Sarah at 18 Months

Sarah turned 18 months old on February 5, and she had her 18 month check-up today.

Stats

• Height = 32.5" (up 1.75" since 15 months), 65%
• Weight = 23lb 9.5oz (up 12oz since 15 months), 60%
• Head circumference = 18.5" (up 1" since 15 months), 50%
• 16 teeth, just waiting on her second molars

The last few months have been all about language for Sarah.  She's started putting together word phrases like Mittsy.  Touch.  Soft.  Hug!  (So cute) and sentences like:

• Touch it
• Hold this
• See you later
• Thank you
• I sorry
• I love you
• Love you, too
• Hi, DaDa/MaMa/friend/etc.
• More colors (while coloring)
• No more diaper
• All done
• Happy birthday to Taylor (for her aunt's birthday)
• Let's go!
• Peekaboo!  I see you!
• Sarah, no touch (referring to the litter box)
• Pick up

Some other new and exciting words have been:

• CoCo - Somewhere along the way Mittens got nicknamed Mittsy CoCo by our family, and now Sarah has just turned it into CoCo.  It's adorable!  She like to feed CoCo her cookies (dental treats) and brings CoCo her own favorite  toys like dolls and Crayons.  
• She's started saying South Gate which is obviously a hit with our students.  
• Pink - Her favorite color, and she loves identifying pink things like Crayons and clothing.
• Amen - Said at the end of every prayer and another big hit!
• Amy - This is what Sarah calls me if she's frustrated with me like "No, Amy!" while getting a diaper change.  Good grief, girl!

Sarah's physical ability improves by the week, too.  She enjoys walking backwards, marching, jumping, walking on her tip toes, and walking with her legs spread apart really far.  She's learning how to zip and unzip things like jackets.  She likes to twist lids to open things.

I would say Sarah's two favorite activities are coloring and going outside.  She has a little table with two chairs, and she will color and put stickers on her papers.  She also likes using her easel to play with magnets and write with the dry erase marker.  The other weeks Sarah said "Jacket" (I put it on her), "Socks" (I put them on her), "Shoes" (I put them on her), "Outside!"  She knew!  So I obliged and we went outside.  She's really starting to enjoy swinging and sliding.  She also likes exploring with dirt, rocks, and sticks.

Her imagination is really blossoming.  She likes to lay her head down and say "night night."  She enjoys playing peekabo, and she also likes having pretend tea parties and feeding her stuffed animals.

Random noteworthy things since 15 months - Thanksgiving, Christmas, and lots of sicknesses (double ear infection, sinus infection, stomach virus, and another ear infection).  You'll recall that we went to Colorado back when Sarah was 16 months old.

One really big thing is that we've had some potty success.  I got a little pink Minnie Mouse potty, and she was pumped.  She loves saying, "Potty, wipe, flush, wash," so she definitely understands the steps of a bathroom experience.  Robert and I got her to sit on the potty by giving her some Crayons and a piece of paper.  After a few minutes she went pee pee!  Half an hour later or so she was sitting on the potty with a book and went pee pee/poo poo!  This week she was walking around naked, and later in the day I found pee pee in her potty.  She'd gone without me even being there!  I know potty training won't happen overnight, but it's very exciting to know that she's making progress toward it.

The sweetest moments have been her saying, "I love you."  It melts me every time.  I've waited to hear that since she was born, and I'm pretty sure it'll never get old.  We love you, Sarah!

Upholstered Headboard

About a year ago I mentioned that Robert had built us a platform bed.  Since then we knew that we wanted an upholstered headboard to go with it.  Since we have a California King bed it's not as easy to find things for it compared to having a queen bed.  Looking online it was hard to find CF as an option, and when I did it was $500+ which was more than we wanted to spend.  I knew we'd need to just make our own.  I talked to my aunt Pam who has made a few different varieties of upholstered headboards and felt like we were up for the project.

Pepaw came over, and Robert and I discussed designs with him.  We decided on a camel back design.  Pepaw was in charge of cutting out the wood backing.  I wasn't involved in this, but of course he made it seem easy.  Miraculously the wood fit into my SUV so we were able to move it easily from his house to ours.

We made a trip to JoAnn Fabrics to purchase 2" thick foam and quilt batting.  We used an entire roll of the foam, so if you have a smaller bed you could ask them to measure out how much you need without having to purchase the whole roll.  One bag of quilt batting was more than enough.  Thankfully, both items were 50% off, plus we had a coupon for an additional 20% off.  Our JoAnn's doesn't have much upholstery fabric, and it all seemed pretty expensive, so we went to a local fabric store call FM.  It had so many options!  I went with a woven gray material that was only $6.99/yard, and I got 2.5 yards.  I wanted something pretty plain since our bedspread is very colorful.

When we got home we laid the foam on the wood and cut it out to fit the wood by using an electric kitchen knife.  It cut very easily.  We left the foam 1/2" wider than the wood all the way around since the foam would squish some as we upholstered it.  Then we put the quilt batting over it and stapled it down.  We trimmed the excess.  Finally, we upholstered it with the fabric, pulling, stapling, and trimming as we went.  The whole foam, batting, and upholstering process took about two hours with the two of us working, so I didn't think it was too bad.  It's important to note that, as you'll see in the pictures, we didn't take the foam, batting, and fabric all the way down the board.  We just took it down as far as the bed, and then the rest of the board goes down behind the bed onto the floor.  We stapled the batting and fabric underneath the bottom of the foam.

Robert mounted the headboard to our wall.  The main frustrating part about this is that our bed is between two windows, and it was really hard to find a stud.  Obviously, this might not be the case for you.  We're really please with how it turned out, and I would recommend this DIY project to anyone considering it.

