March 2014

Things Anna is doing/saying:
-Saying "running!" as she is running, and "jumping!" as she is attempting to jump.
-Trying to count to ten.. "one, two, free, four, "ive", "ix", "chicken", nine, ten".
-At some point in the morning, Anna will usually start walking to the garage door and start saying, "bye-bye?  bye-bye?  bye-bye?", meaning she wants to leave the house... and we usually do :)
-She will now attempt to repeat most words, if you ask her to.
-Her first four-word sentence was "More olmo (oatmeal) peese (please), yeah."  I think I must say "yeah" to her a lot :)
-When going for a walk in the woods recently, Anna kept saying "snake, ssssssss, snake, ssssssssss" unprompted.  Gotta say, it did make me a little nervous.

Anna attended her friend Rhys' 1st Year Birthday Party

Also, she attended her friend Lucas' 4th birthday party.

Anna at 19 Months

This girl is a lot of fun!
-Saying 2 and 3 word sentences.  My favorite is "hop peese" (help please).  Her most common 3 word sentence is "more noo-nos peese" (more noodles please).
-Anna has also discovered that shaking her head passionately "yes", after making a request, for example"noo-nos peese", helps her get what she wants.
-Anna is saying hi and bye to inanimate objects... "Hi cup;  bye cracker;  hi door, etc...
-Her love of watching Elmo was just surpassed by her new favorite-- she now is asking to "watch Anna", after Ryan introduced her to watching home videos of herself.
-She can repeat and say more words on command.
-When you ask her what her middle name is, she says "Grace".
-She can point to on command and say several more capital letters... A, B, C, E, I, K, M, O, P, S, U, Y
-She can sight read the word "horse".
-She likes to dance to music, and gets into it more all the time.
-Anna has started doing something funny-- she will gently pick at the top of somebody's head, and then pretend to eat whatever it was she picked out... this is really hilarious to me, and I figure that she must have seen monkeys doing that, in one of the wildlife animal shows Ryan and her recently watched.

Pretending to pick something from Matthew's hair, right before she pretended to eat whatever she just picked.

I let Anna play in the snow for the first time.  She liked it for about 3 minutes, until she got snow on her face.  Then she was done with it.

Celebrating Uncle John's birthday

Valentine's Day photos

It's challenging to get a 19-month old to sit down or stand still for pictures.

Elmo CD player-- currently one of Anna's favorite toys.

Anna at 18 Months

Anna's Stats at 18 Months
Height=  31 3/4 inches;  48th percentile
Weight= 24.8 lbs;  77th percentile
Head Circumference 47 3/4;  86th percentile

Other Information
-Anna, when prompted, can count to three.
         You ask her "Anna, how old are you?"  One!!
         "What comes after one?"  Teou!!
         "What comes after two?"  Free!!
-She has also started counting things, unprompted (but only up to 2).  She'll be eating orange slices, pointing to one slice saying "One!", and then another saying "Teou!"
-Anna can say a few letters, when she sees them.  She can recognize and say "M", "I", "A", "S" and "Z".
-Anna knows a few colors.  She consistently can pick out blue, but also can point to red and say yellow "lello".
-She is finishing more of her one-syllable words... now saying "snack", instead of "nack", and "milk" instead of "mil".
-My two favorite words she currently says= turtle (tur-tal, with emphasis on each syllable), and Bible.
-One notable thing Anna did at the Sell Family Christmas, was when she saw Ryan get out an old antique family KJV Bible to read the Christmas story, she came from across the room, pointed to it, and clearly said "Bible".
-Anna will also sometimes say "Amen" after dinner-time prayers.
-Anna practices saying different people's names.  From her high chair, she can see some photos on our fridge, and she'll be sitting there practicing saying names.  Her favorite ones to practice are "Katie, Matt (Matthew), Don (Uncle John) and she tries to say her cousin Clara's name, but can't quite get there.

Anna enjoyed wrestling around with her Uncle John.

We went on a Caribbean cruise while Anna stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Burkle.

This is from when we were seeing Anna for the first time after 8 days.

Anna at 17 Months

-Anna is attempting to say more words than I can keep track of to write down.  She's also attempting more double-syllable words all the time (ie noodle= "no-no").
-A lot of Anna's words she'll say the beginning portion, but not the end... for example "tie" for tiger, "die" for diaper, "mil" for milk, "buh" for book.
-Anna can say a few people's names.  She'll attempt Grandma and Grandpa, but the first actual name she has been saying is "Don" (Uncle John).  Her second name she's been able to say (not including her own, or titles like mama and dada) is Amy (my friend who we've been seeing about every week).
-When we say "bath", she knows exactly what that entails-- say "baa", wait to be undressed, walk to the bathtub and wait to be helped in.  She enjoys bathtime.

