16 Months

Two more months until nursery!  Haha. In all honesty, it is a bittersweet prospect to send Clara off on her own for two hours during church, but the sweet is slowly taking over the bitter as she becomes more and more wiggly!  We love our little explorer.  She is so much fun.  The constant wiggles make her a bit more difficult to photograph - that is for sure!

 At sixteen months, Clara...

-is a little singer!  She sings constantly.  She has three go-to songs (ABC's and two that I made up) and she will embellish her tunes with syncopation and triplets.  When we drove up to Washington, she sang the whole way.

-weighs about 22 pounds.  She's got the cutest little belly!

-is still a great eater.  Some favorite foods are bananas, blackberries, pancakes, and pineapple.

-has become obsessed with BABIES.  I think it started when we went to see my sister when her new baby Levi was born a two weeks ago.  "Ba-ba-ba-bo!" has evolved to "ba-ba-bo" and "ba-bo."  She loves her baby doll, her book of baby faces and she loves to see babies when we're out and about.

-loves to look in the mirror and dance with her reflection.  She likes to kiss her reflection too.  And when she sees herself in the mirror she says, "baby!" (ba-bo) which makes me smile.

-talks a lot - lots of chatter all the time.  Some new words that have emerged recently: pretty, Jesus (jee-ju), poopy.

-runs everywhere.  She loves being chased and running around outside.

-climbs the stairs whenever I let her.  It still makes me very nervous, but she loves stairs.  If she has a railing, she'll walk up them.  Otherwise she crawls.  She needs my help to go down stairs.

-smells flowers, grass and other plants everywhere we go.  Even if they are just printed on a fabric or in a photo.  She takes a big sniff and says, "mmmmmmmm"

-still naps and sleeps great!

-has started to fall asleep frequently during independent playtime.  If I don't let her sleep more than 30 minutes, she'll still take a good PM nap, so it's win-win.

-loves to walk backwards (and does it on cue if you say "beep, beep, beep."

-still loves to dance, but not so much the hip sway anymore.  More of an up/down bounce, and gets her arms involved.  It's adorable.

-signs "bird" whenever she hears chirping.  It's my favorite.

-is VERY attached to mama.  If someone comes over to the house, she will say, "mama, mama, mama" and get very concerned that I'm going to leave.  She will cling to my legs or want to be held, and usually cries when I leave the room.

-has transitioned from saying "dada" to "daddy."  And does she ever love her daddy!

-has TEN teeth!

-loves emptying and filling - buckets, drawers, boxes, etc.

-enjoys reading "Elmo is so big!" that we got from the library.  She can do all the motions too. :)