Just the 4 of Us: 14 Months

Our sweet Makaela is 14 months now!! And actually, as I type this, she is closer to 15 months than 14 months. That seems just crazy to me. The past month, a few fun things have happened. The most fun thing is actually for Mom and Dad and that is that we moved Makaela's little cubby-hole shelves of toys into her room. And now instead of having to always pick up all her toys for when company comes or when piano/voice students come, we don't have to worry about it!! It's so wonderful! Especially since her way of "playing" with her toys right now is to take them all out and leave them on the floor. :)

Recently (within the past week) she has started to stand a lot more voluntarily! She even tried to take a few steps toward mama!! So, now, I seriously think she will be walking soon. Before, we were coercing her to stand by having her stand then putting something into her hand to distract her, but now she will just let go of furniture and stand or let go of us when we move and stand. She is a smart girl though and she probably also realizes that the quickest way for her to get anywhere right now is to crawl since she does that at turbo speed. :) But, I'm sure before too long she will be walking...maybe even before our trip down to California!!

Last night, she gave herself her first BIG goose-egg! Oh my it was huge! She plays around and crawls all over and climbs all over anything and everything on the couch. She is also very good at getting down from the couch...always going feet first. Last night we were all sitting up on the couch and i got up to move all the laundry that was folded to the laundry basket to be put away. Before I knew it, I heard this thud right next to me and a little shriek, followed by that "silent crying" before the really loud scream. I don't know what she was thinking, but she dove head first off the couch right into the corner of our ottoman. Thankfully our ottoman is one of those leather storage ottomans so it wasn't hard wood that she hit, but she did still nail the corner. I saw the little dent in her forehead and before long it was the giant goose-egg. She was such a strong girl though....only the one really loud scream after the "silent cry" and then she calmed down. She even laid still while mama and dada held her to put ice on it. Today, its a little less large, and a bit more colorful :) But she isn't bothered by it at all.

She is still communicating with us A LOT! She asks questions about what everything is by pointing and saying "a-dah?" Every morning when she wakes up she says "a-dah?" and uses her sign language to tell us she wants her milk. Just this morning I made the connection that she reminds me of the seagulls from Finding Nemo saying "mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine" as she says "a-dah, a-dah, a-dah, a-dah, a-dah" repeatedly (even with the same inflection as the seagulls!!) until we acknowledge what she wants or is pointing at. This morning it was her sippy cup she could see on the counter :) She looks at pictures of all of us and says "dada" and sometimes will even point to him in the picture. She also loves to look at pictures of herself (so vain, I know :)). She will pull down her little photo album and just look through all of the pictures of herself.

She continues to learn new things everyday and is just a bundle of joy and fun!! Here are a few pictures from the last month, lots from her high chair. I suppose that's the place she is most confined which makes it a little easier to snap some shots :) Enjoy!!