Katya 16 months

Katya is such a joy and we feel so blessed to have her in our lives. She cracks us up daily and is so sweet with her hugs and kisses. She is saying "mom" a lot more often and I can't get enough of hearing it! Some of her new words
are 'home,' 'stuck,''go,' 'potty,' 'doll' and 'Katy.' Every baby picture she sees now is "Katy" or "baby Katy." She is up to around 30+ words (it is getting hard to keep track) and she says several 2 word sentences. She says "daddy home" and "mom home" which is so cute. She is really good about signing 'please' when she wants something and she signs 'help please' a lot when she can't do something herself. I think this is so great because so many kids her age would just scream and throw a fit instead of asking for help.

She has not been hitting much lately which is nice; she does occasionally when she is mad but does not say 'no' and hit me 10x a day anymore. This is great and means she gets WAY less time outs. Our consistency has paid off. She still gets time outs for playing in the dog bowls, especially when they are trying to eat. She managed to chop down a few morsels of dog food before I got to her one time and I really have to watch her. It is a little tricky because Craig taught her how to put the bowls away after the dogs are done eating. She just needs to learn to wait until they are done! She carries them to the pantry and when we open it for her drops the bowls in (she also says 'bowl').

She still does her funny scrunch face, especially while walking around in a drunken pattern. She also does what I call 'old peg leg.' She picks one leg up, straight legged, and then stomps it down while walking. She still loves being chased and riding on her lion. We had our second playgroup at church this week and it went really well. It was just her and Levi, the 22 month old and they played really well together.

I can't believe how smart she is and I love seeing her learning. When Craig asks her to bring or show me something she does it. This seems so small but the first time she did it I was so impressed! We are excited to take her out to see Christmas lights at some of the 'hot spots' around Portland. On our walk a few days ago there were some blow up decorations (yes, on during the day) in someones yard and she was totally enthralled.

She got two of her upper molars in a few weeks ago without us even realizing it. Our Pediatrician warned us that the canines will be the worst for her and could come any time. Sure enough after a fussy afternoon we had a night from hell this past Tuesday. She woke up screaming around midnight and would not settle back down. I brought her to bed with me and Craig went to Reagan's room to try and sleep. She would not go to sleep so I put her back in her crib and then ended getting her again later. She finally fell asleep with me at 5am and slept until 8:30. We left for Olympia Wed and I was so tired but she was doing better. I have given her Motrin twice for the pain and she has been doing fairly well since.

Well that is all here! Love, Brenda