Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts

Monday, 30 September 2019

A little toddler update @16 months!


Addison Mae, turned 16 months old on the 9th of this month! I remember doing a blog post for Ella when she reached this age, and so I thought it would be fun to do a comparison one for Addi! I also feel like this age is just so fun, with so many new things Addi is learning to do and I just want to document it all so I don't forget it! 



So, she is now a walker! She took her very first steps on the 12th June and then spent a good few months just practicing taking a few steps here and there, and it wasn't until just before she turned 15 months (on the 6th August) that she started walking across rooms and then walking all over the show! 



I feel like once they walk, they are just their own little person already...and the baby days are gone, and that is so bittersweet for me!! but I do love to watch her waddle all over the place!

Along with walking also comes lots of talking! 

Here are the words that Addi is saying:

Mama/Mummy
Dada/Daddy
Addi
Ella
Bubba
Ta
Thank you
Hiya
Buh-bye
Boo
Booyah!
Ta-da
All done
More
Amen
Tidy (we hand her a wet wipe after dinner and she loves to clean up the surface of her highchair whilst saying 'tidy, tidy' she also says it while she's putting her bath toys away or tidying toys up in the playroom!)

and the sounds she can make:

dog
monkey
snake
mouse
duck
chicken
sheep
cow
snoring

The songs she enjoys doing the actions/sounds to:

Wind the Bobbin' Up
Wheels on the Bus
Sleeping Bunnies
Old Macdonald had a Farm
If you're Happy and you Know it



Dog is still her favourite sound to make, and I'm pretty sure it's her fave animal too.  She is dog obsessed! 


If there is a dog when we're out and about, you can bet Addison is right there beside it petting it and showing it love! It makes me so sad, because I know she would just be adoring Milo daily if he was still here with us.  

She isn't just partial to dogs, 


and pretty much loves all animals.  


She takes after her daddy and her big sister in that way!


She also loves bubbles...


and oh man does she love the water! 


She had her first official beach day in North Berwick on our hottest day of the year, and she got stuck right in - literally.  She just wanted to constantly run into the water, deeper and deeper...she has no fear! scarily enough! 


So all that playing around definitely tired her out! 


We've had a lot of fun water play in the garden too this summer!


Can you just see how joyful she is in the photo below?!


and she also goes swimming with Daddy and Ella on Wednesday evenings which she just adores, 


even though she apparently drinks half of the pool in the process! 


Even bath time is just hilariously fun for her! 



Whilst we're talking about her loves, I would say even above her love of water has to be her love for books!! She is book CRAZY! I thought Ella loved books as a toddler, and she did, but man alive, Addison takes it to the next level! She literally will make you read every book to her in our house (the ones with flaps and touchy feely bits) and then once you've gone through stack after stack...I'm talking 40+ books, she will ask for more and want you to read them all again! 


She has definite favourites! and so if she spots her favourite in the stack you are reading she will make you whizz through the other ones just turning to the back page and saying all done until you get to the one she wants! Her current fave is a book about emotions and on each different page the character does a happy face, sad face, angry face, naughty face etc... and she loves to watch my face as I do each emotion and she likes to replicate them too! It's super cute.


She loves to 'unpack' things! Give her a foreign handbag to rummage through and she's in her element, here she is unpacking all the nappies out of the new packet (less helpful!) but she does love to unpack groceries too and hands me each one...


and knows to tuck into the baguette first before unpacking! She is bread obsessed just like her Mama.


She is a bit of a daredevil, and much prefers the walking up part of the slide to the sliding down! She loves to climb and is pretty adventurous, she likes to get into anything and everything...and I feel like she will be the child who I will find scribbling on walls! I have found her a few times drawing on the floor, but luckily it's just laminate so it comes off with wipes! 


because one of her other obsessions is colouring! I'm pretty sure if you gave her free reign of what to do, if she had read through all the books already, she would want to colour! She loves sitting at our little art and craft table and colouring away.  Sometimes she sits alongside Ella and they create pictures together and it's so cute to see...but she also really likes to have the whole art and craft station to herself and go wild with it! 


She loves buttons! especially on the washing machine and oven! and everytime we come into the house she insists on pushing the doorbell, and then switching on and off the light in the entrance hall! 


She is also really into sunglasses, hats and shoes! 


and babies! Oh man, does she love babies! 