Colorado Vacation

Robert, Sarah, and I got to go on a very fun vacation to Colorado last week to visit my Aunt Pam and Uncle Nelson.  Robert had a week of vacation to take, and we knew visiting them would be a great choice!  They were great hosts and treated us to a wonderful week full of laughs, good conversations, tasty food, new sights, and great memories.

Wednesday, November 30
Immediately after evening church we drove to Kansas City to spend the night with Robert's mom.  This was our first attempt of night driving with Sarah, and it went really well.  She pretty much slept the whole three hours.  When we got to KC Sarah woke up and played with Serina and snacked a bit for about an hour, but then she went back to sleep and still slept well, thankfully.  Sarah is becoming quite fond of Serina and Mark's dog, Moose, and has even learned how to say his name.  We enjoyed a hot breakfast in the morning and hit the road.

Thursday, December 1
This was our big driving day.  In theory, the drive should have been about nine hours.  With stops it ended up taking about 10.5 hours, but with the time change to Mountain Time, it was like 9.5 hours had elapsed.  I have to give extreme thanks to Robert.  He drove all but about an hour of this entire road trip.  I was working on a large computer project for our church's Christmas present adoption program, so I wasn't exactly slacking, but Robert did such a great job driving.  I started out in the front and moved to the back with Sarah after our first break.  This turned out to be her hardest leg of the trip.  Apparently, she didn't want me back there intruding on her personal time.  She kept pushing my arm away from her and didn't want me trying to play with her.  It actually turned out well for both of us because I was able to spend the rest of the trip up front working on my computer project, and Sarah was content to play be herself.  She's done plenty of big road trips, but this was her first one since she became mobile, so I had been kind of curious how it would go, but her attention span is also lengthening, and she really enjoyed playing with things for long spurts of time.  She read a Real Simple magazine for half and hour and colored with a pad of paper and pen for an hour and a half.  She napped twice for about an hour each.  The rest of the time she just did random stuff like playing with stuffed animals and her xylophone, having some quiet time, and snacking.

Peanut Butter and Jelly "hat"

We got to Pam and Nelson's house right at dinner time and enjoyed some supper and a tour of their beautiful house.  They had a great setup for us in their basement, and Sarah did so great having a real crib in her own bedroom  She had great nights' sleep the whole time, which really made the vacation enjoyable.  There's nothing worse than rough nights away from home to make a vacation stink!  After Sarah went to bed we enjoyed flipping through old scrapbooks and showing Robert some pictures he'd never seen.  Anybody else agree with me that Sarah looks a bit like me?

Friday, December 2
We started off our morning getting a quick tour of Colorado State University (didn't get out of the car) looking around in a cute bookstore and toy store downtown while Sarah napped in the car with Pam.  She's always extra cute when she's first waking up!

Next we hit up the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery.  It was so fun!  We loved the music section the most, and Sarah really stayed entertained for two hours.  It's a really cool place!

I think this is the afternoon that we went fabric shopping at JoAnn's.  We got fabric to make a Christmas tree skirt and a princess dress for Sarah.  Pam is such a creative person, and it's a lot of fun to work on projects with her!

We had dinner at Nordy's, and it was delicious!  Robert said he had the best buffalo wings of his life, and I really liked my grown up macaroni and cheese with pulled pork and fried jalapeno straws.  Sarah did really well!  She had one little meltdown, but otherwise she enjoyed looking at two elementary aged kids who were making faces at her, and she colored some with the crayons that were provided.

Saturday, December 3
Robert, Sarah, and I had never been to Wyoming, so when we realized that Pam and Nelson live less than an hour away we knew we wanted to make a day trip up there.  I'm glad that we went, and I'd say that three hours we spent there was enough. :)  We went to the Cheyenne Depot Museum, The Wrangler western store, and a little bakery.  It was a fun and very cold day.

Once we got back we joined back up with Pam and went to a little winter wonderland, and Sarah got to meet Mrs. Claus.  She also got to ride her first little grocery store horse, and it was a hit!

Sunday, December 4
We were able to go to Pam and Nelson's church and got a little tour of the student area.  The children sang a few special Christmas songs, and it was wild to imagine Sarah doing something like that in just a couple of years!

We took a little drive up the mountains after church and enjoyed the views.  I wish Sarah would wear a hat and gloves so she wouldn't get so cold.  Maybe next year?

Pam and Nelson graciously watched Sarah for a few hours so we could go out.  We got coffee and pedicures.  Yes, that's right!  It was so relaxing and nice to just chat.  Sarah helped Pam cook baked ziti for dinner, and it was delicious!  Sarah ate a lot, and we did too.

Sarah enjoyed some glue stick work and lots of stickers.  She used to only want to put stickers on herself and other people because she could pull them off and re-stick them, but this was her first time to be okay with putting them on paper and leaving them.  She's growing up!  :)

Monday, December 5
We hit the road right after breakfast and drove, drove, drove.  We contacted Robert's grandparents and were able to meet up with them for dinner at The Cozy Inn which is a family favorite.  We got back to Kansas City around 8:00 and spent the night with Mark and Serina again.  Sarah enjoyed playing with some of Robert's old Hot Wheels and reptile toys.

Tuesday, December 6
We were able to see Robert's sister, her husband, and their six week old daughter, Sadie.  Sarah enjoyed Sadie and quickly moved to Aunt Bethany's bagel. :)  It's incredible to see the difference between a 6 week old and 16 month old.  Hard to believe that was Sarah 15 months ago!

We made another stop in Bolivar to see my parents and Memaw and Pepaw, and then we finally got back to our house around 6:00.  We had such a great trip and came back feeling refreshed.