18 + months and as cute as can be.

I’m pretty sure that on-the-ball moms take nice official 18 month photos, but I didn’t do that with Elna.  Oops.  The last month has been so busy, and before I know it Elna will be 2 years old, so I thought I would post a current picture of her being her cute 18 month (ish) self and say a few things about her that we love so that we don’t forget this fun stage she is in.  She is seriously so great—spunky, persistent, kind, and full of energy and love! 

I took this picture this morning and told her to smile—love that smile!

--This morning as Brian was leaving for work she was giving us both lots of kisses—she trades off—one for me, one for him, and so on.  Her kisses are so sweet and there’s nothing we love more.  Then she pushed my face towards Brian’s face so that we had to kiss.  She has done this a few times before.  The first time she did it was at church—you can imagine the people behind us thinking it was quite funny, because it really was.  Where does she come up with this stuff?

--Speaking of kissing—Elna has finally perfected blowing kisses.  For months now she has done it, but left her hand on her mouth.  Now she releases her hand and even blows.

--And one more kissing story…ever since Elna was very, very young, Brian would bring her into my room on weekend mornings when it was time for me to wake up to nurse her.  He has always told her that she needs to kiss me if she wants me to wake up.  She still does this.  Sometimes during the day when I shut my eyes for a second from exhaustion, I will get a kiss from Elna.  Funny. 

--She says “hi” and “bye” or “bye bye” often with a wave.  Her “bye” has a very thick unintended southern drawl. 

--When we go to Brian’s parents house, she gets into her grandma’s arms, turns to me, waves, and says “bye bye.”

--She laughs really heartily when other people are laughing like she knows what is going on.

--Sometimes she just starts blinking her eyelashes really fast at me.  I do it back, and then she does it even more.  The look on her face when she does this is priceless.  I’ll have to try to capture it on camera.

-- She loves to be chased and laughs very had when we do it.  I love watching her run!

--In general she prefers salty to sweet.  Her favorite foods are probably pretzels, fruit snacks, oranges, pancakes, and ketchup.  Ketchup is probably her #1 food of choice…she will eat most anything if it is dipped in ketchup and even loves ketchup plain, not that we allow this really.

--She is smart!  She recognizes several colors. She “counts” items in books that we read—as I say the numbers she puts her finger over each item we are counting.  She loves puzzles and is very good at them.  She knows a bunch of words: baby, hi, bye,  bus, bummer, Dad, Mama, Papa (for Grandpa), Chris, and Jesus, and lots more that I can’t remember right now.  She also does animal sounds: sheep, dog, cow, bird, cat.  

--She started nursery!  She has never cried and we hear from her leaders (who are fabulous!) that she is doing great in there!  Yay! 

This is what Elna looks like when we eat oatmeal together every morning—I sit on the couch and Elna sits on this ottoman across from me and we tuck this snuggie over our legs.  Elna is always very careful to make sure the blanket is tucked around me too.  Also, a note about the bowl of oatmeal we share—she eats way more than I do.  She’s okay having every other bite until the very end when she notices there isn’t very much more—then she insists on all of the last bites.

This is a kind of what she looks like when she blinks her eyes over and over at me.  It’s the closest I could get.