16 months and June

                June has been a month full of visitors and visiting…well at least the last half of it has been.  The early part of the month was fairly uneventful, but from Fathers Day on it has been busier. We had fun celebrating Ben’s second father’s day.  In true Hill fashion we went to church in the morning, relaxed with a movie while Alethea napped, and then headed out to Mellow Mushroom for dinner followed by TCBY for dessert.  Fun family times! J

She was refusing to smile, but this is our only pic from Father's Day

                Then my parents arrived the Tuesday after Father’s day so they could stay with our pups and help us out with some house projects while we headed to NY.  We left for NY on Wednesday and spent a week celebrating Sean and Valissa’s wedding as well as visiting Ben’s side of the family.  Alethea did well on the plane rides even despite traveling at nap times, though we did have to nurse in order to get her to rest at all.  (She does not accept any other calming help!)  She also did great with all the wedding festivities and even sat quietly through the entire ceremony with Mommy and Grandma.  I was definitely shocked by how well she did for the wedding.  She melted everyone’s heart with her cuteness and Ben had fun showing her off to old friends. J

Having fun with different toys at Grandma's

She loves magnets!

Snuggling with handsome Daddy before the wedding.

Watching everyone come in the entrance of the wedding before the ceremony

Family photo...she wouldn't take her hand out of her mouth

bubbles!

                One of her favorite things about NY, in my opinion, was getting to spend the evening with EmmaLee (while we went to the adults only reception).  I got back to put her to bed and she didn’t even notice I arrived and then ran away when I tried to pick her up.  She had a blast playing with EmmaLee and her play stroller. And I am sure she enjoyed hanging out with Miss Donna and the rest of EmmaLee’s family too. J  Her other favorite part had to be going to Syracuse to spend time with Ben’s dad’s side of the family.  She got to meet her new second cousin and she loves babies.  Plus her and her other second cousin Kayleigh had so much fun playing in G.G.’s sun room.  We all had so much fun seeing them enjoy themselves.

swiffering with Boppa

pushing her babies with Grandma

enjoying her fork at Red Robin

Playing with EmmaLee

Baseball with Daddy and Jordan

We went hiking as a family to some local water falls

She climbed this whole thing on her own...Daddy 

just spotted her to make sure she didn't fall

Having fun with Granpa and Kayleigh

They had a blast in G.G.'s sunroom

Cousins :-)

                We also finished the month off spending a little less than a week with my parents.  They picked us up from the airport when we got back from NY and we have been having a blast spending time with them ever since.  We did lots of eating out at yummy places like Vickery’s, Mellow Mushroom, and Jestine’s Kitchen.  Then we also made a trip to Angel Oak Tree and Beachwalker County Park (which is ranked in the top 10 beaches in the nation).  The tree was very neat and the fun times had at the beach were irreplaceable.  Alethea is such a water baby and she loved wading and boogie-boarding on the waves.  On their last day in town we made it to downtown and had fun watching Alethea play in the fountain after getting dinner and ice cream. J

Family photo at the airport

out for a walk with Papaw

Family photo at Vickery's

You can't climb the Angle Oak so we just lifted her up super high and she loved it

Such an awesome tree

Having fun with Daddy while everyone was getting sunscreen on

Walking to the water

She loved to just lie day in the water

We were burying her foot in mud and she loved it

boogie-boarding

Speed boogie-boarding with Daddy

So exhausted after a long day at the beach

                As for specifics with Ben and I this month, we haven’t really had much different for us.  Ben has stayed busy with graduate school and work while I have stayed super busy helping with Mission Charleston and taking care of Alethea. 

One thing Ben is doing is working on dunking

                I guess that just saves more room for updates about Alethea which are never lacking. J This month Alethea turned 16 months on the 21^st. No doctor’s appointments this month, but my at home measurements showed her at about 25.5lbs and somewhere between 33.25 and 33.5 inches tall.  She is quite the growing girl. We also had to buy her new shoes this month for her mini boats, lol.  We went to stride rite with her wearing size 5 sauconys that I was pretty sure were too small and left with her wearing size 7.5 sauconys and carrying size 7 sandals.  Granted there was room for growth, but I can’t believe she is already wearing shoes that big!  She still has hardly any hair, but it is gradually getting thinker, even though you can’t really tell since it is super light.

She has a ducktale of curls, lol

                She is such a smarty and is getting more vocal every day.  The words are not always super clear, but she repeats the same renditions of the words and we are gradually catching on to her version of the English language.  New words that she started this month are: “boo!”, “uhn-uh” (no), the “mamama” sound has returned, but still isn’t associated with Mommy, “deh dis” (there it is), “ahhht” (hot).  She may be saying others, but these are the only ones that we have caught onto.  She has also begun to use her sign for please a lot more and will often pair it help or more.  She has begun to stick her arms out to indicate she wants us to pick her up.  I think she has done this occasionally in the past, but she is much more intentional about it now.  She waves goodbye and hello with a lot more purpose now and at the appropriate times most of the time.

                Her motor skills never cease to amaze me.  I know she has been walking for 7 months now so it makes sense that she is advanced with some of it, but she is just so agile it’s crazy to watch.  And while and Grandma and Boppa’s, she was able to master the stairs quite well.  We still accompany her if there are more than 2 steps, but she does great on them.  She also has amazing fine motor skills as well.  She is able to put together a 5 piece Melissa and Doug shape peg puzzle on her own.  It has an oval, circle, triangle, square, and rectangle that make up a house picture.  It’s so awesome to see her shift the pieces to fit them perfectly.  She has even been able to generalize that the triangle from her one puzzle can go in the triangle place in her other puzzle. One neat fine motor skill is that she can put her tiny baby dolls pacifier in its mouth on her own.

                She has also developed some skills that are just plain fun to watch.  She loves to give high fives and will even do it with both hands when you ask her to.  Ben has been doing a jump program and sometimes does it in our front hallway.  Alethea thinks that is the greatest thing and she tries to jump at the same time as her daddy.  It’s pretty hilarious because her feet don’t leave the ground most of the time, but occasionally she actually pulls off a jump or two.  She can also point to her eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, and belly button as well as Mommy and Daddy’s corresponding body parts.  One of her new favorites is helping to clean.  She loves to use the dry swiffer while I use the swiffer wet vac and it actually ends up being quite helpful.  She also loves to use the broom, though that is not nearly as productive as her swiffering.

                One last dose of cuteness to mention results from her love of music.  I love watching her love for music develop.  Any time music comes on the radio or TV she dances and often claps.  One song that Mamaw and Papaw always sing to her is the fingers song and she has started putting up her pointing and humming along with them when they sing it.  Soooooooo cute!  Every time I think there is no way she can get cuter, she continues to top my expectations month after month.  What a wonderful 16 months it has been!

One last dose of cuteness!