18 Months

One and a half years old. 

Gah, what a big girl!

Millie has grown up a ton in the past month. She wants to do everything her big sisters do. It is cute and infuriating.

She says: dada, mama, Sadie (Dadie), baby, hi, bye, ball, doggy, duck, eyes, nose (nuh), mouth (mow), all done (ah duh), thank you (dah doo), cheese (chee), Ruby (buhby), Mimi (frequently shortened to mee), Papa, Nana (refers to both nana and bananas), nods yes and shakes no

She can identify the parts of her face and a few animals, which we have been working on. The only animal sound she gets correct every time is that tigers say roar.
Camille gives the best hugs and kisses. If you ask her for huggies she will walk across the room and dive into your legs. When you tell her I love you or goodnight she will always blow you a kiss, whether or not she is in bed.
Other tricks include shoulder shimmies (it is literally the cutest thing any of my kids have ever done. I have to get it on video), spinning, hiding behind her hands, fives (bies) and giving pounds (which she doesn't give, she just yells boom when you show her the pound). She also loudly fake laughs if a group of people start laughing.

  Camille has started to pretend a little bit. She will talk on the phone and have her toys talk to each other. She also loves to swipe across screens and mess up everything on hand-held devices. Beware to all people who don't have pass codes.

Camille has a distinct and determined drunk walk. She veers side to side, sometimes with her feet pointed in. She looks like she could fall at all moments and I am kind of surprised that she only falls once every 3 minutes or so. Her knees are frequently scraped from the falls but they don't seem to bother her- only if she is in a dress and keeps stepping on it.

Camille's favorite thing currently is reading. She brings me books repeatedly all day. I am a little sick of her favorites, but I appreciate a book lover so I try to indulge her.
Another favorite thing is going outside. She has always loved it outside and she freaks out if I won't let her go out when the other girls are out.

She will not watch a single show/video. She just doesn't care, which drives me nuts when I need to distract her. 

Millie has started shrieking and throwing tantrums. She will pull and push me to things to try to get me to do what she wants. She will be crying like her arm is cut off, but if I start to move she immediately stops, until she knows if I am fulfilling her demands. The crying continues when she realizes I am not giving in. 

Favorite prohibited activities: climbing on tables,  turning on the washer/dryer (dang front loaders are in her reach!), splashing in toilets, emptying/eating food out of the trash can, chewing everyone's toothbrushes, dumping out all things dump-able, splashing in animal bowls (at other people's houses), and coloring with markers (my other kids were much older when they figured out how to get caps off). 

Sometimes I can't even deal with how she cute she is and other times I can't even deal with how crazy she drives me. I have a feeling that will be life with Millie.

Sadie's Antics

 Who knows what she was mad at me about here, but I really truly hope she never stops making signs for me when she is mad.

 She spent an hour labeling everything in our office. I had just re-organized all the art bins, like I have to do every few months since the girls mix it all up. But then she took it a step further and even labeled the recipe books. Yum. 

Lou is the Shining Star

I try to do fun stuff with Elise on days when she doesn't have preschool. On Tuesday mornings she has gymnastics in the middle of the morning, so our fun usually happens on Thursdays. It has been a good change because she gets to be the oldest kid and determine what we do where normally she just tags along with Sadie.

At the beginning of October we met friends at Thanksgiving Point museums twice.

The first outing was with the Faucettes at the dinosaur museum.

 Elise was all about posing for pics that day

The next trip was the Museum of Natural Curiosity with the Sullivans. Quinn and Lou have so much fun together. Quinn buried Elise in the sand and then sat on top of her (?). I don't really know, but Suzy and I were deep in convo/distracted by our toddlers when we looked over and laughed at them.

She frequently plays with her friend Madi. They are hilarious together. Her mom Lindsey and I will text each other the conversations they are having when they are playing. One day I found them playing in the disgusting water that had been sitting in our water table for a few weeks. 

On the Thursdays when I don't have much energy I try to remind myself that Lou will be in school every morning next year so this is my chance to have fun.  

Leader of Cheers

 Sadie signed up for a cheer clinic through the American Fork high school squad. Some of her friends had done it last year and taught her some cheers so she was set on participating this time. The clinic was a couple hours on a Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Friday night the girls performed at the football game. 

First they did their shorter cheers on the track around the field in the second quarter. You can see Sadie was loving life. Two of her friends were on either side of her- Jersey and Alexis. 

