• Celia said ‘cheese’ for the first time, one of her favorite foods
• Josie turned 3.5 years old exactly
• I found Celia’s 9th tooth. Almost makes up for making me sleep in 45 minute increments last night

Found a nice little spot on the side of the road for photos today walking home from a Halloween party. It’s getting cold!

I saw this on the web and I thought it was cute, so I’m stealing it. Here’s the interview with Josie, with my comments in the parentheses. Warning, a lot of these just don’t make sense to me either:

• My favorite food is: pasta
• My favorite sport to play is: magazines
• My favorite (TV) show is: Hairspray or as Josie called it “the one that goes ‘i’m a big girl now” (we saw it on the cruise)
• The coolest person on earth is: Me
• The thing I do most awesomely is: baseball (too bad she didn’t answer this for the sports question)
• If I could change my name, it would be: Sophia
• If I could go anywhere in the world I would go to: Storyland
• My favorite color is: yellow and pink
• My favorite toy is: toy phone (does she even play with it?)
• When I grow up I want to be: Cinderella
• My favorite song is: the storyland song (I have no idea what this is)
• My favorite book is: I don’t know, what’s your favorite book (gee way to turn moms frequent questions back on me)
• Three words that describe me are: cake, pink and flowers (there is a definite cake theme this morning)
• When I was little I used to: use my hands (and now she doesn’t?)
• My favorite season of the year: winter
• The snack I could live on is: ice cream
• One food I really don’t like is: really spicy sauces
• My best friend is: lots of people, Jordan is my best friend
• If I had one wish it would be: cake
• My favorite memory is: the aquarium

Someone sent us some Llama llama stuff but it didn’t come with a note telling us who it was from! Who is our mystery giver?

On Monday Celia turned 1 year old. I can’t believe how the time is flying by and how fast she’s getting to be a whole little person. She was weighed a measured at the docs on Wednesday at 90th percentile for height and 40th percentile for weight, the doc says she’s growing great and is very healthy. Everyone but me is a little sick right now, but just a head cold.

This past month has been spent with Celia mastering climbing, from stairs to the playground and the bed, she wants to go up and down. So I have to chase her up and down the playground structures now. She loves the slides, but hasn’t learned entirely to sit on them, she’ll try to walk which does not end well. She tried to slide down some slanted rocks today in the woods and was pleased with that too.

Generally she’s a happy kid, loves to take baths and wants to go out and see people and do things. She is getting better and better at communicating her desires (such as pointing to the dish rack where the sippy cups are to mean she wants water). She gets especially frustrated though when we know what she wants, we just refuse to give it to her, like playing with electrical outlets. She is also refusing to get into her car seat most every time. She also understands us a lot more and clearly knows shoes, shirt, diaper, dance, clap and some more I can’t think of right now. The sign language seems to have developed a bit more lately too, and she loves to sing the wheels on the bus and study those hand motions too. She also shakes her head no.

She loves books and wants to read regularly, although her attention still isn’t too long. She got a pile of new books for her birthday and she seems to appreciate having some new material to look through and touch. She got some stacking blocks for her birthday and those give her some great belly laughs to be able to knock down what I built! When she wants to read a book she brings it over, hands it to you, then turns around to back up into sitting in your lap. She gives great big bear hugs around my neck.

She doesn’t stick absolutely everything in her mouth, but still a lot of things make it in there. I made them some homemade play dough and she was very confused as to what she was supposed to do with it. She kept trying to eat it after poking it a bit.

She’s having another normal separation anxiety phase right now where she sometimes needs mommy NOW! And she and Josie continue to trade off for most jealous. Celia does not like it when Josie is in my lap. She comes running over and tries to pull her out and get herself in. Otherwise she loves Josie and tries to give her cuddles and head bumps more than Josie wants. She’ll stand up to Josie trying to take things from her as best she can, but she will also trade when asked most of the time, unless the thing you’re  trying to get from her is dangerous in some way.

Celia has learned to smirk at the camera, see the below photo for her grimace when I bring out the camera. It takes a few minutes to get some natural smiles instead of the closed eye smirk!

• Size/weight: 18 months clothes except for a few 12 months pants, 30.5″ tall and 20 lbs 9 oz.
• Favorite foods: breastmilk, avocado, organic cheerios, cheese, pasta
• Favorite toy: doll stroller, whatever Josie’s got
• Favorite book: Party in my tummy, My first spanish word book
• Favorite activity: Playing outside
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:45; one nap; gets up between 6 and 7 (on the good days, 5am on the bad)
• New skill: climbing
• Teeth: 8. holding steady but the doc says more are coming
• Vocalizations: mama comes out very clear, most everything is ‘dat’

We’ve been crazy busy lately. Here’s a fun photo from apple picking. I had hoped to get Celia’s 1 year note up, maybe tomorrow!