Tape Recorder

Hannah is a little tape recorder! Everything she hears she repeats and much of it is sticking with her. She now says milk, all done, animal, please, cherries, music, and just about anything else you can think of. She loves to mimic us and will do anything for a laugh. She's starting to get much better at using a spoon and has a lot of interest in doing it right now. Her attention span for her movies has increased and she loves to tell us what each and everything that comes on the screen is. She continues to be a little drama queen and we still negotiate about food. She's a bit better about drinking her milk now, but I'm still having a hard time adjusting to her not drinking a certain amount at a certain time every day. Anything electronic fascinates her and she's really quick about learning how to use things. For instance, she know that she must push a particular button to turn the phone on before any of the other buttons will make noise when she pushes them! She also knows that certain buttons on the remote make the DVD player flash and numbers move. As she realizes how tall she is and how much farther she can reach, more things are in danger. We can no longer leave plates and cups anywhere near the edge of the table, in fact, unless they are almost in the middle they are in jeopardy of being pulled onto the floor! Her tantrums are still around and they are getting more and more dramatic each week. She is really trying to push limits and see exactly what she can get away with and what she can't. It's frustrating for us, but apparently it's normal. More and more often she is using 2 and 3 word sentences to communicate. Sometimes she signs, sometimes she uses her words, and most often she combines the word with the sign just so we know exactly what she means. I think her favorite expression is "Help Please." She uses that a lot and I actually think that if she didn't have those 2 words we would have a LOT more tantrums than we already do. She's getting lots better at using thank you and actually reminds us to say it whenever we give her something! Maybe she's really thanking herself for doing something nice, who knows! Hannah's 8th tooth finally came in yesterday. It's been a long time coming and has caused several restless nights, but now that it's here I hope we have a bit of a reprieve before those molars start coming in. We've heard they are really rough. Lately Hannah's been into dancing on her own anytime she hears music. She will turn the music on her highchair toy on and then stand there and and bounce and flail her arms around and kick her legs in time to the music. She also turns on every single toy or book that makes music and bounces and claps her hands along with it! It's so neat to watch her get so excited about it. Hannah has learned a few more body parts recently and has been delighting in showing off her new knowledge. She gladly points to her knees and shoulders pretty much anytime we ask. My favorite new trick of hers is that she know does the motions for the song "If You're Happy and You Know It." She claps her hands, stomps her feet, and says "Amen" right on cue. She especially loves to do it in the bathtub because we change it to splash your hands and splash your feet and she thinks that is awesome!

I've got several more videos uploaded to google so I'll post them on here.

The first 2 videos are of Hannah trying to dress herself in her new birthday clothes from Pap and Mindy. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7271304323986449466&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-382044997922129550&hl=en

This video is of Hannah on the bouncy toy at the park. She loves to imitate Kyle and if you listen closely you can hear her yell "Woo Hoo!" in response to Kyle's woo hoo. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4222288630353453177&hl=en

Hannah love music and she loves dancing. She always asks for music and then wants us to pick her up and dance with her. We get some serious tantrums when we become too tired to keep dancing and have to stop! This happens sooner and sooner to me the heavier she gets! The next two videos are of her dancing with Kyle and I. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2693253914564888606&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=3419301622909372399&cid=d31b7736d6bcdfa6

Here are some videos of Hannah playing with her balls. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5383534757186678263&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=657270694446294545&cid=2551046bfa337373

http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=-1986557454014005025&cid=2c925683864eeaf4

Here is Hannah exploring some of her birthday gifts. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8677904565394740927&hl=en

Here's Hannah playing with a blanket. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9045255652016457692&hl=en

Here are someof Hannah's first attempts at standing on her own. http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=-707589214203099114&cid=e4b5b24f8a28c325

http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=1344255228282665716&cid=7cafa110cc811526

Here's Hannah playing with one of her stuffed animals. http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=-3242731092469725548&cid=1a95097e8a00dc46

Here's a video of Hannah reading some books.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1263473349014746737&hl=en

This video is of Hannah using her spoon to eat applesauce.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2221690387457956425&hl=en

Birthday Pictures 2

Here is the second installment of Hannah's birthday pictures. Between my dad and Kristie there were over 800 pictures taken! These are just a small sampling of all the great ones we ended up with.

Here's another video too. I have lots more to add, but for some reason Google is not letting people upload more videos at the moment. Hopefully they will fix the problem soon. In the mean time, enjoy!

This is of Hannah practicing with her spoon. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1507490817802972855&hl=en

Birthday Pictures

This post is pretty much just going to be pictures of Hannah's birthday and a few videos that I've finally got uploaded to the blog. I hope you all enjoy!

