15 months

Here is my belated 15 month post. Carly has been doing great! She is quite the little walker these days. It cracks me up to watch her become more and more independent and really look like a little person now that she is walking everywhere. Within the past month....

• Walking. Most importantly. We've been going on little walks outside when it's dry. Carly loves her new freedom.
• She has learned to jump. One day she just tried jumping. It is amazing the things she comes up with, especially when trying to get her daddy's attention. Of course she kept falling and giggling like a little school girl.
• Opening cupboards. Oh no! I thought this day would never come. It has. Makeshift baby proofing at it's finest. This consists of rubber bands lol.

She loves all the toys at the Y.

Dad was "watching" her. I came out to find her here. Surprise!

Aunt Janene has some great stuff in her purse. Loving the necklace & lip gloss.

Cousin Minnie is her favorite, contrary to this picture where she's trying to get away.

She was very proud of herself and kept looking up to see who had noticed this great feat :)

Heart attacking at the retirement home with the youth. Yes, Carly wanted to be the center of attention.

This is one of my favorites. My Mom came to visit in early February. She let Carly help make the chocolate chip cookies. Carly helped alright. Taking breaks from stirring so she could make sure it tasted just right.

And that just about sums it up. 

New Years Resolutions

My friend Amber posted on her new years resolutions, so I thought it would be a good idea to post mine. That way I can remember, and be held accountable for them.

1. Work out 3 x week minimum (run at least 2 x week). And I decided I would create an incentive for my working out! As long as I do the minimum each week, I get to buy something at the end of the month. Woohoo! I can't wait!
2. Create 4 2-week meal plans & shopping lists. This way I can rotate dinner ideas and we're not eating the same things from week to week.
3. Monitor and reduce the time spent on the computer/entertainment. I have a friend that posted about this and it got me thinking that I spend way too much time doing this. I've decided to wear my watch and let my chronograph (timer) go every time I get on the computer. This way I'm consciously seeing how much time I'm essentially wasting. I just decided this last night actually, so I don't have a specific goal in mind just yet. So far, today has been really good though :)
4. Read through my gospel doctrine lesson Sunday, work on a little each day, and have it printed and ready to go Friday. This is actually what I have been doing for my lessons already, but it's worked great, so my goal is to stick with it. I'm also trying to improve my teaching, so I've been reading "Teaching, No Great Call..." to try to improve little by little. 

Laughing to Crying

Baby Girl taking a step & her kitty

14 months

 LOVES spaghetti, baked ziti, lasagna...

Helping mama vacuum. She was hilarious. Trying to wear the cord like a scarf, then shaking each end and yelling :)

 My first home-made baby food. She likes it ok. Yams, sweet potato, carrots & chicken. 

 She loves my make-up bag, so she got one for christmas. Yes, she is putting her eye shadow brush in her mouth...

 At Cabella's. She liked seeing all the animals there. She did pretty good at sitting on this weird triangle chair.

 Once upon a time, Carly decided she was ready to start climbing. Surprise!

 They look serious here, but this tunnel is the cause of much excitement, laughing, screaming, speed crawling, etc.

 Great Grandma Hoggatt and Carly May.

 She thought Uncle Sam was hiding from her.... Really, Sam was sleeping and didn't like that Carly was waking him up lol.

 And some more climbing. "Look Mom, I got in here all by myself! Now.... how do I get out?"

 Not new, but I still love how she'll grab at anything she wants to eat. Pretty much off anybody's plate.

 I didn't even see it happen, although it was right in front of me. She put her arm through her sweater on her own, and it was the correct arm too!

 I just really liked this pic.

Loving bath time, as always. 

Carly is officially 14 months!!! She is a lot of fun. I love that I can stick her on a blanket or in a pillowcase and drag her around the house and she thinks it's the greatest thing on earth. She loves her soft stuffed animals (and has a lot of them), after waking up in the morning, or after a nap she always has at least one stuffed animal in her hand, if not two. It's really cute. She likes to hold it out to me to give it kisses, then hugs it herself and "kisses"/licks it lol. Carly is very observant and likes to look around and take everything in, then once she's comfortable she's ready to giggle and have a good time. I was flossing next to her the other day and she was right in front of my face watching me. She was really trying to see and take in what I was doing. Next I got a new piece of floss and "flossed" her teeth for her. She loved it. When I was finished, she kept "flossing" her own teeth. Carly was taking a lot of steps over Christmas break, but has become more cautious. She finally took 3 steps to me yesterday, a first since Christmas. Over Christmas she took 4-5 steps in a row. Carly has recently discovered that she loves straws. How fun to drink from a straw! So I got her some new big girl cups with straws from toys r us. It's nice because she doesn't have to tip it up herself to drink, so she has been drinking a lot more. Carly loves Dora the Explorer. Everytime I put an episode on for her, there is yelling, clapping, swaying/bouncing/dancing going on in our living room. It's a lot of fun. One of Carly's favorite games is hide and seek. Possibly from me always hiding and poking my eyes out to see her fun reaction. Now she does the same thing to me. Sometimes this means speed crawling under the kitchen table, leaning so you can't see her eyes behind a kitchen table leg, then leaning so you can. She's really funny. She just broke through tooth #7 this week. She will still growl every once in a while. She loves to be chased. This usually ends with her going into a corner and putting her head down :) I think one of my most favorite things... ok they're all my most favorite things. I love when I'm working in the kitchen and she grabs onto my pant legs to stand up, and sometimes walk along with me.