She loves to push them around in her pram, at high speeds! 


and to feed them ever so lovingly, she also strokes their heads too when they cry! It's adorable


She's not just partial to the fake kind, she was fascinated with a lovely little baby Max we met at craft club the other week.  She kept going over to his pram where he was sleeping and putting her arms up to his mum (who she'd never met before!) for the mum to lift her up and show her the baby! She would then make a shhh sound because he was sleeping, and then gently pat his leg! It was too precious! She must have done that over and over at least 8 times! 


She's become a bit of a fusspot with eating recently.  She used to eat anything and everything, and these days she's just all about blueberries and cheese!! and of course...we can't talk about her loves without talking about chocolate! She for sure has inherited our family sweet tooth! 


I introduced her to the joys of walking on crunchy autumn leaves the other day, and she loved throwing them up in the air too, she seems to be so at home out in nature! 


Another favourite thing to do is to climb each individual log stump we have out the front of our house, she scales each one like it's a mountain and then when she manages to stand up on top of it she proclaims 'Ta-da'! with great enthusiasm! Did I mention she has to do this every time we return from being out in the car somewhere...which is quite a lengthy process as you can imagine! 


I also introduced her to the joys of puddle jumping!! I knew it was going to be hit.  I had been waiting for her feet to grow to order some wellies that would fit...and then it was go time! She loved testing them out in some small puddles outside our house but I knew if we headed to Bowmont Forest we'd get some real deal puddles! 


Can you even handle how adorable this puddle jumper is??! 


I feel like I've said every single thing is her favourite, but really she has a lot of favourites! I guess she just loves life! The last thing I wanted to mention was just how much she loves an invite into big sister's room! An invite, because normally she's banned! Since she has little routines as soon as she gets into Ella's room that consists of emptying out all her drawers of hairbands on the floor, ripping her stickers of achievement off the wall, dumping out all her clothes from their drawers and so the list goes on, you get the idea! but on a rare occasion Ella will invite her in...to endure the mayhem, and you've never seen such a gleeful face toddling down the corridor heading towards Ella's bedroom door! 


Now the toddler chaos has commenced, she is certainly not quite as adored by Ella as she used to be! She breaks up things Ella makes/builds, or colours on her pictures etc... which is obviously annoying for any 5 year old! 


but they still definitely have plenty of sweet moments too! with Ella often telling her she is the best little sister she could have ever wished for!


Love these little blondies of mine so so much!

Friday, 12 August 2016

A little snapshot at two and a half!


So, as of Monday Ella was officially 2 and a half! which seems crazy because I've been telling people she's 2 and a half for months!! but now, she really is! and it is just the most fun age! and I wanted to record and write down a few of the things I'm loving about her right now...


her love of role play! She is always making up some cute little scenario - whether it's between her mummy and baby dinosaur playing in the dolls house, or the mummy and the baby duck playing in the bath.  Usually her role plays revolve around ice cream! and the one character will always invite the other one to go to the 'ice cream farm' and then she very politely heads up to the counter with one of the characters and says 'excuse me please...can me have mint coc-cip' and then reels off all the toppings she wants 'sprinkles, oreo bits, cocolate sauce'!! Often her little characters go back for second helpings too!!! so it's safe to say even her make believe scenarios are influenced by her sweet tooth!


As well as being all about the ice cream still, she's now decided she loves milkshakes! She never used to be a fan before...but after trying a few in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago she is hooked! My mom and I ordered a bounty cheesecake one to share at Artisan Cheesecakes but did we get a look in? no! when I did eventually get one sip Ella said 'excuse me please, me need a little bit more milkshake'!!! 


She also LOVES stories! especially made up ones by mommy or daddy.  Every night before bed we ask her who she wants to tell her a story - and that is literally the highlight of her night - being told an imaginary story! When she really enjoys one you've told she will request that one for several nights following but will often change the situation slightly so she'll tell me she wants the one about the little boy and the crocodile and the ice cream (noticing a theme here?!) but one night instead of ants eating his ice cream (which he drops on the floor) she will ask for owls to come along and eat it! or sometimes she'll chime in during the story chipping in with her own storyline adding to mine! 


