Anna at 17 months

It may be the middle of January, but Anna is getting plenty of fresh air and sunshine here in California! We've been blessed with some lovely weather so our daily walks are back in session. Only now, thanks to Santa Claus, we have a wagon to cruise around in! Of course, this means that Anna is no longer a big fan of her stroller that we need for our longer walks... oh well! 

We are having a great 2011 so far... hard to believe this is the third calendar year in which Anna has lived!  Anna continues to progress with her language development. She now regularly strings two, sometimes three words together to express a thought... usually her ownership over everything... "Anna's shoes," "Anna's hat," "Anna's Elmo," etc. But she is also able to indicate things that belong to Mommy or Daddy as well as combine the words "more" and "please" to whatever she desires. She can now count to ten and sing portions of the alphabet song (see the video Brian posted below).  At last count, she can recognize and say 20 out of the 26 letters in the alphabet when shown the figure! We read lots of books every night and work with her to improve that ever-expanding vocabulary. Her favorite word this week is "excited" (which she pronounces "cited"); today she told me she was "cited" while waiting for me to get the wagon out of the garage.

Anna is also becoming more musical. I learned this month that if I stopped in the middle of a line of a song I was singing, Anna could finish the line nearly every time! I tried it with dozens of songs I've been singing to her and it was wonderful to see how much she'd been picking up all this time. She now tries to initiate songs, particularly the alphabet song, "Row Row Row Your Boat," and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." For Christmas, she received a toy CD player that plays Sesame Street songs and she loves to dance to the songs, switching out the CD's dozens of times a sitting. She just can't seem to get enough of "C is for Cookie."

Anna's mobility also continues to improve. She's begun running away and hiding whenever it's time for a diaper change, bath, or toothbrushing. She giggles like crazy while we run all over the house trying to catch her. Gymnastics class has introduced her to climbing so we are noticing more of that around the house and will have to consider another round of childproofing.

Take a look at how Anna's grown this month by clicking on the picture below!

Anna at 17 months

Anna's Alphabet

With some counting thrown in, for good measure.

Christmas 2010

Christmas was busy (which partially explains the timing of this post). We started with a visit from Grandpa Pat and Grandma Barb in mid-December, then traveled back east to both Ellicott City and Philadelphia to see Grandma Jean and Grandpa Dick and Mom-mom and Pop-pop. So Anna racked up four Christmases, plus celebrations at daycare to top it all off. Needless to say, she got more presents than she (or we) know what to do with! Highlights include a red wagon, a "fur-real" kitten (not real, just animatronic), Memory, several puzzles, clothes, and most of the cast of Sesame Street. Anna loves all of her presents, and tries to play with them all at once, usually by sitting in her wagon surrounded by toys and books. She's gotten a little too big to sit still on the long flights back, but she was a good traveler nonetheless. We had a great time seeing everyone!

Christmas 2010

Anna at 16 months

Well, clearly this post is late, but with our holiday travel we weren't able to get Anna's 16 month update on time. 

Thanksgiving was a laid back affair with our friends Tommy and Nassim joining us for dinner at our place.  We missed our families but appreciated the relaxation of a holiday with no air travel. 

It was a hectic month with preparing for the holidays, but we managed to get Anna signed up for a gymnastics class which she loves! Every Saturday morning she gets to jump around the gym with one or both her parents.  Make sure to check out the video of her on the trampoline on the previous post! She is also able to swing from the bars and walk on the balance beam, and of course ride the slide into a pit of foam blocks. Mom and Dad are only sorry that adults aren't permitted on any of the apparatuses.  Anna is also learning how to play tee-ball!  Dad couldn't resist playing Santa a bit early and has Anna working on her swing already - check out the pics!

Right now Anna is crazy over puzzles - luckily we have dozens for her to work on. The latest hand-me-downs we've received from friends include puzzles with sound - when you put in the piece it makes a corresponding noise.  Most of our friends had boys so lately it's been lots of planes, trains and automobiles.  Anna loves them all - the other day she even was able to say a pretty decent version of "ambulance!" Anna's language grows by leaps and bounds.   She learns at least one or two words each day, sometimes more.  She is eager to repeat anything she hears so we definitely have to be careful about what we say.  Mom and Dad are in the spelling stage for sure! (What time do you want to give Anna her B-A-T-H?  Can you stop by the store and get some more M-I-L-K?)  I fear it is only a matter of time before she picks up on these spellings. 

In preparation for the holiday we made sure to visit Santa Claus, so be sure to look for that picture in this month's collection.  We were lucky enough to have a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Perone this month and they came along for the visit to Santa.  You'll also see Santa's early visit to our house before he came to see Anna again on the east coast.  Click on the picture below!

Anna at 16 months