This first video is of Hannah riding the Gecko at the park. http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=549147300353823990&cid=7873c32863f360d3

Here is a video of just Hannah digging in the dirt. Not too exciting, but I thought I'd add it anyway.
http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=-2729594865679901413&cid=cfed862467b8e1b6

Here is Hannah playing with her magnets. http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=-5146240560079560976&cid=9dcfdc4cc515825e

Here is Hannah climbing on the jungle gym. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7924933615474760267&hl=en

One Year Check-Up

Hannah had her one year check up and shots today and her appointment went well. Of course she screamed like crazy about her vaccinations, but that was pretty much a given. The doctor said we have one healthy little girl who definitely has a lot of "tude" as he calls it. I thought that was a nice way of saying she's stubborn. Last time he called her feisty, this time she's got "tude!" As far as all of her growth percentiles, her head circumference is still off the chart. She's past the 99th percentile in that. I'm afraid she is doomed to be that big head kid forever it seems! Her height is in the 98th percentile and her weight is in the 80th. She was 31 1/2 inches long and 23.4 lbs. When they plot her height-to-weight percentile and don't take into account her age Hannah's in the 50th percentile as far as how much she weighs for how tall she is. So, that makes me feel good that she is right where she ought to be for her size.

Hannah continues to pick up words left and right. One of her new words is dog bone. At first I thought she was just repeating after me the other day, but lately she's been crawling over to the dog crates on her own and grabbing the dog bone and saying, "bone!" and then trying to eat it! So, I think she's got it down pat. She's starting to say the names of some of her body parts now as well as pointing to them although she doesn't always say them. So far I've heard her say head, nose, and mouth. She also says eyes, but she's said that for a really long time and I'm not sure she really means eyes.

She's getting much steadier about standing up on her own, but she still has not attempted any solo steps. However, she is using cruising now as a mode of transportation almost as much as crawling so maybe she's starting to decide that walking would be faster and allow her to do more.

Naps and bedtime continue to be a struggle. We have now lost all semblance of a schedule as far as naps go and we are quickly losing our schedule for meals as well :( She used to be such a schedule oriented baby and now it's all gone. She's so restless during the day too. I really don't know what to do with her anymore. She seems so bored with all of our games and her toys. She's completely explored our entire house, the back yard, front yard, and the playground. I feel like I'm not providing her enough stimulation, or at least not the right kind, but I'm not sure what the right kind is anymore. Any other stuff I can think of is too advanced for her, but the normal baby stuff that she used to love doesn't seem to interest her anymore. I long for some sort of schedule again like we used to have-bottle, free play, help mommy work, books, nap, bottle, outdoor exploration and walk, more books, free play, music, bottle, nap, Kyle's home. Those were the good old days.

Here are some videos of Hannah. The first 2 are of her swinging at the park and the 3rd is of the tantrum that we get every time it's time to get off the swings!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3789315554896850718&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5436626796321159423&hl=en

Here's the tantrum. A great display of that "Tude" Doc H. was talking about! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4313963354678114737&hl=en

One Year Old

It's so hard for me to believe that Hannah is one year old already, but it's true. We had the party on Saturday to prove it! Speaking of the party, it was a great success. It was so nice to see everyone that could be there. The weather was perfect and I made plenty of cake. YEAH! I was even pretty proud of Hannah's little Nemo cupcake I made. I thought I did a pretty good job trying to freehand a fish when I have no artistic skills at all! I think everyone had fun hanging out and playing basketball, football, and of course having a huge squirt gun fight (that escalated into just throwing cups of water instead!). Hannah enjoyed watching everyone and crawling around in the grass. Even though I said no presents, Hannah got tons anyway. She REALLY enjoyed unwrapping all the gifts although she wasn't too sure about Kyle taking each present away when it was time to open a new one. She wanted to play with each new gift RIGHT NOW. At one point when Hannah was opening gifts, Kyle instructed her to say thank you to the person who gave her the gift and instead of signing thank you Hannah signed more! Now that's a habit we are going to have to nip in the bud early! One really cute thing that Hannah did during the party came when she was opening her gift from Sarah, Jason, and Evelyn. One of the presents was a framed picture of Hannah and Evelyn. Immediately Hannah grabbed the picture and said, Eva! She kept saying Eva over and over again and DID NOT want to let go of that picture. Kyle hung it up in her bedroom and every single time we go into her room now she looks for the picture and says, " Haaanaaaah, Eva." It about puts tears in my eyes every time! Hannah loves all her other gifts too. She got several stuffed animals and has been having a grand ole time telling me over and over again what each stuffed animal or doll is and then giving them hugs and kisses. She's really into reading her new books too. One of her favorites is a totally paper book from Evelyn's Grandma about Paul Bunyan. I think Hannah likes it so much because it has big girl pages. She's really into books that are like what mommy and daddy read at the moment. She thinks she is moving past board books, but I've got news for her, she's not getting paper books for quite awhile still even though she is quite gentle with the paper books all things considering. Hannah got two presents that are rocking toys and she's really been enjoying riding those. She gets on and holds onto the handles and just shakes her body back and forth with a silly grin on her face the whole time. One of her toys that she got is a magnetic farm with pieces of farm animals that you can stick into the barn. She LOVES playing with those magnets so much that she's already lost the back half of the cow! The animals are all in two pieces in case you are wondering and you have to match up the right head and tail to get it to sing and make the animal sound. I'm back again the next day and now we are missing the front half of the pig too! Poor animals!

