November and 21 month update

            November was a month of thankfulness.  I really enjoyed coming up with something I am thankful for each day.  It is always a great practice to think of the positives in life, but there is something wonderful about writing them down.  To name a few, I am thankful for the chance to stay at home with Alethea, for the finances to fix our car when it breaks, for a wonderful husband and daughter, encouraging and supporting family and friends, and the one thing I couldn't publicly be thankful for in November is the little baby growing inside of me.  Looking forward to meeting this little one next summer!

My Smiley Girl!

            This year November was a bit different for us than it has ever been in the past.  We chose to stay here in SC for the month instead of flying to visit family in NY for Thanksgiving because of the cost.  Granted we missed family, but that ended up being a blessing in disguise for many reasons.  We saved a ton of money, I didn’t have to travel while so early in pregnancy (though we didn’t know I was pregnant when we made the decision), we got to spend time with friends on Thanksgiving, and we got to relax for the entire four day work break Ben had with a little bit of decorating for Christmas and announcing our big news to family thrown into the mix. J All in all is was a fabulous Thanksgiving and reminded us of all the things we truly have to be thankful for this year.

            Ben has been busy as always this month.  He is beginning to wind down his second to last semester of graduate school (yay!), but with that comes an increase in work load.  He has still managed to be an amazing husband and father, and has been an incredible blessing to me picking up extra slack around the house since my productive waking hours have decreased so much.  He’s pretty much the best if you ask me!  He is still really enjoying his leadership responsibilities at work and it’s so fun to hear how excited he gets about trying to make sure he is doing the best to lead his department that he possibly can.

She loves having her Daddy home to read to her

Snuggles with Daddy and Apollo

Trip to California Dreamin' on the water for Veterans Day

            I have been doing a lot of cooking this month.  I am making it a point to try out a bunch of new recipes and not skip a beat on cooking, even with being tired, because I know that I will have to take a cooking hiatus (at least for trying new things) for a while to adjust.  It has really brought a lot of joy and fulfillment for me to see how much Ben is enjoying all the new things we have made as well.  Unfortunately, with heightened smell and pregnancy aversions, it has been a bit harder to incorporate the ingredients we get from our CSA.  I have been giving away/throwing away many things simply because I can’t stand the smell and then we have been cooking them with a lot of butter to make them eatable for me. J  Sadly, I am thankful the CSA ends in a week, though I do plan to try again when I am not pregnant.

Homemade Pizza Pockets

Italian Chicken Pasta Bake

Pizza burgers, buttered cabbage, and homemade sweet potato fries

Homemade Chicken Gnocchi soup

Funfetti cupcakes from scratch

My best little helper!

            It think Alethea finally took a break in her physical growth this month (minus the fact her hair has become quite the poof, lol) and decided to work on her language skills a little bit.  Her stats at 21 months were 35.5inches tall (same as last month) and 26.2lbs (.2lbs more than last month, but still less than her 19 month stats).  She also gained a few canines this month.  All of them broke through this month and now she is up to 16 teeth total.  She was a trooper with them all and, other than chewing on her hands and maybe some appetite/BM changes (though that may have been due to the residual effects of roseola), we never really knew she was teething.  She still hasn't been eating great, but there has been much improvement in the latter part of the month and she at least gained a tiny bit of weight back.  A new fave we discovered this month is pancakes with real maple syrup.  She loves those pretty much any day of the week.

Looking so big at the lunch table

Love this look as she poses in her new Minnie shirt Grandma got her

            This month has definitely been the language revolution for our sweet little girl.  She is finally mimicking pretty much everything we say (in her own way) and she has developed quite the vocabulary.  Unfortunately I haven’t done a great job of writing down her words, but I have racked my brain to remember as many as I can.  She started saying A LOT this month!  She has says the names for three of her buddys: “molluh” for Molly, “Uh-lah” for Eli, “Reese”, and “uh-key/uh-tey” for Elise.  So fun to see her excited about seeing them!  She also loves to melt her Papaws heart by calling him and saying “paw-paw”.  It has the sweetest inflection and it is really the only grandparent name she says consistently (A LOT).  Other words: “chee-ya” cheerio or yogurt (not sure why, lol), “cheese”, “kah-ee” car, “seat”, “lah” light, “eat”, lots of L sounds for banana (not sure why on this one either), “ah-la-oo” I love you, “hummm” home, “pay” pray, “ah-mayne” amen, “hice” ice/ice cream, “yes!”, “poo-poo”, “peas” please, “kay” okay, “ah-mow” Elmo (never seen Elmo shows but we have lots of dollar store books with Elmo in it), “tee” teeth/tv/tree, “yuckeeee” yucky, “ha/bah da/ma” hi/bye dad/mom, “hallow” hello (loves to say this on her pretend phone, “dow-duh” sock, “nak” snack, “rowwwl” roll, “tchoo” two, “muh-muh” muffin, “ca-cake” pancake/cupcake, “bollow” bottle (as in her play bottles), etc.  I know I am forgetting some, but this was all I could remember.  It is so nice to have her speaking to communicate and now the challenge is just translation, lol.

Best Buds!

In the midst of saying Papaw

Some dinner babble and then the dogs barked...

I love how she says "hallow!"

            She still loves to read a bunch, and that has become a regular part of naptime and bedtime routines.  We have even moved onto some pretty wordy books at bedtime (like Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Paddington Bear, and more) and she will sit through them.  I have avoided TV with her for as long as possible, but she has developed quite the liking for cartoons of late and we let her have a treat while prepping lunch and sometimes while prepping dinner.  We usually just turn on whatever is on PBS at the time and, as long as it is cartoony (lots of Sid the Science Kid and Wild Kratz), she doesn't care.  I still try to limit it most days, but she really enjoys it so it makes for a nice transition activity some days. J

            This month she went on the potty for the first time ever.  it started when for the first time in at least 6 months while running around naked after bath, she peed on the carpet.  I screamed and scared her into stopping and Ben decided to pick her up and run her to the bathroom to pee and she did. Yay!  Sense then she has peed several times on the potty asking every time, except the one time she just went in during her naked after-bath time and climbed on the potty (no potty seat) and went all by herself, lol.  I was toying with jumping into potty training this month, but I want to make sure she is truly ready and the method we are going to use for potty training recommends waiting until 22 months if they aren’t waking up dry in the morning.  So that puts us in December starting, but we are going to wait until after our NY trip in January so we aren’t taking a newly potty trained kiddo on a plane. J  She still gets to go whenever she is interested and we will continue that fun/positive relationship with pottying, but no starting until after the New Year with the official training.

            One of my favorite things of late is seeing her empathetic and caring side come out.  She is always very aware of how everyone is doing around her and if she things someone or something is hurt she immediately asks “kay?”.  And then if she is in the position to, she offers kisses as a way of making things better.  So sweet!  I also love seeing her excitement over the Christmas tree.  When we turn it on at night she says “awwww…..lah….tee” (awe, light, tree) and has a blast playing in the room with the tree for a little bit and dancing to our Christmas pup and nativity music.  (quite the musical combo, lol)

Checkin' out the Christmas tree

My little fluff ball :-)

A little pre-bath goofy-ness, lol!

Snuggles for Basil

            I feel like I am leaving something out, but those are really all the big things I can remember.  The month has been filled with lots of outside time and relaxing for Alethea and I, and then enjoying whatever family time we can get with Ben.  God has been good to us yet again and we are looking forward to seeing what the next month has in store with Advent and the celebration of our Savior’s birth!

One last video of my dancing queen...she loves music and loves to dance!