15 Months and such

We are still loving our baby like crazy, and she is getting more and more fun everyday.

-She learned lots of animal sounds: monkey, cow, fish, bunny, dog, lion, and bear.

-She still says no to everything, and I'm sure that Josh and I are reinforcing it because we laugh so often when she tells us no.

-She knows the word "bath" and as soon as I say it, she takes off and stands by the tub until I put her in.

-We went from not being able to get her to keep shoes on, to now, she constantly tries on all of the shoes in our house.

-Meili is still a picky eater, and she goes through stages daily as to what she will and won't eat. She's so funny about the things that she likes though. She will usually eat fruit: grapes, mandarin oranges, peaches, pears, and vegetables: corn, green beans, carrots, cucumbers. But the only foods she has never turned down are omelets and lasagna, and I can't, for the life of me, get her to eat bread. What kind of a kid doesn't like bread?

-Her obsession of dogs grows everyday. Luckily, she lives in an extended family with lots of dogs. She loves being alone with her dad because he will let her cuddle up to dogs, and let the dogs lick her hands. I am a little OCD, and will allow her to love dogs from afar.

-Meili got the flu for the first time this month :( I can't complain too much, though. I'm just glad that we were able to survive 15 months before having to deal with that. I felt so awful. I was sick as well, but I would have gladly had it even worse if it meant that she didn't have to get sick. Josh was great and took care of both of us, and did lots of laundry for a couple days. Even though we were all miserable, Meili was really cuddly, and I felt better at least being able to hold her all day.

Can you believe this winter? We were actually able to go to the park in January!

I tried pretty hard to get good pictures this month-because I've noticed I'm started to slack. But Meili moves too much, so they're usually fuzzy.

She loves this drawer of pens in our kitchen. I'm torn between baby proofing so she doesn't draw all over our walls someday, and keeping something else that will entertain her while I'm trying to do things in the kitchen.

Meili loves looking out all the windows in the house. We have a neighbor dog that lives across the street, and even though he's pretty far away, she can still see when he is outside in his kennel and she points at him and laughs.

This month, Meili finally decided that it was time to walk. Since her birthday, she has been fully capable of taking many steps at a time, but it was just easier to get around by crawling. So, all of a sudden, a couple days before Josh's birthday, it just clicked for her and she decided that it was time. (Then, of course, we went to a nice restaurant for Josh's birthday, and she would not stay in her high chair for anything, because she wanted to go exploring.) I've had many people tell me that I really didn't want her to walk because then she would just get into everything. Nope, I was ready. She was already getting into everything, and now it just means that I don't have to think about how dirty her hands and knees are getting.

At her appointment on Friday, Meili weighed 18 lbs. 10 oz. which is the 2nd percentile :( And she was 31 1/2 inches long, which is the 81st percentile. Still skinny and still long-the story of our lives. At least we still don't even have to debate a forward facing car seat or not-she's still not legal anyway.