Besides Hannah's party, there are lots of new stuff that Hannah is doing. It seems like she just woke up on her birthday and said, "I'm not a baby anymore. I had better start acting different." Hannah's biggest accomplishment is standing up on her own without having to use anything to get herself upright. She's been having a blast pushing herself up in the middle of the floor and then letting her upper body flop back onto the floor. I think it gives her a bit of an adrenaline rush and since she's a little thrill seeker she does it over and over! The first time she did it Kyle and I were standing around talking to some friends of ours and no one was really paying much attention to Hannah (that was our first mistake!) and then all of a sudden I caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye and saw that she was just standing with her knees bent, kinda like she was riding a surfboard, in the middle of the room! I gasped and said, Oh My Gosh! and then everyone else looked around and made surprised noises (our second mistake!) and then Hannah got so excited that she fell over!

Hannah's pronunciation of many of her words are getting much better and she's also starting to stick in some articles every now and then. I've heard her say uh baby and the dog a few times. She's getting really good at asking for things politely and using please. She's not quite as good at thank you. We don't get any spontaneous thank yous like we do pleases, but she will do it about 70% of the time if we remind her. Recently she started calling Evelyn's mommy by name. Her name is Sarah and Hannah calls her RaRa. It's so cute to hear her, but so far Hannah refuses to do it in Sarah's presence! She'll only do it in a response to a picture of Sarah. A few days ago Hannah learned a new food word. She will now say Peesh when she wants a peach. It's so cute! Of course I'm biased since I think most things Hannah does are cute!

We're still working on using utensils and bowls at meals, but that really hasn't made any improvements. Hannah's really interested in holding the spoon or picking up the bowl, but not so interested in actually using them to eat. We got her some new big girl sippy cups without handles and so far she's doing pretty good with them. She doesn't always finish all of her milk out of them, but that could also be because we've started to add more milk and less formula instead of the 50/50 mix she was getting. We found out the other day that Hannah really likes homemade pizza. We made a Boboli pizza for dinner with sausage, green peppers and onions as toppings and she scarfed it right down. I guess she's the typical American kid with a pizza addiction!

Besides practicing standing, Hannah has also been working on her climbing skills some more. She's REALLY good at climbing onto things now and she can also get back down from most things. She's started to want to try to step down the stairs to the deck instead of crawl down backwards. She wants me to hold her hand and then she slowly and carefully takes tiny steps to lower herself down. I'm a bit worried that once she gets good at standing on her own that she's going to try to walk down those steps on her own while I'm not looking and take a header off the deck! Another physical skill that Hannah has been practicing is bouncing, rolling, and throwing a ball. She got a bouncy ball for her birthday and she already had a soccer ball and now she plays with them almost every day. She will even go get one and then roll it to you to get you to play with her. Kyle taught her how to dribble a ball at her party and now she's really into bouncing the ball. She will pick it up, throw it towards the ground and gleefully shout "Buhall!"

Hannah's interest in books continues to grow and her fixation on adult books has grown. It's as if she thinks that board books are too babyish now and she wants books with paper pages. I've had step up my vigilance in keeping her out of our book shelves. We did give her one old golden book and one of Kyle's old paperback books to practice turning the pages on and she LOVES that. For her birthday she got 2 books that had paper pages and I decided that I was just going to let her have them and if the pages got torn, they got torn. They are her books and she ought to be able to have them. So far she's been really good with them although she did accidentally rip on of the pages because the book had a handle and so the pages had a hole cut out of them for the handle and she got her hand stuck in there and couldn't get it out and she pulled really hard and ripped the handle off that page. Not too crucial since none of the words and not really any of the picture was on that part.