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!)