14 Months

I know it's not the greatest photo, but it so captures what life is right now: a blur and a smile.

Sweet Clara is 14 months old today!  She is getting more and more difficult to photograph - she's been [speed] walking since February 2nd!  She loves to explore and is pretty fearless; she still takes some tumbles but rarely makes a fuss and usually just gets back up and keeps going wherever she is going.  Here's what else she is up to:

-Every morning when she wakes up she wants to give her owls a hug (they are vinyl on her wall, so she just leans her head gently against them to show her love)

-She's getting more observant by the second and picks things up so quickly.  Her signing is really taking off, and she does things more precisely.  She signs more, all done, please, eat/food, milk, water, and some others I can't think of right now.  But those are the ones she uses the most.

 -Her vocab is growing too!  Newish words are cracker and good girl.

-Finally her hair is starting to really fill in.  She has a cute little rat's tail in the back. I can't bring myself to cut it.
 
-She LOVES to swing and begs for "weeeee" every day.  Unless it's snowing, we usually make it out at least once a day and sometimes she'll just chill in her swing for 30 minutes or more.  She doesn't get sick of it.

-She no longer keeps mittens on.  She'll pull them off with her teeth.  Thankfully it has been a mild winter, so we haven't really needed them.

-We finally installed her new carseat and I think she loves it because she falls asleep in it almost every day.  She *rarely* slept in her old carseat.
 
-Still a great sleeper and once-a-day napper.  We're so thankful for this.

-When we are getting ready for bed and I ask her if she wants to brush her teeth, she chatters her teeth.  She's been doing this for a few months, but I don't think I've written it down.  And it's so cute.  She loves having her teeth brushed.  And she still just has 8 -- she's had 8 for 6 months now.
 
-She's got her second cold ever right now and she is a little more fussy, but overall handles illness really well.  She's a little trooper.

-When we pray, she folds her arms!  It's darling.  She just started doing it spontaneously one day.  She'll also close her eyes, but only for a second.  It's more like an extended blink.  But she definitely knows we fold our arms and close our eyes to pray.
 
-She still loves to dance and swing her hips.

-When we are out running errands and she's in the cart somewhere, she LOVES when I kind of jiggle the cart side to side.  It started innocently one day at Ikea because their carts are so loose and hard to steer, and it made her laugh so hard!  Now I know she wants to do it because she'll sit in the cart leaning side to side and laughing.  It's pretty hard to resist.  Everyone in the stores must think I'm a crazy mom, but I also think those little giggles must make them understand - it must be done.

-Even though she's an awesome sleeper, she's a pretty light sleeper.  Every night we go in quietly to put a blanket on her and check on her, and she wakes up 95% of the time.  But she'll just look up at us and smile and lay back down to sleep.  It's really sweet.

-She loves oranges and clementines, but we've discovered that we need to eat them in moderation.  Citrus can be hard on little tummies.

-She loves to open and close doors, turn on and off light switches, zip and unzip things, and empty baskets of things (laundry, books, toys, etc).

-Bathtime is still a favorite, but she is starting to stand in the tub and has fallen a few times.  Not hard, but enough to startle her. She will sit when I tell her to, but then she'll usually stand back up in 10 seconds or so.

-Has learned most of her body parts: can show you her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, head, tummy and hands.

-Says "baaaa" whenever she sees a sheep. (We don't see many sheep, but stuffed animals and pictures count too)

-Loves to sing ABCs, Wheels on the Bus, Five Little Monkeys and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

-Still loves to watch the I Am a Child of God video on Mormon Messages.  I'm pretty sure our family is responsible for half of the views that video has gotten on youtube.