18 months old!

Sarah is 18 months old today!  Time has sure flown by.  She is now walking everywhere and is learning to run.  She sure knows how to talk, too!  Sarah loves to watch Baby Signing Time and knows many different words in sign language.  She now says most of her sign language words out loud, too, and surprises me each and every day with new vocabulary.  My absolute favorite thing she says right now is "oh no!"  It's the cutest little phrase.  Mickey and Minnie Mouse are Sarah's favorite characters and she is always asking to watch Mickey on TV or my phone, wear her Minnie shirt or Minnie pajamas and carries her Minnie doll around the house.  She is in a phase where she is really hard to shop with.  Riding in the cart is no longer fun, and if I let her walk I don't get any shopping done.  I often encourage her to stay with my by asking her to find Minnie somewhere in the store.  It's a good thing Minnie is everywhere!  

Sarah is the happiest child I've ever met.  She is a really easy kid.  Don't get me wrong, she throws a pretty mean tantrum, but they are usually very short and we figure things out quickly.  Weaning her from her bottle was way easier than I anticipated, and she now loves to drink milk and juice (very diluted) from her sippy cups.  She loves to eat scrambled eggs with cheese for dinner and at breakfast she likes to eat oatmeal.  If it was up to her, however, she would be eating Apple Jacks and cookies all day long.  She used to love chicken nuggets, but every time we give them to her now she just eats the breading off of them.  Sometimes she likes to eat the squeeze fruit/vegetable pouches while we're out and about, but sometimes she just squeezes them hard and doesn't like that the consequence of being covered in goo.  She is down to only one nap a day, but she rarely cries when it's time to go to sleep.  Most nights she sleeps from 8 pm to after 9 am.  When she wakes up she usually will play in her bed for a little while until I come to get her up.  Sometimes Sarah disappears when we are in our house.  I will walk down the hall and she is sitting in her chair in her bedroom reading a book.  I love that she loves to read!  When we bought our house and moved from Lehi to Orem, I was afraid that she would have a hard time adjusting, but it's just the opposite!  She loves that our home is all on one level and she can just play wherever she wants instead of being stuck either upstairs or downstairs.  Just recently we have been working on the alphabet with her.  She now goes around the house saying "Aaaaa, Beeeee," but can't quite figure out how to say C yet.  We'll get there!  It's amazing how much she learns everyday.  She is getting such a cute personality and I never know what she will say or do next!  She likes to wear things as bracelets, such as rubber bands, headbands, and the painters tape that was left out from our recent bathroom renovation.  She will wear them around and say "pretty!"  

Brad and Sarah get along so well.  I love to watch them play together on his days off.  When he is working, she often looks at my phone and says "daddy?"  She loves when we call him and he talks to her.  Sometimes she won't talk, but every time without fail after we hang up she says "bye bye dada."  Hopefully someday she will realize that she should say it before the call ends!  Sarah loves to be outside and loves playing with her puppy, Lyla.  I was nervous at first about having a dog around such a small child, but Sarah and Lyla get along really well (I wish I could say that the dog and I get along well!).  Every morning and throughout the day I find Sarah at the window saying "Nyna" (Lyla) and playing peekaboo with her.  She such loves that dog.  Brad's work had a party at the outdoor pool the other day and Sarah had a lot of fun.  Brad took her down the big water slide and Sarah loved it.  She kept asking to go again, and again.  She loves to be with her daddy and to have fun with him.  I'm so lucky that I have such an amazing family!

Sarah has grown up so quickly.  I cannot believe that time has flown by so fast.  These 18 months have been so amazing and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!  

(Sarah at the beach for the first time in July.  She loved the ocean, but hated touching the sand!)

End of the Year Activities

The past few months have been super busy at our house! Between school, work, church and spending time with family the days have been flying by. 

Sarah has been growing up quickly and she is getting so big.  She is now 11 months old and her birthday is quickly coming up.  She crawls very quickly and I have learned that I can't look away for even a second or else she's into something she shouldn't be.  We finally decided it was important to put a baby gate up at the bottom of our stairs because she would spend her whole day climbing them if we let her.  When she wears shoes, she can stand on her own for a minute or two and when she is barefoot she stands for a little less time.  She likes to walk with her little zebra walker that her Grandma and Grandpa Larsen bought her for Christmas down our hall. Each day she is getting closer to walking and I won't be surprised if she starts walking really close to her birthday. 

Speaking of Christmas, we had a lot going on in the month of December.  My Grandma Robinson passed away early in the month and once I finished my finals we headed down to Arizona for her funeral.  It was such a great trip to be able to relax and spend time with family members that we don't often see. We stayed with my Aunt Janine and her family.  We love being able to stay with family down there and are certainly lucky that we didn't have to stay in a hotel!  It was fun to be able to go to all of my favorite childhood places like Bahama Bucks, the Mesa Temple lights, Rallys, and the closest restaurant to Gecko Grill, Morenos in Queen Creek. Sarah is such a good traveler and had a blast playing with the Butcher's puppy as well as her cousins.  When we got back from our trip to Arizona, we were able to spend 2 weeks with Brad's sister, Amanda, and her cute family from New Jersey.  We had a lot of fun going to the Salt Lake Temple lights, Old Spaghetti Factory, shopping, and just hanging out together at Brad's parents' house.   We spent time with both of our families on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  On Christmas Eve, we spent the night at my parents' house because the weather wasn't great and we were going to be in Orem early in the morning anyway.  It was so much fun to see Sarah play with her presents in the morning, even if we had to wake her up to do so this year.  After opening our presents at my parents' house we went over to the Larsen's house to open presents with the Sherwoods as well as have Christmas breakfast.  Sarah loved playing with all of her new toys and had a blast on Christmas Day.  We were sad that the Sherwoods had to go back to New Jersey, but we were very glad that they were able to stay for as long as they did!

Well, January came and with it came freezing weather and another semester at school.  As soon as Brad finishes one Independent Study class he will graduate from UVU with his bachelors degree. He is now attending BYU again while he finishes his prerequisites for medical school.  I'm also at BYU and should graduate in August with a degree in Family Studies.  We also recently attended the retirement party for Brad's dad, Mike, who retired from the Director of Public Safety position at the Orem Police Department.  We are excited for Mike and Lynnette and look forward to what their future holds!

We are now planning Sarah's first birthday party and cannot believe how fast this year has flown.  Sarah is growing quickly and we love to see all of the new milestones she is hitting each day. She is now starting to say a few words and can even sign words, too.  She is so smart and we are very grateful for all of the blessings she has brought into our lives this year!