At halftime the girls performed a choreographed dance on the field. 

It was adorable. Sadie practiced that routine over and over and she did it very well. 

We'll see if this interest in cheer leading sticks...

First Cavity

 At the end of September we noticed a big chunk of one of Elise's molars was gone. A quick trip to the dentist determined that she had some decay and we needed to get it filled. Elise was giddy about it. Who knows why, but she could not wait for the appointment to get the sleeping juice shot in her mouth that would make all the cavity bugs fall asleep so the tools could get them all out before they knew what happened.  

Elise was the perfect patient. She jumped up into the seat happily and did not move a muscle unless directed to do so. She did not enjoy the feeling of the novocaine wearing off. She kept telling me her face and mouth were tingly and her teeth hurt.

 When I picked her up from school that afternoon she had chewed through the inside of  her upper lip. She is still recovering from that terrible cancer sore.

Family Pictures

For the second year in a row we got some family pictures taken. The best option for us is these studios in Utah that let you come in and get the pictures done for free. Then you return after a bit of editing and if you want to buy them you pay $100 for a flash drive of the images. Not too painful, and if the pictures are bad then you don't have to buy them.

Sadie is perfectly behaved during pictures. She tries her best to do everything the photographers ask. All the pictures of her are cute.

Elise is either scowling or bringing the personality in every photo. She cannot just sit in the pose the photographer sets up. The picture below on the left is Lou's signature. She does this in a lot of pictures I take of her.

Camille is terrified of cameras. She does not trust them as far as she can throw them. We tried everything we could think of to get her to break her cold stare. Bubbles, tickling, throwing her up in the air. Every photo has the same face. 

This time Daniel and I took a turn by ourselves as well. Just in case we want to put out a 10-year wedding announcement, or maybe our own music album, this photo would be perfect.

These pictures make me happy. The End.

September Randoms

Uncle Ben!! He was in town recruiting for Ford at the BYU job fair, but he spent an evening with us. Man oh man do the girls love him. They made him read their bedtime books and help tuck them in. Then he hung out with me and Daniel for a few hours. We miss the Salazars.

Dessert on the deck with the Sullivan kids

A walk home from the park while Elise pretended to be a dragon on Daniel's shoulders

FHE treats at Coldstone

For my birthday the girls took a picture with me. Daniel made dinner and I got to take a long Sunday nap. My parents gave me a new dress I wanted for Tyler's wedding

I love this picture of Sadie and Lou. If only the pesky 1.5-year-old would look at the camera.

Walk-a-thon

Sadie's school does a walk-a-thon to raise money each year. They ask that each kid raise at least $20 and then promise they won't ask us for any money the rest of the year. Last year they asked for $15 and they really didn't do any more fundraisers.

Last year we just wrote out a check, but this year Sadie's teacher talked to them about asking family and friends if they would donate, so Sadie came home determined to do it. She typed out a text to all her aunts, uncles and grandparents. She was elated when people said they would donate. She carefully wrote it all down on her donation envelope.

I volunteered to come help mark the kid's cards as they ran laps. I  figured Sadie would do about 15 laps in her allotted 45 minutes, which was 2 1/2 miles. Instead she hustled her skinny little buns around the field 21 times for a grand total of 3 1/2 miles. I couldn't believe it, especially since none of her friends were running like that. It was mainly her and a few other boys who were jogging most of the time. 

 Camille wandered and caused trouble, no surprise.

Sadie happily ate her pink popsicle and hung out with some of her classmates when it was over. The boy on her right, Harry, is one of her good friends. He came over to play at our house and he can't pronounce his "R" sounds, just like Sadie, so some of their discussions were very entertaining. Once they were trying to talk about cars, but couldn't figure out what each other was saying. Harry finally said, "like vwoom vwoom caw" and Sadie understood. 

Millie in September

Camille continues her reign of terror on all drawers, cupboards, trash cans and toilets in the house. Nothing is safe. 

She has figured out how to pull the dishwasher open so we have to lock it shut. 

Lots of attention from the big sisters, which is not always appreciated

Hair is growing in with the crazy bedhead 

Another new favorite, which she can now climb up onto by herself

She somehow pulled her shirt over her head during the night

Attempting to put Elise's shoes on

Her new big girl way of going down stairs. None of that crawling backwards crap.

Lots of kisses for her baby dolls

Trying to squirm her way out of Sadie's grip