Abbie at 15 months

The thing about being behind in blogging is that I'm also behind in recording milestones for my children! I've caught up our summer trips and events but haven't done a post just about the kids' development since birthdays in the spring. SO here is a peek at Abbie at (or around) 15 months.

She says Hi, Bye, Daddy, Mama, Please, Uh Oh, This, That, and makes about 15 animal sounds but other than that she does most of her communicating through pointing and shaking her head yes or no. She mumbles all the time, sings, speaks jibberish, screams, cries and yells so she is anything but silent! She comprehends most everything we say. "Go get your shoes" "get Jackson's jammies" "where is your nose, eyes, etc?" Jackson has some Jake and the Neverland Pirate matching cards and if I lay out four on a table, she can identify them all correctly (ex. ship, mermaid, princess, pirate, sword).

She still loves animals and gets so excited when we see a dog outside, a squirrel in a tree, a duck in a pond or even a picture of a fish on a box of goldfish. She'll immediately identify the animal by making its sound. Her favorite animals are dogs, fish, elephants, giraffes and dinosaurs.

The girl who used to out-eat Jackson and hardly refuse any food has now become more selective. She is more of a dairy girl loving cheese and yogurts and is more picky about fruits. She'll normally eat all meats ok and I try to sneak in veggies when I can. She loves pasta, any and all desserts, yogurt melts and pirate booty - she loves drinking milk and orange juice best but always loves stealing sips of whatever Jackson has in his sippy cups.

She started climbing down the stairs around 15 months after a lot of times of refusing to try. I knew she could do it for months now and finally did so. She is really a cautious girl and hardly ever falls down and only has only gotten a few bruises or cuts ever.

She's got teeth! At age 1 she just had her two bottom teeth and then all of a sudden they all came in! At 15 months she had 8 teeth, 6 on top (2 molars) and 2 on bottom. We love our little gap toothed baby grins!

She is starting to become a sassy little toddler instead of our sweet little baby. She wants what she wants and has got a scream like you've never heard if she doesn't get it. I guess we did hear that scream in the middle of the night when she was still nursing... But now she wants whatever Jackson has. She has a few of her own toys that she clings to with her life, but also loves playing with Jackson's trains, dinosaurs and pirate toys. Jackson has gotten very patient with her but we are definitly still working on sharing. I have started buying or giving the kids 2 of everything to make things easier.

She still loves books and spends more time playing with books than toys at this point.

She still loves Jackson and loves to hold his hand and give him hugs and kisses. She wants to be big like him, doing all the things that he can do.

She still is such a sweet little girl who wants me to hold her, lays her head on my shoulder and pats or rubs my back. She's got the cutest little wave and blows kisses to everything she says bye to. She gives the best kisses and completly melts her daddy.

She is normally taking one nap a day, right after lunch. And goes to sleep around 8 pm and wakes up around 7:30 am. She sleeps through the night and only occasionally wakes up just needing a little pat on the back or snuggle before going right back to sleep.

She is different from Jackson is so many ways at this stage. She still prefers to be held most of the time (when we're not at home) while he was always exploring and getting into things. She is much more particular about things he didn't care about. She is just more.... girly :)

One of my favorite sleeping pictures of her

Sometimes you just give in and give her the bowl of cheese on taco night

Or let her sit in her stroller naked eating fruit loops because that's the only way she'd stop crying...

After leaving her up there several times...

She finally learned how to do this

This pic was taken on her 15 month birthday, she loves this spot on our porch.

She insisted on feeding herself, and does for most things pretty well actually!

The girl loves books!

Even though she doesn't watch much tv, she sits next to Jackson bc she loves being with him.

She moved to a big girl car seat at 15 months (actually Jackson's old one) and luckily can still fall asleep easily.

 

One of her favorites, holding hands and walking around the house

  

She puts on lanyards or stacking rings as necklaces and bracelets, probably time to get some play jewelry.

 

Prefers the big swing because that's what Jackson uses...

She can go from this...

to this, in an instant!

Abbie the Pirate!

The girl loves swinging at the park!

We love this little girl so much and are so excited to see her personality develop as she grows up!

Our trip to Yale

If Jackson was writing this post, he'd have titled it "my trip to the dinosaur museum!!!!" as that was the highlight for him. In fact he still talks about it weeks later.

We decided to take a day trip to New Haven, CT on a free Saturday we had at the end of July. It was a beautiful day and our first real CT day trip of the summer. It was less than an hour to New Haven which is on the southern part of CT, right on the coast. We wanted to see Yale and since Jackson has been super dinosaur boy lately we thought he'd have fun at the Yale Peabody Museum. While the museum is small and a bit dated, Jackson was in heaven! We were there for over 2 hours which is pretty long for our family and especially since it really wasn't too big. But he loved going through the rooms again and again and especially loved the kids discovery room (with live snakes, frogs and bugs) and the dinosaur fossils, obviously.

We were greeted by this large Triceratops and a roar from Jackson

He loved the mammal exhibits too, cheetahs are a favorite of his.

Nearly impossible for him to look at me in a picture since that involves looking away from the exhibits.

