Guess Who's 18 Months Old?

She's already a year and a half and quite the little personality around these parts.  Her unofficial numbers are as follows: 30.75" tall and 23.5 lbs

She tries to talk and recently has added words like "fire truck", "light", "cracker" and "cake" (for rice cake).  People outside her family might not know what she's saying, but we understand her and she makes sure she gets her point across.  She's also started nodding her head sideways for no and her whole body up and down for yes.  She signs please, thank you, I'm sorry, food, more, all done, wash hands, help, and a few others that I am blanking on.  Like her brother at this age, she definitely understands a lot and is fairly effective at communicating what she wants.  Hearing an answer of "no" does NOT go over well at all, however.  Oh. my.

She loves helping with the laundry and will happily put clothes in the washer or move them to the dryer for me.  She also tries to vacuum, but our vacuum is a little heavy.  If anyone wants to invent an actual kid sized vacuum that really works, I know about 8 people who would buy one!  She enjoys sleeping with her blanket crocheted by her Auntie D. and her Daddy's care bear, Tenderheart.

Her favorite toys right now are musical instruments, playing "kitchen" and "grocery store" with her brother and dressing up in whatever she can find.  She also loves trucks and construction vehicles.  She enjoys dancing to music and loves watching for and waiving to Susan, our mail carrier.

However, my most favorite thing that she absolutely loves to do is read.  Anytime you ask her, "LadyBear, do you want to read a book?"  She will come back with several and continue to ask you to read even when you've read a ton of books (or the same one over and over) and think you are all done.  The girl can not get enough and I love it.  I try to say yes to reading whenever she asks, though that's not always possible.  She's starting to learn though that there are some books LittleBear can read to her and she'll ask him if I say I can't do it.   I think we might be starting "Before Five In A Row" with her this fall, like we did with LittleBear around this time.

She's quite the ham, and we love it!!  Happy half birthday, LadyBear!