EIGHTEEN MONTHS

Little Miss Kitty is officially 1-1/2 years old! She is as sweet as ever, giving away kisses and loves any chance she gets. She is spending a good portion of her days getting into absolutely anything and everything she can find.....bathroom drawers, pantry snacks, dog food bowls, computer desk, you name it! She is screaming a lot, too, not because she is sad or mad but because it's fun! Her favorite place to be is outside wandering around and she has LOVED the hikes we have done as a family the last couple of weeks. Kate can out-walk the big kids! Her diet is completely meat-free, despite all I have done to try to get her to eat it. She'll even snarf down my spinach mushroom eggs before she'll touch a slice of turkey bacon. Today she was eating red pepper hummus and I wasn't sure what to think! She loves oatmeal with applesauce for breakfast, cheesesticks, chips, apples, oranges, bananas, crackers, chocolate milk, blackbeans, rice, Raman noodles, etc. so she is certainly not starving!

Her vocabulary is growing quickly, too. Her words at 18 months:
Dada
Momma
Hiiiii! (Hi. Used to greet everyone, including moving cars and strangers)
All done (either sign language or screaming)
Nana (banana)
Hot!
Pup pup (puppy)
Woof woof
Lo-la (and accompanying song)
Baby
Ewwww!
My! (mine!)

LOVES: Lola pig, dancing, going for walks, babies, hats, sitting in mommy's bathroom sink, wearing bras/undies like dresses, teasing her family whenever she gets a chance

HATES: going down for naps, being brought back inside the house, getting her hair fixed, being taken off the kitchen table or computer bench, anyone trying to feed her, washing her hair in the tub, when Charlie eats her cheese stick right out of her hand

I love this little sweetheart. As busy and sassy and independent as she is right now, I still wouldn't trade her for the world! She is my little buddy and seeing her smile and all those little teeth everyday just make me so happy!!

RUN

Tonight the Relief Society did a 5k walk/run/crawl. I started jogging about six weeks ago and had a goal to complete this baby without having to walk. I was smoked by several marathoners and an Iron Woman, but these legs kept on movin! It was a perfect night for a jog and I was glad I did it. Olivia was my cheerleader and held up a sign at the finish line that read, " YOU MADE IT!"

BREAKFAST

This morning when I came out of my bedroom, Ben said to me, "Mom, I made you your favorite for breakfast! My heart melted when I saw my toast, with banana slices so carefully arranged on the peanut butter. What a sweetheart. That boy knows his momma well. LOVE YOU BENNIE!!

LABOR DAY

This afternoon we met up with some friends from church and did a great hike. It wasn't far from our house and just BEAUTIFUL!! The rain stopped just as we were heading out so the weather was perfect. 

 There were tons of kids and everyone that passed us on the trail looked at us like we were crazy! "Kitty- the-hiker" had to walk her little legs off before she would even THINK about riding in the backpack. She scaled over rocks and tripped over logs but just got right back up and kept at it, happy as could be. It was about 2 mile climb up so eventually she did wear out!

At the very top, we climbed a million stairs to the Devils Head Fire Lookout. The view was gorgeous! There we met this little old man whose job it was to live in a little cabin up there and hand out little cards to everyone who climbed the tower. Chris told the guy he had the best job in the world and went on and on about how he would LOVE to have that job. Seriously, sitting alone on the top of a mountain? I couldn't handle that for a day....

By the time we made our way back down, we were all tired and every one of the kids had an injury of some sort. We  did see some great wildlife on the way out of the park...our car stopped twice to check out a huge herd of Elk and the car in front of us watched a baby black bear scamper up the side of a hill. We met up with the crew at  Chick fil a for dinner and then headed home. It was a wonderful afternoon with our new friends!