Brachiosaurus has a loooooong neck!

I love how he walked around with his hands in pockets or clasped behind his back.

Loved these colorful tree frogs

We always point out Florida, Connecticut, Arizona and Utah on globes and maps.

After the museum we grabbed some lunch from a cute little market and sat outside as Jackson played at their Foosball table.

There were a few other things we wanted to do in the city (go to Ikea being one of them) but Abbie taking a nap was more important at that point! So after lunch we did a driving tour around the city and Abbie fell asleep almost instantly. We drove all around Yale Campus and it was beautiful! 

All of my pictures are taken on my phone from a moving car, so hence the quality.

If you look closely you can see what building this is.

In case you didn't get that ;)

Once Abbie was sleeping soundly we stopped the car and let Tyler and Jackson run around by the ocean. While there are no actual beaches in town, there are fun harbors and piers Jackson got to enjoy.

#alwaysrunning

We drove home from there and could have called it a day but we decided to just make it ultra fun day for Jackson and let him go mini golfing too. Later that afternoon while Abbie took another little nap, I got to take Jackson on a little date. We hit up the Farmington Mini Golf Course and had a great time!

 

They have a cute ice cream parlor next door and so we topped it off with a special treat! It was a fun day and we love having great destinations so close to us here!

Staying cool in the hot hot heat!

When we got back to Connecticut in July we realized that it gets pretty dang hot here! Well at least for a few weeks. There were quite a few days over 90 degrees and with humidity it felt like we were right back in Florida. So for our outings during most of July and parts of August we didn't want to be outside unless we were wet. Without a pool in our backyard and neighborhood like in Florida, we had to get creative!

First, we bought a water table! I set it up in the garage and before I could bring it to the back deck the kids were anxious to start playing. So it stayed here for the first little bit and I think we played with it every day those first 2 weeks.

Sometimes Jackson ended up in the water table...

They loved their new chairs too

What's that face little miss Abigail??

Second, the summer meant limited clothes, Jackson spent lots of time shirtless shortless and in some cases, even both-less.

Still working on getting the underwear on the right way all the time

Third, we found the local splash pads. And sadly there weren't as Florida. And the two we found closest to us weren't nearly as big as our favorite one in Dr. Phillips. But Jackson still had plenty of fun at the parks we found, both in West Hartford. This is the only picture I took of our outings there but this is how they usually ended up playing out. Jackson running around with the other kids I could hardly keep track of him and Abbie hanging out with me on the towel or bench...

I think she got her toes wet this day...

 Fourth, this is probably my favorite one, we found out about these little forest ponds and lakes within 20 minutes from our house! We took at least 5 trips to Stratton Brook National Park and I was shocked at how warm the water was! The park is free on weekdays so that  makes it even better. I guess since it's a pretty small pond the water warms up quickly. Jackson loved going to the beach and would literally go swimming around the shallow water.

Abbie loved playing in the sand and getting her toes wet

Jackson playing with James at our ward's play group.

Jackson helped these boys catch a frog that day!

 Then we discovered Lake McDonough which was about 25 minutes away, we went on a Saturday and had to pay quite a fee to get in but it was much nicer than Stratton Brook.

Fifth we played in our backyard pool and sprinklers. I honestly thought we'd be in this pool all summer but we only got in it a handful of times. Partly because the water temperature would vary so much! The hose water here is FReeezing so the pool would start out ice cold and then in the middle of the afternoon sometimes the sun would warm it up almost too hot! I guess I'm still learning. But Jackson had fun filling it up and swimming in it. It was big enough that he would use his goggles to swim from one side to the other.

 

He loved discovering the sprinklers this summer!

Sixth, I've got no pictures to prove it but there is a family in our ward who has an amazing pool in their backyard. And (although I've still never met them because they travel most of the summer) the pool is open for members of the ward to use whenever they want! So we headed over there 4 or 5 times as well! I always went with Tyler because it's hard to keep track of both kids when a certain boy wants to be swimming the whole time and a certain girl isn't so sure about it... We played with the Pulleys and Giffords a couple times there and saw other ward members when we headed over on Saturday evenings. We were never there alone!


Seventh, we took a trip to the Atlantic Ocean! Although we're on the coast, there aren't a ton of beaches in Connecticut believe it or not. But we did find a fun one at Hammondasset Beach just over an hour away. We were hoping to spend the day with our friends the Giffords and Pulleys but we got there early and they were both late so we only crossed paths for a little bit. Abbie desperatly needed a nap when we left after lunchtime. But it was a great day and Abbie's first trip to the Atlantic Ocean! She had been to Pacific and the Gulf Coast of Florida.

The girls played in the sand as the boys swam!

Hi boys!

She likes her food...

Eighth and lastly, we spent a lot of time in our basement. Every day after naps and quiet time in the late afternoon hours before dinner time we would head down to the basement. It was the perfect cool place to be in the hottest hours of the day!

Abbie loves holding hands with Jackson and taking him for walks.

Abbie is more interested in coloring than Jackson was at this age, for sure!

We really had a great summer and found lots of fun ways to keep cool on the hot summer days!