favorite people. She gets extremely excited to see him and insists on going everywhere with him.
*Her favorite words to say are Daisy, Mom, Dad, grandma, grandpa, no, no, no, and no.
*She uses sign language to communicate a lot of things. She can ask for a drink or something to eat. She can ask for more. She also says please, dog, bird, baby, and milk.
*She loves animals and gets extremely excited when she sees them.
*She knows quite a few animal sounds: duck, cow, chicken, dog, frog, horse, lamb, cat, elephant, pig, and she can make the cat call sound that our bird Oscar does.
*She knows where her eyes, ears, mouth, head, chin, fingers, and belly button are. She loves to show you her belly button.
*She likes to blow raspberries on Justin's stomach.
*She loves giving high fives and knuckles.
*She will give me a high five after I ask her to do something and she does it.
*She loves to throw away her own diapers.
*She thinks it is funny to run away from us when we want her to come somewhere.
*She gives the best kisses.
*Her favorite things to watch on tv are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Up, and Toy Story. She also loves Baby Signing Time and will start doing the signs before the next song comes up.
*She loves to dump things out of bags or boxes. She holds them upside down and watches it all fall out.*She loves going to nursery. She walks right into the toys and doesn't even look back to say goodbye. She isn't as big of a fan of sacrament meeting and we have a hard time getting her to hold still.
*She loves to eat vegetables, green beans, zucchini, and broccoli are her favorite. The only fruit she really likes is bananas.
*She is still busy and all over the place.
*She gets excited when Justin comes home from work and instantly asks him to get Oscar out of his cage.
*She knows that if she brings us her shoes and Daisy's leash that she gets to go outside.
*She knows just what she wants and points to it so we know what she wants too.
*She will pat on the place where she wants you to sit.
*She comes and gets my hand and leads me to where she wants to go.
*She will bring me the remote when she wants to watch tv.
*She loves brushing her teeth while I do her hair. She hands me the toothbrush and toothpaste and instantly starts brushing her teeth.*She goes to bed extremely well. She gives everyone kisses night night and then we put her to bed and she waves as we leave the room.
*She loves to dance and she spins and spins and spins while she is dancing.
*She loves to brush my hair. She has me sit on the ground and she stands behind me to brush it.*She also likes to brush her hair. She brushes it with a pony tail in and it ends up looking like the picture above.
*She still loves playing in water. She loves going to the Splash Pad, playing in her swimming pool, and taking baths.
*And occasionally, she actually does sit down to relax.We are so lucky to have her in our life. She is so fun to have around. She definitely keeps us busy and constantly going. It is going to be fun to see how she is around new baby. I am sure it won't slow her down at all though!

Lydia's Second Hair Cut

Lydia's hair has grown to be pretty long. The main problem with it is that the bottom layer curls up really tight and the top layer stays straight which makes her hair look straggly. We decided that cutting it a few inches would help even things out and make it look better. My aunt Jenny owns a hair salon so we took her there on August 20, to have Jenny cut it for us. We took her bumbo chair to have her sit in because we knew it would be our only hope of her holding still during the hair cut. Amazingly enough, she was awesome and only wiggled a little.She didn't like when we first put the cape thing on her and she kept wiggling her arms all over the place trying to get them out from under it. I think having the cape on her made her look so tiny.This is the picture of how long her hair was before we cut it.For only being 18 months old, she sure has a lot of hair. I love it, however, everyone thinks she is older than she really is.She really was so good during the hair cut! I was pleasantly surprised.
This is the best after picture I could get. Lydia started to wiggle more as she knew we were close to being done.Jenny did a great job. It does look a lot better now, but it will take me a while to get used to it being shorter. We cut a little over two inches off.I took this picture with my phone when we got home. Jenny's salon is right by Wheeler Farm so we took advantage of being so close and let Lydia go and look at the animals. As usual, she loved seeing them and kept trying to feed them. We went and saw the ducks first. She would feed them a piece of bread and then eat a piece.
She went to each goat to make sure that they all got a piece of straw.She tried feeding the chickens rocks.This is just a cute picture.As always, she loved the horses.And she loved the cows too.It was fun just getting out and doing something fun for Lydia. I feel bad because it is hard for me to take her places and chase her by myself so during the week she is mostly stuck playing at home. I love the opportunities we have to let her do things like this!

Birthdays

My birthday was a few weeks ago. Lydia loved helping with the presents. Justin had wrapped them in birthday bags and Lydia took the first bag and tipped it upside down and dumped all of the contents onto the floor. She then proceeded to walk around carrying the bag on her arm like a purse. She is such a silly girl.My birthday was spent calling different mortgage companies and driving back and forth trying to get things signed and figured out for a loan. I was able to go out to lunch with Justin, so that was nice. However, by the end of the day I was sick of talking on the phone and was ready to just sit and do nothing but eat cake and ice cream.Lydia helped blow out the candles. She thought it was pretty funny.And of course she enjoyed eating the cake too!All in all, it was a good day.

Cache Valley Fair

Lydia and I went to my parents a few weekends ago because Justin was in charge of the ward camp-out and we weren't feeling up to the challenge of camping out. We decided to escape to Cache Valley instead. We took Lydia to the Cache Valley Fair while we were there and she absolutely loved it. She is a big fan of animals so as soon as we walked into the area with the cows she took off running towards one. The cow's owner was there and let her walk up to the cow and pet it. Lydia loved it.She loved all the animals. She tried to feed each of them as we went past them. She was so funny because she would run from cage to cage trying to make sure she got to look at them all.She recognized most of the animals and was able to tell us what sounds they make. The goats were the best part because they kept trying to eat her snack and she didn't necessarily want to share with them, but she thought they were funny.She was getting pretty warm, her cheeks turn bright red in the heat, so my dad took her to cool off in the stream that runs through the fair grounds.We tried to talk Grandpa into buying this for her.
Lydia was also able to eat a popsicle.We stopped at a park on our way home. Lydia loves being able to play and just be outside.I think that Lydia likes going to my parents because they make sure that she is always doing something fun. It also makes it nice for me because then I have someone else to help chase Lydia around since she never holds still. It was so much fun to watch her with the animals! Justin had fun at the ward camp-out and was able to get the breakfast made for the ward without having interruptions from Lydia and me too!