16 Months

It has been a fun month! This is probably my favorite age yet!

• Olivia is such a fun shopping buddy. Lately she's been cracking me up or just making me sigh out loud with how cute she is. When she sees dark haired girls or women, she thinks it's her Aunt Kate. She gets really excited and starts signing her name. The first time she did this it was a young teen on a box of craft beads. Olivia signed Kate over and over and then signed love. Another time we were stopped on an isle looking at something and she saw the wheel from a toy wheelbarrow and started groaning like a car engine. Richard and I stopped what we were doing and looked at her. She kept making the noises until she noticed that we were staring at her and she kind of stopped and looked at us like "what?" Finally, we were in Hobby Lobby and moving down the isle and all of a sudden she was blowing raspberries and pushing on her cheeks. I looked up to what she was looking at and saw a little cherub statue lying on its stomach with its head in its hands. Oh my! What a goof!
• She scrunches up her face and shrugs her shoulders.
• Olivia found her shadow! And she couldn't stop waving at it, maybe because it kept waving back!
• She loves going down the slide at the park.
• She picks stuff (i.e. crumbs, wood chips, pieces of garbage) up off the ground and after inspecting it, hands it to me for further examination.
• Baby Signing Time is heaven sent! While she's been teething and cranky, we have taken special advantage of the mesmerizing power these DVDs have over our daughter. Nothing else provides her with the same entertainment and she can sit through a 45 minute episode, barely moving an inch. I know TV isn't the best for this age but with this program I really feel like she's learning something and not just soaking up mindless mumbo jumbo. And I can use the time to get stuff done around the house. Win-win!
• 6 teeth!