It was bound to happen. This is the first "month to month" check in blogpost that I wrote AFTER my daughter had reached the next month (16 months). I am ashamed...but I say that with plenty of self-forgiveness in my voice. It was going to happen at some point. I write notes to myself through the month - and have since transposed them. So forgive my stream of consciousness account of Hannah@ 15 months and enjoy the pictures of my beautiful little girl!
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| Walking like a big girl on our cruise ship |
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| Where'd it go? Playing games with Aunt Stephanie |
Hannah is as sweet as ever and obsessed with imitating us! She fell in love with bears this month while we were in Alaska, mastered the "ocean" game on the iPad while we were traveling, enjoyed time with her grandparents and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Michael, and loves helping us around the house.
Stories from the Month...
Overall quality of life is improving as Hannah has been sleeping fairly well (it's all an improvement from a few months ago) and it's starting to add up enough that I can see that Daniel and I are taking on little small side projects that otherwise would have just seemed too daunting or exhausting to bother with. They're things that are past the essential survival tasks - it's exciting!
We managed to throw a big Memorial Day weekend BBQ shin dig and were pretty excited to be able to manage to host somewhere between 15-25 people - it was a great turn out and ended up being a lot of fun. Hannah took a massively amazing nap from around 1 - 4 something. It was fantastic and allowed me to really get everything going and enjoy hanging out with folks before I was distracted by Hannahs again. It was the first things we've had that felt the most like the old us...able to host the way we used to be able to.
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| Daniel and Hannah playing at Savannah's first birthday party, Memorial Day weekend |
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| the adorable birthday girl! Savannah and Hannah are 10 weeks apart! |
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| I left the room to grab coffee...Hannah "made it rain" Kix all over the dogs and then tried to get rid of the mess by stuff the rest of the Kix in the couch cushions. At least she was adorable about it. |
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| While I can put up a ladylike front...I fear she got this unabashed lounging style from me...she's certainly not afraid of making herself comfortable! |
My first school year at my new school came to a close this month! Just as we were headed for Alaska! We also spent a week on an Alaskan cruise with the Hals crew. We had a lot of fun! (See the separate entries for those highlights). We definitely embraced the fact that we knew exactly where our meals were coming from (no cooking!), never had to clean up after ourselves!, no pups to worry about walking, and we had babysitters across the hall who really wanted to spend time with Hannah! Talk about a vacation!
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| How many people does it take to entertain a Hannah? They all look just as interested in the iPad as she does! |
While traveling Hannah got a little more iPad/iPhone screen time than I would normally like (when you spend ten hours on planes...you know what? it happens and it's totally survival). The first day when we were flying out, I introduced her to a new game I had bought specifically for the trip. It's the Sago Mini Ocean game, where the adorable fish explores the ocean and interacts with all the cute sea creatures. She barely gave it five seconds and was done. ...By the end of the week, she could navigate the entire game, new all thirty of the different animations/creatures to interact with it and was a total pro. It was amazing!
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| Snuggling with her puppy |
Hannah's Favorite Things...
She loves walking on the trail with her mommy and her puppies! She wishes she could walk the dogs too (I'd love it if she could...) but there's absolutely no way that's happening (I am really all about her imitating me as much as is possible, but trying to walk the dogs out on the trail is incredibly dangerous). We have a broken retractable leash that I saved that she gets to walk around the house with, which keeps her pretty happy.
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| She still loves loves LOVES books |
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| She also loved the chocolate frosting I made for the cupcakes for the cookout |
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| She loves Greek yogurt too! |
She loves imitating us and wants to be helpful. She likes to help by throwing things away and is very happy to help me put clothes in the dryer. The night we got home from Alaska, she was thrilled to be home! One of the first things she did was walk into the kitchen, go to the cabinet and grab a trash bag, and try to replace the liner of the trash can for us (when we had left town a week ago, taking the trash out was one of the things we did on our way out the door). Holy cow.
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| Lounging around on the cruise |
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| Multitasking like her momma (although I think I read somewhere developmentally they start trying to carry multiple things at once) |
When she sees me grab pots and pans to cook dinner she will often go to the pots cabinet and grab her own pots to cook with. :) At bed time she loves for me to give her a little lotion and while I put lotion all over her, she rubs some on my arm.