Wearing an outfit from when her mom was little.

Having fun "hiding" together.

Anna enjoyed playing in the leaves.

Celebrating their Grandma's birthday.

Multi-tasking-- helping mom test lighting, while brushing her teeth.

Anna at 16 Months

Things Anna is doing:

-Running

-Getting about every cold she is exposed to (and then passing it on to others).  Due to this reason, we are cracking down on her finger-sucking. (Putting all germs she is exposed to in her mouth and then passing on her own germs to everything she touches).  Her finger-sucking is mostly associated with when she is holding her knitted blankets from Grandma (which are also her chosen "comfort objects")... so therefore we have also been confining her blankets to her crib (which has not been a popular idea for her).  And then we've just been more diligent about pulling her fingers out of her mouth, on the occasional time she would suck them without holding her blanket.  We've also been trying to wash or de-sanitize her hands before and/or after crib-time (knowing that she will probably be still sucking her fingers then).

-Anna is saying a new word almost daily... some of the most recently added are doll, bottle, "weeee" (when going down stairs or bouncing), "na-ma" (Grandma), "die" (tiger), no (and usually using this in the appropriate context),  "ba" (bath), "wa-wa" (water), eye, "beh" (bear), "eeese" (this can mean keys or cheese), "melmo" (Elmo, whom Anna has developed a recent love for), "aside" (outside... which she loves).

-While hanging out in the waiting room at Anna's most recent well-baby doctor appointment (which is decorated in murals of tigers), Anna kept running in different directions, pointing and saying "die!  die!"... (even though she was meaning "tiger!  tiger!").

-Anna is also saying or repeating a few animal sounds-- "baa" (sheep), "rawr" (lion/tiger/bear), moo, and my favorite "duck-a-duck-a-doo" (her interpretation of a rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo)

-Anna is good at pointing out the boys... pretty much any kid she sees (girl or boy), she will point to and say "boy!"

-Anna is now also using sign-language to say "drink".

-She is enjoying playing with toys more (and is able to push different buttons, etc, that used to be too hard for her).

-She can now show you her nose, foot and hand (in addition to mouth, hair, ear, head, tummy).

-Ryan was reading a book to Anna, and asked her to point out different barnyard animals, and she was able to point to the different ones!  I didn't know she could do that!

At the MU Homecoming parade.

Anna at 15 Months

Things Anna is doing:

-Trying to say quite a few words (and generally knowing what she's referring to when she says them)... some of her new words are:

toy= "doy"

snack= "nack"
uh-oh

shoe= "choo"

water= "wa-wa"
duck

banana= "anana"

Bible= "bie-ba"

(along with the words she has been previously saying such as mama, dada, bow, ball, book, bird, woah, wow)

-Consistently doing sign language for "all done", "more", "eat", and sometimes "thank you".

-When Anna hears the garage door, she now starts saying "dada", unprompted... she knows that means he's home.

-Walking pretty well, and pretty fast... we moved her up to the "walkers" class at church.

-The open dishwasher and the open refrigerator are like a magnet to Anna... she comes quickly out of nowhere to start climbing in.

-Still very interested in books.  She would like you to read to her all day long, if possible.  She's much more interested in books than toys.

-Able to point to her ears, hair, head and mouth.  We're still working on the nose.

-She likes to pat her belly (she learned this from her Grandma, who also likes to pat Anna's belly).

Anna's hand kept finding its way to Matthew's head, in several different photos.

Anna at 14 Months

Things Anna is doing:
-Repeating several words when she hears them, such as "uh-oh" and "Dora" (although she usually won't to show off)
-Able to identify and say (when she wants to) bow, bird, book.
-She can do sign language for "all done" and "more".
-When you ask Anna where her ears are, she can grab them, or their general vicinity.
-When you ask her how old she is, she can sometimes hold up a "1".
-Walking!  Still kind of unsteady, but getting better all the time.  This serves her well, because now she can carry around her books with a lot more ease (compared to crawling).
-Anna will toddle into her room, reach through the crib rails to grab her blanket (at this point it can either her purple one or yellow one).  She likes to carry it with her through the house.
-More engaged in books... we seem to spend quite a bit of the day reading books together.  She knows where to reach for the "touch and feel" component of her books.  She's also now into books with lift-a-flaps.
-She was just introduced to Spaghetti-O's by her Grandma, and she loves them... she would like to eat a whole can, if she could.  Same goes for mandarin oranges.  And she would like to eat a whole lot more banana than is probably healthy for a 22 lb. person.

Fun at the sprayground.

Anna attended the Mizzou vs Toledo game on a 98 degree day.

Apple-picking to benefit the Food Bank.

Anna enjoys playing with our ladybug and bumble-bee yard decorations.