Jana's 18 months old

How did that happen? How did she get to be 18 months old? Where has the time gone?

I know what everyone says, but it doesn't mean much until you experience it yourself: I had no idea how much I could love this little girl.

Jana has become a toddler. She definitely has her own mind and her own will. She wants so desperately to be independent, but gets so frustrated when she can't do something on her own. And, she's definitely not short on personality.

She loves to make people smile. She has started this new laugh - it's more of a cackle. It's totally fake, but she does it when she wants others to laugh. It's so funny. She, also, has this "Aren't I cute?" look where she scrunches up her shoulders, tilts her head to the side and gives a very coy smile. She loves to dance - music not necessary. She looks like she's running in place, turning in circles, and flapping her arms-all at the same time.

Her vocabulary seemed to explode last week. While at the lake she picked up "boat", "lake", "ducky" (or guck guck, depending on her mood), "quack" (however, it comes in a sentence of "guck gucks go ack, ack"), "nuts" (as in we were nuts for swimming in the cold lake), "stuck", "yuck", "owl", "hat" and others that I'm forgetting. This last week she added "Tyler" (her 3 year old cousin), "Uncle Ryan" (but it came out "Ucl I-an") , "please" and others I'm blanking on. A few phrases made come backs in the last few days such as "Oh mama!" and "I do it." Unfortunately we lost "up please" which has become "uh oooo" (closely resembling uh-oh", but slightly different) and "toot toot" (sounds like "doot doot") now no longer means trains, but trains, semis, larger trucks, and motor homes.

She has started running, but it's still just a faster waddle-wobble. She's definitely a fine motor skill kid as she loves to screw on and off the lids to water bottles, take on and off the caps to her markers, push buttons, zip and unzip bags, and put things in and out of containers.

She has started to become more picky about foods. Her appetite has greatly decreased as this new set of 4 teeth come in. We are finding that we have to be more creative with her vegetables. She gets "stuffed" grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas. We stuff them full of shredded chicken and mixed veggies or peas and carrots. And apparently everything tastes better in spaghetti sauce because it doesn't matter what we put in there, she loves it.

Jana has become a cuddler and I love it so much. It has to be on her terms, but she loves to be held and hugged. She will also sit on my lap if I'm sitting on the floor with her.

Jana also decided that she likes swimming. As I said before, she has an independent streak and didn't want to be held, but wanted to swim like the big kids. There were more than a few scary moments as she pushed off of J or I in water over her head. She even loved "jumping in" (more like leaning and falling) after she watched Cousin Tyler do it over and over.

Here are some pictures of my big girl.


Here is a shot of the fam at the Antique tractor show. (We all went for J's grandpa.)

My little punky and J. She was getting over a cold and wasn't feeling too good that day.

Here's my little Bad Ass, better known as Toddler Tornado. You can see she was in the middle of removing all the magnets from the fridge and throwing them around so she could hear them bounce on the tile floor.


Here's my girl dressed all fancy. She had just discovered the sunglasses, which are now bent to heck from two weeks of putting them on, taking them off.


Here we are on the beach at the cabin on Deer Lake. She loved the rocks and had a wonderful time getting filthy dirty playing.


The next two go together. Here's the story behind these two: Jana was running from one end of the cabin to the other and then there was silence. We heard this grunting and found Jana dragging this frog innertube out of the closet. She proceeded to grab her blankies and a handful of animal crackers and plopped down on it. Then she leaned back and decided to use his head as a recliner. The funny part of this was that she set this up like she would be sitting in front of a tv, but (please don't take this as being against religion or anything like that because it isn't) she set this in front of a big Jesus statue and a Mary statue (the family that owns this cabin is very Catholic). So here she is reclining in the frog, checking out Jesus and Mary.


Jana trying on Cinderella shoes with Auntie Sarah. I have to admit, through the influence of Fancy Hannah, Jana has gotten to experience way more girliness. I don't seem to be afraid of letting her be girly at least some of the time. She's so enthralled with "accessories" right now and I have to admit that I love it!


This was another time on the beach when she actually put her toes in the water. She has hated water for the last few months, so this was huge.

Hanging out with Daddy on the boat. She was not so sure about it the first time we went out on it.


Hanging out with Grandpa- enjoying Auntie Sarah's rock-star sunglasses!


This is the second trip out on the boat and she loved it this time. She was allowed to drive the boat and boy, was she in heaven. The funniest part of her driving the boat was when she figured out that if she cranked on the wheel, the boat changed directions. She cranked on it and we headed toward the shore, so Sarah corrected the wheel and was about to put Jana's hands back on the wheel when Jana grabbed her hand and yanked it off the steering wheel and went back to steering.

This is right after Sarah taught her how to honk the horn and Jana is saying over and over "DOOT, DOOT!"


Pardon the disgusting pic of me in my bathing suit, but I love this picture of her and her hair. She's finally getting hair. Maybe sometime soon people will stop saying I have such a cute little boy!

Daddy and Jana in Black Butte as we headed into the pool for the first time. Amazingly enough, she loved it and will now even take bathes!

Here's my little monkey trying to be a big girl. Everyone was sitting on chairs and she needed to too, but she didn't sit long enough for me to get a picture of her reclining in that lounge chair.

Here are pics from her first real attempt at feeding herself yogurt. (I am impatient and usually intervene, but I didn't let myself and just let her make a mess.) She's great with a fork, but terrible with a spoon. She likes to turn in upside down so what ever was on the spoon is now down her front. She made such a mess, but had a wonderful time. I think she probably ate half and spilled half.


The worst part of it was when she started rubbing the spoon on her head and this is what her hair ended up looking like. Needless to say, we headed straight to the bath.