I must also add how Carly notices the smallest/littlest things. I am always surprised when Carly is eating, and she sees a tiny morsel of food on her hand or on her tray and she has to get it and eat it. The other night, in her bath tub after eating baked ziti, there were specs of basil/italian seasoning floating in the bathtub. She forgot about her toys for quite a while, focusing on trying to get a tiny spec of seasoning. She cracks me up.

13 months today!

To celebrate her 13 month birthday, we decided to start potty training. She pooped in the toilet today! I would show you the proof, but I think it's rather gross (so I will spare you of the picture that Morgan took :). 

She likes to eat things off our plates. If she can reach it, she will surely try it.

Cooperating for our random photo shoot.

Sad face. 

She loves the christmas decorations and ornaments. Her favorite is actually the nutcrackers. She always points at them and wants to go touch them.

Helping daddy put the lights on the tree.

She loves spaghetti. This night I made baked ziti (very similar to spaghetti/lasagna). I actually used penne pasta and carly figured out how to put her finger through a noodle. It was hilarious.

Carly likes to sit on things. I was trying to make this advent calendar at the end of November. Maybe she was thinking "I'll hold this down for you Mom." The other night I was putting pics in a photo album, she sat on that too. Not very helpful :)

Ok so it's not every month that I'm right on time with a new post on the baby girl. Woohoo for December! Bonus Points? I think yes :) I didn't post this on her 1st birthday post, but something she's been doing for a while now is helping get dressed. It's fun to put her arm in the sweater and see her do the rest. It makes it so much easier! She's crawling a lot further and faster these days and pulling herself up whenever she can. She can walk with her walker all by herself now. She likes to throw fits when we don't let her down to explore the world. She will laugh and smile and think certain things are funny. She loves playing hide and seek with me. She will even do it - where she will lean to be out of view, then lean over to see me. She will follow me around the house. It's a lot of fun to see her playing more, more mobile, and doing new tricks. 

Carly's 1st Birthday

Carly's birthday officially began when her Grandma Barb came to visit. She LOVED playing with Grandma. This weekend (Nov 2-4) was when she started crawling. So exciting!

On Carly's actual birthday, Nov 9th, we celebrated by going to the zoo and then having cupcakes.

Carly likes her new stroller/walker, but probably loved the box it came in just as much. These past couple of months have been kind of crazy. It seems like we're just cruising through the milestones now and I can't keep up with the journaling. The week Carly turned 11 months she started scooting, then started crawling right before turning 1. Now she speed-crawls every time the fridge or dishwasher is open, or if she sees something she's not supposed to have. She just started pulling herself up last week. She's still figuring out what to do when her legs start getting tired (she starts fussing, but doesn't know how to get down :). One of her favorite things to do is to crawl underneath the table, all the while stopping and looking back (waiting for me to start chasing her). She loves playing peekaboo/hide & seek. Just this last weekend, she's started to imitate what I do with her stuffed animals/baby doll, like giving them kisses & rocking them to sleep, patting them. She's been giving me kisses for a couple of months now, but has started to recognize the word more and more. She knows who daddy is, what a drink is, etc. She's quite the little smarty pants. I can't believe how time just continues to fly by. Well, I sure love this baby girl with so many smiles to give and love that is unconditional (for now). Every stage has been so fun, and she just keeps getting funner (if that's a word).

Funny moments
I will get a piece of pumpkin bread and share pieces with her. Yesterday, we were eating a piece, and she started poking holes in the bread with her finger. She really cracks me up.

For some reason she loves the bathrooms. Maybe because I don't really let her go in there (because I think it's gross)? Anyway, whenever she sees the door open, it's a mad dash.

She's learning how to hand us things (rather than just take them). The first time I saw this, she was playing with her daddy. Take his glasses off his face, hand them back. Daddy puts them back on. She grabs them off, then hands them back.... over and over and over and over. What a fun game.

She loves to walk now (not on her own). Whenever she's being set down now, she assumes you're going to keep holding her hands and she starts taking steps. Exciting!

The other day I was eating some beef jerky, I had just ripped a piece into 2 pieces, but paused because I was watching a movie. She crawled right up and ate a piece right out of my hand. Ok, technically she didn't eat, she proceeded to chew/suck on it for the following 10 min. Until I finally took it from her. Haha she likes to eat whatever we're eating.

Now that she's mobile, as she kind of wakes up in the night/during nap time, she'll move around in her bed. Every once in a while, if I check on her (or I hear her keep fussing), I'll find her sleeping in some pretty random positions. And they look really uncomfortable most of the time.

We go to the pool at the Y a lot and she always LOVES the lifeguards. She usually won't focus on me & what I'm trying to have her do because she's smiling/waving to the lifeguards. Maybe it's the bright red? That and she loves staring at the kids that are swimming.