Toddler Tuesday - {monthdate} 17 months

Y'all, I love that Ellie's 17 monthdate fell on a Tuesday!! I can't believe that we are nearing the end of October and Miss Lu has been a part of our lives for 17 months. I swear we just brought her home from the hospital!

Girlfriend has been changing before our eyes every day! This by far is the most fun age and I know it's just going to keep getting better and better! (Although there will be some trying times I'm sure). 

We should have named her Ellie Danger because she is one huge risk taker and makes my heart stop several times a day with her crazy antics!  She runs around (and usually face plants) laughing. She is trying to climb on everything (regardless of how stable it is) and use any toy to try and help herself up onto the coffee table - which is NOT allowed. She has a giant love of slides and will cry of I don't let her go down at least 20 million times! And she has become very confident at the mall play area and acts like she rules the place, so we are working on teaching her to take turns. And she insists on walking down the slide there - and usually bites it but gets right back up to do it again!!  It has become apparent that Lu has no fear and is probably going to be an awesome Flyer when she gets into cheerleading. 

Due to Ellie's dangerous ways we did have an accident. She was running into our kitchen and tripped landing straight on her face and cut her lip. She cried for all of 5 minutes and after a couple hours the swelling went down and she was fresh as a daisy. 

She has become quite the eater but also knows what she does and does not like. We introduced plates this month and she has been good about 80% of the time keeping it on her tray. Although she does love to dump it!  Favorite foods: string cheese, corn, peas, bread, grapes, gold fishies, and Cheerios.  She also likes pizza (tortinos party pizzas are her fave) as well as some pastas. 

She fell in love with olives, so I gave her a handful and she gobbled them up so fast. But now we are paying for it because they did not agree with her butt. Poor girlfriend has one of the worst rashes to date and I feel terrible! It's times like these I wish she could use the toilet, but I'm not looking forward to the potty training.  Who wants to come and teach her?

I cannot believe how smart this babe is. She understands so well and is pretty good at getting or doing what is asked of her. She knows where her eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair and belly button are and can identify her toes on a good day. She does patty cake, ring around the rosie, washes the spider out, and stomps her feet, and spins in circles, all on command. She can wave hi and bye as well as blow kisses. She also gives the best hugs and kisses 90% of the time when asked.  She can say "baa" for sheep, "mmmm" for cow, "meh" for goat, "neh" for pony, "woo" for puppy, "bak" for chicken, she also says "nana" for nanny (grandma), "papa", "dada", "mama". "Gaga" for grandpa, and "ba" for bath. She still can sign "more" and "milk" and "all done". She also makes a sound for all done and the best "uhuhh" for yes. I love it and can't wait for more words!!

Lu loves to read her books, and play with almost all her toys. Her new fave thing to do is take her toys and drop them on the other side of the fireplace screen (naughty). She love her Bitty Baby and will give her hugs all the live long day!  The puppies are getting more used to her and all she wants to do is give them lovin's.  She can "brush" her teeth and enjoys that part of our morning routine - still trying to get it into our nighttime routine. 

Sleep has been a total hit and miss lately. She is good for her nap - usually dinks around in her crib for about 15-20 minutes and then sleeps for a good 2.5 hours. But nighttime is a whole other story. At the moment our sleep is a little more important to is so when she refuses to sleep in her crib we just bring her into out bed and she is practically out when her head hits the mattress. I know we are going to have to be a little more firm coming up in the sleep department but this is what's "working" for us right now. Do I wish and pray that she sleeps through the night in her own crib? Hell yes. 

Major developments:

Ellie has 11 teeth and the last molar is cutting through. So I think I can consider her having 12 teeth! 

She sleeps in her crib for naps and can put herself to sleep. 

Lu plays very well independently and loves to read her books. 

Daniel Tiger, Clifford and Arthur are her favorite tv shows. 

She will sit at the small kids table for practically the entire snack time!

Adventures:

We've been to church a lot

We went to a farm stand and picked out a few pumpkins

You've been out on errands 

We've been taking walks around the neighborhood

You also went to a consignment sale and helped pick out a bunch of cloth diapers

♥ Ashley