Seems that Celia is developing a vocabulary lately that we haven’t done a good job tracking. So here are some of her words in no particular order:

• mama
• da (as in daddy)
• cheese (long eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)
• agua (water for the non-spanish speakers)
• ball
• stick
• leaf (we spend a lot of time outside)
• hat – she just finally got the hang of the ‘t’ on the end, it was previously ‘ha’
• dah (dog)
• this
• yah (basically my girls played a game of who can scream ‘yah’ louder with each other yesterday)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. We’ve had some losses this year in the family and some scares, but we’re so happy to have the family and friends we have with us every day.

One of the crafts we made this year, in addition to the normal hand shaped turkeys, was make a Thanksgiving Tree. For this I taped a tree shape on the wall, drew some leaf shapes on paper and had Josie go to town cutting them out and we wrote what we were thankful for on them. Mostly they’re all people, family, friends, neighbors, teachers. Then Josie added in one for each of the seasons. And Cups. Not sure why, but Josie is thankful for cups, and why not. Here’s the girls this morning in front of the good old traditional Thanksgiving Tree.

Tonight after dinner, Celia bused her own bowl to the dishwasher. Guess she’s been paying attention.

We’ve been having some gorgeous November weather, think 60 degrees and sunny. I’ve been ignoring the housework and taking the kids outside for all the hours that we can still soak up the warm and sunny times before winter sets in. Today it was more rain later in the day, but in the morning we were out again. These photos were from last week during the ‘golden hour’ as I experimented with light techniques.

This one of the two of them was my favorite for the day, must stop chopping off Josie’s feet though but clearly I didn’t have a lot of time to capture the moment.

After our cruise in May, we stopped in Miami for a few more days to see the relatives and friends who couldn’t make it on the cruise with us and introduce them to Celia. Tere and Gilbert hosted a party and so we got to spend some fun time with everyone. But I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

Josie decided this morning was time for a photoshoot, so here’s some pictures to go with the words about these troublemakers I wrote yesterday.

Yesterday Celia learned how to crawl up the bottom step onto the climbing structure at Waldo park. Now I can’t turn my back on her at all and expect her feet to stay on the ground.

Today she walked up the slide, by herself. At 12.5 months. We’re in trouble. She was only able to do it once though to her frustration.

She also told me to ‘sit’ yesterday as she wanted me to play ball. Who knew she knew what the word meant. She certainly doesn’t act like she knows what I’m saying when I say it to her in the bathtub!

My kids generally hit milestones early or on time so far . Celia has now met one that most babies meet at about 9 months. She’s learned to crawl. Of course it was unnecessary for her to learn given that she has walked for the last 4 months, but she’s tickled pink that she can do it. She crawls across the rug and stands up and smiles big. She can also do the tunnel at the playground now too, except she hasn’t figured out how to get out of it yet other than to cry for me to help.

I’ve had people tell me that ‘she’ll never learn to read if she doesn’t crawl.’ Now really? how many people do you know who can’t read? Also they say ‘make sure she crawls’. And do tell me how am I supposed to do that? Work with Jordi to grab all 4 limbs at once and go through the motions? If I get down and crawl she just laughs at me. People are idiots.

• 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

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’