.eighteenth month

I’ve gotta be                                                                       honest, I’m

posting this much much later                                 than the time Alice actually

turned 18 months, but lets see how much I            can remember about Alice at this adorable

time of her life... ♥Alice loves to read books and       sing songs. Especially songs with actions. ♥She’s

obsessed with the combo of her binkie, her baby doll, and her blankie and has no trouble whatsoever

taking naps or going to bed as long as they are all present and accounted for. ♥She runs so funny without

bending her knees (still not so sure when she'll grow out of that?). ♥She is in love with shoes and socks…

she begs to have them so she can put them on and take them off repeatedly throughout the day. ♥She thinks

it’s the funniest thing in the world when she puts a bucket on her head and acts silly. We all agree it is. ♥She

spends much of her time quietly rummaging through buckets of toys and entertaining herself, always

busy. ♥She is always blabbing on about who knows what. We can’t wait til she can talk with real words!

♥She is pretty stranger-shy, but definitely prefers women? ♥She loves her big brother and wants to

be doing whatever he is doing all the time. ♥Her skin is soft and plump and pink to perfection.

I squeeze and kiss her all day long. ♥She loves to repeat the last sound of your

sentence back to you. ♥She can actually sing really well and

harmonizes with me. ♥She is adorable and

perfect and she lightens

our life!

      

Can you tell I had way too many photos to choose from after this photo shoot?

Here she is with her favorite binki/baby/blankie combo:

Busy busy busy:

 

This last photo just makes me giggle… these two are always rummaging through toys and making a huge mess in this tiny space we call the “toy area”. Adorable and hilarious:

.twelfth month

Well it happened. I've searched and searched over the past year, but it turns out there is no force on Earth powerful enough to stop a healthy child from aging. Alice has grown so much in a tiny amount of time it’s incredible. And, you know, she is so much fun now and she seems to get better with age… so I guess there are no regrets.

She likes to give kisses (open mouthed). She sings with me whenever I sing. She dances (twists and bounces) any time she hears anything remotely musical. She says “ah oh”, “at” (Ames?), “hi”, “ullo” (hello), “mama”, “dada”. She’s pretty quiet compared to Ames at this age, but she does do lots of cute babbling. Alice is getting sooooo close to walking—she has taken a few steps at a time and can stand alone for a short second. Every time she realizes she’s standing alone she just starts laughing so hard it makes her fall. She crawls around as quick as lightning—especially when she sees you eating something she wants. She puts everything in her mouth and chews on everything. She’s kind of a puppy dog.

She laughs at everything (although sometimes it can be a little insensitive), it’s awesome.

Alice never did take to nursing, much to my chagrin. I ended up pumping her milk every three hours until she was about 9 months, my milk was depleting and I slowly started working formula into her diet too. Now she is down to two pumped bottles a day and one formula bottle between. She eats lots of solids. Pretty much anything we give her although she is not great at chewing (even with 10 teeth!) so she chokes all. the. time.

Our little photo shoot this month was a piece of work. Not gonna lie, I am happy to be done with this until her next birthday! haha

      

Here she is about to take a step and one in her pro crawling position.

 

Anyway, you’ve got another post coming at you all about her big birthday extravaganza!

Here’s a preview:

.eleventh month

This girl had an eventful month, but she came out alive thank goodness. Honestly for a few minutes one night I had the terrible experience of thinking she might leave us, so it is an extra wonderful thing to still have little Alice here with us.

Here’s the story—it was a Saturday night and she woke up screaming at 12:30am. I got her and she seemed hot so I took her temperature. It was 101.something so I got out the infant Tylenol and put a few ml’s in a syringe thingy. She was drinking it down like a bottle but the last little bit slipped and shot into her mouth too fast. It startled her and she made a concerned face as she stopped breathing, became unresponsive and started convulsing. I thought she was choking so I started the baby heimlich but nothing was helping so I ran downstairs with her yelling “help!”. Air and his friend Jordan were down there watching a movie, and they also tried the heimlech while I ran back upstairs and called an ambulance. I was crying so much by this time it’s ridiculous. While I was on the phone Alice finally stopped convulsing and started breathing again. She was still out of it for quite a while. Unresponsive and looking confused. The ambulance finally arrived and they checked her out, told us she seemed fine now, and it may have just been something called a febrile seizure… apparently pretty common in babies with sudden high fevers? Also turns out that Air used to get them when he was little.

Yikes.

After an experience like this I am reminded of how fragile life is and how grateful I am to Heavenly Father for protecting our family. I’m grateful for the times when I’ve seen his hand working small miracles that help us on the way. And I’m grateful for the times when I had no idea that these small miracles were happening all around us, day to day, to protect us. There is so much to fear in the world these days, but the more I experience this life, the more faith I get in the fact that God will never let us go through things that we cannot handle. And we can handle a whole lot with him by our side. I know that everything is in His hands and I just have to let go and trust Him.

These photos were taken only a day and a half after this craziness. She was still pretty sick with random fevers, but as you can see, she is an amazing little champ to be happy and smiling through it all.

     

I can’t believe her first birthday is coming up… I’m in complete denial and I don’t want to think about it. Guess I better start thinking about it soon though, otherwise she won’t have any cake or presents? Eek!

Enjoy these photos of Alice doing her most favorite thing in this world (hanging upside down):

We love her so much.

.tenth month

Time is flying by over here… the days are like minutes, so you can only imagine what an actual minute feels like. I need to soak in Alice’s sweetness so that in a few years when she’s having screaming tantrums (like Ames lately), I can look back and say to myself, “she’s still the same sweet loving little baby she used to be”. Maybe that will help me get through those times. For now, I just really appreciate her smiles and uplifting spirit at all times. When I’m having a bad day, there’s nothing better than having her beside me, just so happy to be here.

Here’s your monthly dose of her photo shoot shenanigans. The girl will not stay put! haha:

        

Words she can say now: “mama” “dada” “ah-oh” “hi”

Alice learned to pull herself up to couches and walk along them. This is totally her jam and she does it constantly.

She enjoyed Ames’s birthday this month and having Grandma and Grandpa Leary come to Canada was the ultimate treat for all of us this month (I will be posting more on this later). She loved them so much.

Wearing one of Ames’s birthday gifts from Grandma. haha

Seeing her with my parents made my heart happy.

She likes to go out and about with us. She seems to enjoy riding in the car… I always catch her looking up out the window at the light poles passing by one by one, trying to examine each thing she sees.

She is a little stranger shy these days, especially with men. But in a shocking twist of events she was not the least bit scared of my Dad! AWESOME!!