As well as her made up story, we also read an animated scripture story before bed.  It amazes me how at 2 and a half she takes it all in, some of the stories are pretty complex even when I break it down into language she can understand! When Naaman went to wash in the river Jordan 7 times to be healed of his leprosy, I explained that he had 'owies all over his body'.  A few days later she was doing something risky that I told her not to do otherwise she might get an owie, and quick as a flash she piped up 'like the man who had owies all over his body and he had to wash in the river because God told him to'!!! She can also retell the whole stories of Jonah, Moses and Daniel (a particular favourite for her) because she has these cute little bible sticker books from Granny that we have been reading to her most Sunday's during church for months and she seems to know the stories inside out now!


She LOVES to sing! The other day she was meant to be going down for her nap, but she was taking a while to fall asleep as she was too busy chatting away - I was just about to speak to her through the monitor to tell her firmly it was time to go to sleep when all of a sudden I heard her singing 'Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam' and 'Follow the Prophet' two of the little primary songs we sing at church! Of course, my heart melted and I couldn't tell her off while she was singing a song about Jesus! Along with her love of singing is her love of dance - her new fave is dancing along to Pokemon - it's a half dance/half jump/stomp around the lounge! She watches an episode before bath time and she sometimes tries to get Milo to join in 'come on Milo - dance with me, me love to dance'!! I think the 'jump' is her signature move!!


Despite her speech coming on in leaps and bounds, and her literally chatting non stop from the moment she wakes up until when she goes to bed (wonder who she gets that from?!) there are still some words that she doesn't pronounce correctly, and some of them I just love! like:
cu-pup-er (cucumber) 
haygroup (playgroup)
haimsburys (Sainsburys)
mint coc-cip (mint choc chip - her fave ice cream flavour)
kap-pup (ketchup)
shishers (scriptures)

Daddy asked her the other day what she wanted to do as a job when she is older, and he told her what he did and what I do...and she said she wanted to 'run around lots and lots'! which sums up the little ball of energy she is these days! 


She is also SO helpful! She always wants to be involved.  We often get her to set the table before dinner, a job she takes very seriously, and we also get her to empty the cutlery container from the dishwasher into the cutlery drawer which she loves.  She loves to help daddy with the gardening, and if ever I say I have to go put dinner on or make lunch straight away she's going 'me put dinner on with you, me help make lunch'!! Often, the tasks I am going to do involve chopping things up with knives or things she can't really join in and assist with so she makes a great little 'bin lady' running back and forth taking my rubbish to the bin! saying 'me bin lady' as she goes!!


It's also all about ghosts just now! We went to Floors Castle last week, and they had this cute little room trail...


 where you had to find an animal in each room of the castle for the kids...so armed with her clipboard Ella would march into each room and when the members of staff would ask her what she was looking for (expecting her to say an animal) she would answer 'ghosts'!!! much to their surprise every time! They would then tell her there aren't any ghosts at the castle, but she wasn't having any of that and off she'd go peeking behind curtains or knocking on closed doors trying to track them down!


Along with her love of ghosts comes a love of Abbey's...


and we're certainly not short of those around here - she likes looking in all the little nooks and crannies trying to find the ghosts!


These days she always wants to be hanging off of something...


or balancing on anything...a beam, a wall, a kerb! I have a feeling gymnastics is right around the corner for her!


and she's still all about monkey...


or both monkeys! She has now officially named them 'oo-oo' and 'ah-ah' and although she doesn't carry them around everywhere like she used to they are still firm favourites at nap and bedtime along with the rest of her monkey brood (apparently she has 13 - she loves the number 13 right now, she actually has about 9! but is always being gifted more so she may well have 13 soon enough!)


Also, this was her at the garden centre this morning - riding on her favourite ride, and just as I took this picture she leant over to monkey and said 'okay gorgeous'?! 


She is also still all about the water, whether she's throwing stones into a fountain...


or dipping in and out of the ocean...


or cooling off in a water sculpture on a hot day! I have a feeling this water baby won't be giving up her love of water anytime soon! 


Ella Bella - you are still the happiest around! and your big smile brightens my day! You are so eager for the future...for dressing up as a minion for Halloween, for throwing a snowball with mommy and daddy in the winter, for your 'paw patrol' birthday party when you turn 3 (next Feb!!) but I'd just like the present to slow down a little so we can enjoy each and every moment with you as you are growing up way too fast for my liking!

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