15 months.

the past few months fin has been learning all sorts of new things. at 15 months she

*knows where to find her belly button, belly, nose, eyes, head, hair, ears, toes, teeth, mouth
*talks nonstop. some of her newest words are daw (draw), elmo, bi bir (big bird), abby, eree (ernie), memew (tomato and potato), tutoo (turtle), puppy, doggy, kitty, tatoo (towel), bise (bath), dace (grace), dew (drew), minnie, mi-ee (mickey), daddy, toot, poop, bup (burp), head
*loves to play with her baby. takes her for rides in the stroller, feeds her and loves on her
*is obsessed with elmo and most other characters on sesame street
*takes one nap a day. 12-1/2. it's hit or miss.
* sleeps 7:30-7
*is getting to be not such a picky eater again. looooves tomatoes, raspberries, peas, cheese
*is starting to use "please" appropriately. this makes it harder to tell her no.
*still loves to read. loves books about animals and likes to find bears in them.
*knows several animal sounds. moo, quack, sssss, meow, raaar,
*tries to "count" things on a page. basically points to everything and says "two two two"
*loves her water abby, takes a bath with her and gives her a bath. washes abby's hair and cleans her with a wash cloth
*drinks only whole milk and water
*tells us when she toots, burps or poops. she's such a lady

chattier.

holy smokes this girl loves to talk. it's like she doesn't even think about it, she just repeats it and it's in her skill set. some of her newest words:
bear
honey
ravioli is said strangely, but we definitely know what she's talking about
daddy
up
down (dow)
off/on (ow)
inside/outside (side)
elmo
abby (abdow, although she's saying abby more often now)
reas (ree)
ride has turned more into ride as opposed to ise
chick
sit
beans
cheese

personality.

this little girl gets cuter and cuter every day. who knew that was even possible?? she's such a little person now. her personality comes out in everything she does. now she pretends to feed her bear and baby, either putting food up to their mouths or her big plastic fork. she also likes to cover up her stuffed animals and tell them nigh-nigh.

another one of her favorites to carry around my lunch bag and put things in it. now we know to look in that bag if we're missing something. like i found my phone in there amongst many other things. she'll grab a bad and say "bye-bye!" or grab my keys ("keys keys keys") and head for the door.

fin also likes to take her stuffed animals for rides on her little truck.

she now calls herself "nene." it's awesome. sometimes when she does something she's not supposed to she'll say "oh nene." she'll say it all exasperated like i would. so while i'd like to be mad she's nibbling on the coffee table, i have to laugh...for now. it's also funny when she throws food and says "oh geez." she's getting to the point where she copies just about everything i say. clearly i say "oh geez" quite a bit. she's gonna turn me in!

eat.

erin likes to make fun of my first time mom-ness every once and a while. i think she forgets she too was like this with grace and is a little more lax the second time around.  one of her favorite things to pick on me about is how i feed fin. i'm not SUPER strict with what i feed her, but i do try to only feed her food that actually benefits her, not just fills her up. however, b and i don't really eat like this so some nights fin eats something different than us. for instance, the other night we were going to be having meat lovers pizza (look, i hadn't been to the store in a while). i'm not totally opposed to fin having pizza, she's definitely had it before, but that night i gave her falafel balls and green beans. so after she had her chickpea balls and steamed green beans (which she loves, by the way), we pigged out on pizza....that definitely had bacon on it. sometimes i'm too tired to care and she'll eat whatever we're having. i just figure i might as well keep feeding her the good stuff while she still likes it. i'm afraid once she tries the "bad" stuff she wont go back to the healthy stuff. the only time she's really had sweets was on her birthday and ever since then we can't eat cupcakes in front of her b/c she definitely knows what they are now. i don't give her juice b/c well, she likes milk and water. i make her crackers (i like to know what's in them, but of course she's had store bought ones), she eats quinoa mac and cheese AND regular mac and cheese, she eats organic and non-organic fruits and veggies and she's only had whipped cream once b/c grandpa was trying to win her over. so it's not that much work to feed her well, i'm not crazy control freak about it and she doesn't know any different. :)

chatty.

our girl is quite the chatty cathy. she tries to repeat just about everything she hears. i'm trying to remember everything she says, so here goes:

hi
bye (sometimes bu-bye)
ball
bubble (bu-bu)
mama
dada
llama (mama)
ride (ise) it's a strange word she says for ride, but we definitely know what she means
peas
please (peas)
eyes
more (mu)
baby
lamby (meme)
finley (nene)
minnie
ruby (be)
box (bo)
hot
bow
blow (bow)
bar
water (wawa)
snack (na)
nigh night (night night)
teeth (tee, says the same for toothbrush)
mine (luckily she doesn't know what it means really)
banana (nana)
milk (milk)

geez. when i put it in a list like that it looks like a ton! she is a determined little booger when it comes to talking. she'll stare at my mouth and try to say it herself. there are some other things she says quite a bit that we can't quite figure out the meaning of. it's so fun hearing her little voice and actually understanding (a little) what she's trying to tell us! no we need to get them all on video.

give.

i am determined to raise my kid(s) to be charitable, to think of others before themselves and to always give back. we're certainly not the richest people in the world (at least not monetarily), but we have everything we could possibly need/want. because of this it was important to me to make fin's birthday about giving. when i was thinking about how we were going to give i immediately thought of books. books are important for so many reasons and finley's already a bookworm so it made complete sense. as a teacher i saw kids that came from homes that didn't have books. homes where kids weren't read to. homes where books weren't important. it's a whole different world from what brandon and i are used to, but it exists.  i did some research and called the hospital where she was born. it was almost brand new when i had her there (they delivered their first baby there in feb) so i thought they might need some help building their library. when i called the woman in volunteer services was so grateful to be getting books. they have racks in the waiting rooms but no books. NONE. so while they don't have a children's hospital there, of course there are kids that come in with their families. hopefully the 61 books we donated will help keep kids entertained, happy, comforted, distracted, and maybe give them a little reading practice. you can take the girl out of teaching, but you can't take the teaching out of the girl. :)

we went last week to drop off the books and it was great. the woman met us downstairs and once again said how thankful she is. she took a few pictures and she should be e-mailing them to me. hopefully we can keep this going for birthdays. i know one day she's going to care about presents, i just hope she also cares giving back.

rainbow.

we had the best birthday celebration ever. for real. when fin was about 6 months old i saw a bunch of pictures of rainbow birthday parties and decided way back then that that is what i wanted to do. i collected ideas for a long time and then a few months ago i started working on making decorations and such. yes, a few months ago. look, i'm not a procrastinator. i don't like feeling rushed and i had a vision in my head that i wanted to execute. i'm proud to say all the food was homemade (with some help from erin!) and a lot of the decorations were homemade also. i made weekly trips to the dollar store and hobby lobby (luckily they're right next to each other) looking for sales and cheaper alternatives. i wanted her big day to be special, but definitely didn't want to break the bank. hence the homemade decorations. anyways, it turned out perfectly, not just because of the food and decor, but because we had all our family and good friends to celebrate with us.