18 months!

I can't believe it, but my baby Aivree is 18 months old today!! Where has the time gone? And my babies? I feel bad because I haven't been as good with writing stuff down about Aivree. Right around her first birthday was when we put our house up for sale and it feels like life has been a whirlwind since then. I feel like I missed writing down a lot of her milestones since then. Is that my bad or second child syndrome? Maybe a little of both. Well, I'd like to play catch up a little right now and list 18 facts about my sweet Aivree (warning: long post!).

1. She started walking a little later than Anisten did, closer to 14-15 months. She actually stood up on her own before she could walk. She was so determined. She would fall so much, but always got right back up. She really wanted to walk and seemed so much happier once she finally did.

2. She is quite the chatterbox. I love this stage when it seems like they learn a new (or a few new) words everyday. She can say so much, although you may need me around to translate. Some of it is hard to discern if you don't know what she's saying. It's so cute to hear her talk though, I just love her little voice. Ani and I like to play the "Can you say.." game with her. She usually tries to say whatever we ask her and sometimes it's pretty funny.

3. She is such a feisty one. She can throw a tantrum like you've never seen and she often does. She has quite the temper. She's also more aggressive than Anisten. Aivree will fight for what she wants when Ani would cry. More often than not Aivree is making Anisten cry, instead of the other way around. She's been known to scratch, bite, hit, pull hair...it's not pretty. We need to teach her some anger management.

4. Aivree is my good eater (most of the time). She is at a stage where she is pretty much willing to eat whatever you give her. There are some things she has preference to, but for the most part she eats really well. Much better than her older sister (I hope she doesn't grow into that phase). She also drinks sooo much! This girl LOVES milk. I think I refill her sippy cup 5 times a day and when I give it to her she just guzzles it. I think she drinks around 50-60 oz a day.

5. Aivree has a total of 6 teeth and 4 half teeth. And yes, she's 18 months old. Teething is absolutely horrendous for her! She gets so ornery and sick, either with diarrhea or coughing, and after all that she has a tiny bump where a tooth should be. They take FOREVER to come in. Right now she has 4 in the front on top and 2 in the front on the bottom. She also has 2 molars on the top working their way through, and 2 molars on the bottom just starting to sprout...as well as who knows how many others. She's been teething the past two weeks and doesn't have a lot to show for it yet. Poor girl. She just isn't herself when she's got those teeth bugging her.
Pretty good picture of her teeth right now

6. She just loves Ani and follows her around everywhere. Anything Anisten has, she wants to have too (which can cause problems as you might imagine). They do play together pretty good for the most part and there is nothing that makes me happier than seeing my girls playing nicely together. So cute.

The little Princesses playing dress ups 7. Aivree loves Baby Einsteins and one of the first things she learned from them was EIEIO! Lately she has an obsession with Elmo's World. She says "lalalala Elmo's World" all day long (I love the way she says it). Any time we read books she always wants to read the Elmo ones. She also really likes Dora and has been able to say "Dora" long before I knew she knew who Dora was. She can spot anything Dora (bandaids, stickers, shirts, etc) from across the room. I'm not sure how many times she's actually sat and watched an episode of Dora, but she sure does like to look at her.

Aivree in her new Dora jammies with Anisten in her new Tinkerbell ones

8. My little Aivree has a shoe fetish. Once she started walking she decided she really really likes shoes and just loves to wear them around. Any and every shoe she can find. There was a while there when I couldn't even take them off for naps. It was also one of the first real words that she learned. She used to say "ish" for shoes, but now she says it very clearly. A couple weeks ago we went to Payless Shoe store and she was in heaven. She wanted to try on every pair of shoes and was very upset when it was time to go.

These are Anisten's shoes. You can tell they're a little big Giving daddy knuckles in her big shoes

9. Just like her sister, Aivree has some seriously naturally curly hair. Maybe more so than her sisters was. I think its probably just her baby hair, so we'll have to hang on to that for as long as we can (Anisten's stopped being so perfectly curly after we cut it). Her hair's still not really long yet, but that's okay. Enough to do a couple little fountains on her head is enough for me.

10. Aivree is such a little comedian. She does the silliest things with her eyes that make me laugh every time. She gives you this look out of the corner of her eyes and it's so funny. And sometimes she'll just close her eyes like she's in a really long blink. I can't really explain it, but it's so funny and she knows it is. She always does it for me because she knows she'll get a laugh out of me.

11. It's so amazing to me how easy it is for Aivree to make the biggest messes. It seems like eating is always the worst, especially because she still likes to throw everything on the table. But not only that, she seems to get everything all over her too. I had to buy these new big bibs with catchers so that she doesn't ruin all of her clothes when she eats (although it doesn't always help). She seems to get into so much too. She pulls everything out of my makeup drawer (there are some things I still haven't found), pulls all the tissues out of the tissue box and wipes her nose and face, she of course loves toilet paper, she dumps anything she can find to dump, and throws everything that can be thrown. She will also climb all over and into everything. I guess for the most part, she's a typical 18 month old. ;)

12. Aivree loves to dance, just like her sister. Every time she hears music, no matter where we are, she starts moving. It's so cute. She will point to the radio and say "dance!" so I know she wants the music on so she can start groovin.

13. Aivree loves babies. She was about 15 months when I first noticed her carrying this baby doll around everywhere. She would put it on her shoulder and pat its back and give it kisses. It was the cutest thing ever. She will sometimes feed her babies some of her food or put them in her blanket. She's a very good little mommy. Not only does she love baby dolls, but she loves actual babies. She can spot a baby from 3 aisles down in the grocery store (although they are often her age, and not so much babies anymore). She loves to look at her new baby cousins and touch their skin.

14. Aivree is such a good sleeper. I've recently moved her to one nap a day instead of two and she's done really well. She usually sleeps 12 hours a night, from 7:30 to 7:30 and she'll take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon starting at 1:30. I'm so amazed because starting out I never would've thought she'd end up being a good sleeper. She took the shortest naps when she was a baby and it was so hard to get her to sleep through the night. So glad she grew out of that stuff!

15. I'm not sure where she got them, but she has big beautiful BLUE eyes. Okay, well maybe I know where she got the big part, but not the blue. She melts my heart with those eyes.

16. Aivree is such a Momma's girl. Especially when she's not feeling well or around people she doesn't know very well, Mom is the only one she has eyes for. It usually works better if I'm not in sight, but if I am, then she has to be near me. It can be a struggle sometimes because I don't get much done when she's glued to my side. If I ever have to leave somewhere, I make sure to sneak out very quietly when she's distracted.

Ani took this picture :)

17. Aivree is also getting very smart. I'm amazed at how much she can understand. I say things to her and she knows what I'm saying even when she can't say the words herself. She isn't so good at enunciating her alphabet, but she does know the sounds that come next so when I sing a few letters to her, she'll say what comes next. Her favorites are EFG for some reason. She can also count to 3 and from 8 to 10. Kind of weird I know. She walks around going 1-2-3-9-10!

haha Doesn't she look smart in this picture? She's actually wearing 3D glasses we got from a movie

18. Aivree is such a big part of our family and makes us so happy. I don't know what we would do without her. We Love You So Much Aivree!!