While in Alaska, we were loved seeing how much Hannah loves animals! She really liked bears! We saw some our first full day there - when our bus stopped at a wildlife preserve. When she saw the bears playing together (much like Chance and Holly do) she started growling at them - and has growled at every bear she has seen since - whether it's a real bear, a photograph of a bear, a cartoon illustration of a bear, a stuffed animal bear in the gift shop, a bear on TV, or a bear wearing a raincoat in one of her board books.
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| She also LOVED counting and petting these dolphins on the cruise ship |
We hit the pool while on the cruise and she loved it! Like really really really loved it! She was so thrilled! I think we have a real water baby on our hands!
We all indulged a bit on the cruise - and Hannah's top two favorite things were the banana milkshakes at breakfast and ice cream. OMG does she love vanilla ice cream. At home her absolute favorites are Greek yogurt and apples - but for apples you have to take a few bites out of an apple and then let her nibble and gnaw at the apple as if she is an adult. It takes forever (but honestly, that's an awesome thing, if she's getting antsy while we try to eat our dinner, an apple has saved the day on several occasions).
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| Enjoying our scenic stops on the bus ride to the ship |
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| I pet an elk! :) |
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| Hannah loved the slots |
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| And playing yard games with her daddy |
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| She thought the goats were pretty cool |
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| and wanted to "kiss" the puppies (aka open her mouth at them) |
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| puppy snuggles!!! |
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| she loves the pool and jacuzzi! |
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| and exploring the Alaska wilderness |
And her favorite song? Still obsessively "Bitch I'm Madonna". Seriously. She LOVES it and loves to dance! I know the lyrics are problematic. I'm hoping she falls out of love with it by then. Otherwise we may have some interesting stories. The other favorite? The "meow meow meow meow" song from Pepi tree that is on when the caterpillar is eating. ...It played for a near hour in the car in Alaska...and incites dancing the second it comes on without fail.
Communication
The growling at bears is adorable and the babbling chatter is steadily increasing. It's most notable when she's on her own. I frequently catch her sitting with her books on her own, chattering away to herself as she looks through the books. Her most frequent words are "dog, that, "where?!" (as in Where'd the lights go?), dad, grrrr, uh oh,..." and I am sure there are more but I am really blanking. What has continually impressed me though, is how much she understands. Which is A LOT. A whole whole lot. It's uncanny.
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| arrrrgh! :) |
Sleep
This was the first trip where she wasn't a total sleep disaster and I was so so thankful. She's doing a lot better this month! While it's not perfect, it's such leaps and bounds better than before, I just can't complain! Do I feel rested? Absolutely not. I get just enough sleep to keep going and I never ever can "catch up"...but I get enough sleep to keep going - and for that, I am truly thankful.
Growth and Appearance -
Slowly but surely growing more hair!
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| more hair and RED hair :) |
At her 15 month checkup: 23 lbs 14 ounces (81%) and 31.5 inches (82%)! She only gained 14 ounces sincere her last checkup (she's been on the go go go!, but she grew almost two inches!)
We have been slowly eliminating some of the 12 month clothes from her wardrobe and more and more of the 18 month outfits fit - even some of the 24 months. She's growing and growing!
The Puppies, Daddy, and Mommy
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| I love this picture of us |
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| :) |
We're all doing well! We really enjoyed the date nights and hike together while we were in Alaska and have enjoyed the more consistent sleep. The next month coming up is a doozy for both of us for work!
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| Our little family @ 15 months! |
We managed to throw a big Memorial Day weekend BBQ shin dig and were pretty excited to be able to manage to host somewhere between 15-25 people - it was a great turn out and ended up being a lot of fun. Hannah took a massively amazing nap from around 1 - 4 something. It was fantastic and allowed me to really get everything going and enjoy hanging out with folks before I was distracted by Hannahs again. It was the first things we've had that felt the most like the old us...able to host the way we used to be able to. 
When she sees me grab pots and pans to cook dinner she will often go to the pots cabinet and grab her own pots to cook with. :) At bed time she loves for me to give her a little lotion and while I put lotion all over her, she rubs some on my arm. 
