18 months old!

I truly cannot believe that my little baby is now an 18 month old toddler! Because 18 months was the official transition from baby to toddler storytime at good old Frisco Public Library, this has always seemed like a huge landmark to me in terms of little ones growing up and out of babyhood. In my head, Ellie and I would now be having mini-conversations together and spending cozy days working on craft projects and decorating homemade cookies. Well, we are not quite there, but the reality is just as wonderful! Here are just a few of the things my little girl is up to:

• Talking! Conversations may still be a long way off, but Elliott is picking up new words everyday, and she loves to say some of them over and over again. Some of her current faves - "shoes," "cheese," "hi," "bubble," "eyes," "boon" (for "balloon"), "mo" (for "no"), "keys," "wall," "ball," "car," "up," "dow" (for "down"), "cook" (for "book"), "coke" (for "coat"), "sots" (for "socks"), "doo" (for "door"), and "bat-bat" (for "back-pack"). She also loves certain letters ("E," "A," "O") and a few numbers ("8" and "6"), and she is brilliant enough to point them out whenever an opportune moment arises.

Finally got her on video saying "shoes," by far her favorite word!

• Coloring (and commanding us to color). We may not be whipping up any intricate craft projects, but Elliott is quite the artiste when she sits at her table wielding her crayons and paper. When she gets bored of scribbling, she hands us the crayons and points to the things she wants us to color. She is very demanding in this aspect, and we do our best to follow her (fortunately rather clear) instructions!

• Playing the piano. I know I sound like a crazy boastful mama, but I swear this girl has an ear for music. She sits at my keyboard and goes to town, banging on keys loudly, stroking them softly, playing individual notes to see how they sound, then experimenting with multiple notes at once. She gets a pretty good rhythm going, too! The cutest is when she very purposefully turns the pages of my music books and pretends to play the various songs. Cracks me up every time!

Good old fashioned fun!

Here's a dorky picture of me and Elliott from this morning (by the way, I finally caved and went to a hair salon for a trim last week!):

Happy 18 month birthday!