Jana is 20 months old!

I have to admit that I'm not so okay with her approaching two years old. While I absolutely adore this age and love the personality that comes with her being a toddler, I'm so afraid of her growing up. She's just such a joy as a baby/toddler. You can just see that delightful, yet stinker-ish personality in these pictures of her.

This is the look that J will have to face and fight off the urge to cave into it. Can't you just picture this face accompanied by the pleading, "Pleeeeeease Daddy?"

"I can reach the door handle now.... Just wait a few more months and see what happens when you try to tell me I can't go outside. Hee, hee, hee!"

Her vocabulary has exploded this month and she is such a mimic. She is now copying our sayings and repeating them at appropriate times. She'll say "see you" when playing peek a boo and say "awwight" when asked a question. She will now ask for naps or to go to bed when she's tired, but the hilarious one is that she asks for a "baff" (visualize her doing the baby sign of rubbing her belly as she says this) multiple times a day. She is also pretending to know how to count. She plays this game with me. I'll say one and sometimes she'll repeat it, but when I say two, she'll say three. Or I'll say one and she'll say two. And just smile boastfully and giggle.

One of the most commonly heard words in our house right now (besides please) is "again." But, I will have to get an audio clip of it, because the description doesn't capture the true meaning. She looks up with those big blue eyes and says, "agin?" raising her intonation into a question.

I'm also so incredibly impressed with her vocabulary. She seems to come out of no where with words, unprompted.

Off the top of my head, these are the words she says (not just repeats)
Mama, Mommy, Mom , Dada, Daddy, Dad,
Gapa(Grandpa), Gama (grandma), Dave (Uncle Dave)
Hi, Bye-bye, Night-Night,
Doggy, Sissy, Sis-sis, baby, doll, ball
puppy, blocks, box, shoe, sock, bed
sleepies, nap, bath, bink, book, hat
hot, banana, apple, beeto(burrito), milk, juice
water, pizza, egg, blankie, fish, bike
swing, slide, walk, mail, seat, boobie (oops)
eat, owie, cheese, please, again, more

Here she is with her new friend "Meemow." (because kitties say Meemow).

She knows most of her body parts: eye, nose, ear, cheek, chin, mouth, teeth, head, toes, feet, arm, hand, leg.

She is becoming such a big girl. She was a total crack up this evening, climbing in and out of a box, carrying her scooter in the air, and making faces at us and then giggling. During dinner someone, who shall remain names (but wasn't me), passed gas at the dinner table and she got this horrified look on her face and declared "Stinky." When J and I started cracking up, she started laughing so hard. It's hard to imagine many better times than sitting around, eating dinner with J and the girls, laughing with Jana.

Despite being a absolute riot to have around, she has a bit of a temper on her. She can communicate so well most of the time, when she can't she falls apart. She also believes that when you say please, you should get whatever you were asking for.

She's been such a mommy's girl until this last week and now she's adoring her daddy. It's so fun to watch them.

Jana is so protective of Kara. If anyone walks up to Kara in her car seat, Jana immediately runs over, kisses Kara on the head and declares "sis" or "sissy." I really don't want them to grow up any faster, but I really want them to be old enough to interact - you can tell Jana wants to play with her.


Here are some recent pictures of Jana:

This was the night we celebrated Grandma E's birthday. After delivering her card to Grandma, she wanted to help open presents, but was VERY unhappy when Grandma started putting the presents back into the boxes. Jana was horrified when the frosting stained her fingers blue. It sent her over the edge and a bath was the only thing to bring her back.

While she has a potty, we've done nothing with it yet. She loves to tote it around the house and sit on it (fully dressed). She does tell us when she's wet and poopy and she sometimes wakes from naps or in the morning completely dry. We'll give it a try and we'll see what happens. The most hilarious part of having the potty in the house now is this... seriously, where does this kid pick this up?

She's so big now that she can get herself on and off the rocking horse and Grandma and Grandpa E's house.

Even though she's so big, she loves Kara's toys. We caught her trying to climb into Kara's bouncer. She did fit, but when she rocked in it, she bounced nearly to the floor.

We discovered that Jana loves bubbles... or I should say that she loves that Maiya loves bubbles. Maiya chases the bubbles and bites them. In fact, she jumps into the air to catch the bubbles, which sends Jana into hysterics.

Swings are still her favorite. I can tell already that this kid is going to be a roller coaster kid!

She loves dress up. She has two aprons that she loves to wear. I was only able to get pictures of her in the one, but there's another one, too.


But it doesn't stop at the aprons. I put her in dresses for church on Sundays and today she did not want to take off her dress or tights. She just continued to twirl around in it. She was literally in this dress from 8 am until 7 pm when we changed her for bed. We can barely make it through a normal day in the same clothes, let a lone in a dress.


And lastly here is one of her and I after she sat and watched me get ready for my interview. I rarely wear make up, but oh how she was enthralled and loved my powder brush. Hee, hee.