Heather 18 months

Wow! It seems a lot has happened in the past few months! I think her baby facial features have started to disappear and she is starting to look like a toddler. I just compared her 15 month pics to her 18 month pics and there is a noticeable "grown up" appearance now.
 

15 months

18 months

She has had a growth spurt and her hair has lengthened and lightened in color. She has also grown some more teeth. She now has a total of 12 teeth including her 1st four molars. Heather weighs 21lbs and is 32 inches tall. She wears 18 month clothes, size 5 1/2 shoe, and wears size 4 diapers. She helps me undress her by taking off her socks. She helps me brush her teeth, but mostly just likes to lick the toothpaste.

As you can tell by the pictures, she is my silly girl. She always loves to laugh and try to make you smile. She is always doing silly things like putting baskets on her head, bending in half to look at you upside down, and making funny noises. She is very athletic. She can tumble, run, jump on the trampoline, and hang with her own weight on a bar. She loves for you to pull her up by her arms as she monkey walks up with her legs then she flips over while you hold onto her arms. She can do a wall hand stand with assistance. We have been going to a few gymnastics play times and the instructor is impressed with her strength for her age. I'm thinking about signing her up for gymnastics this summer.

She is also learning new words daily. She knows how to say everyone's name in our immediate and extended family. She loves to say, "Where Brooke?", when Brooke is not in the room and then go and look for her. She can moo like a cow, roar like a tiger/bear/lion, meow like a cat, woof like a dog, oink (or snort rather) like a pig, hiss like a snake, and bak like a chicken. She can say milk, which sounds more like a meow. I need to get these on video. I can't remember all the words she knows because it is changing everyday. Mommy, Daddy, Brooke, cat, Sam, shoe, cheese, egg, bath, teeth, hands, cup, seat, down, up, just to name a few words.

She loves to play with her baby dolls by feeding them, changing a poopy diaper, rocking them, and walking them in a stroller. She loves to play chase, hide-n-seek, paint/color, dig, ride toys, stack blocks, play with little people. She is getting better about sitting still in my lap to read a story. She trys to do anything Brooke does. She always wants to be in the action and gets her feeling hurt easily if she is not.

She can say/point to her nose, mouth, eyes, ears, hair, cheeks, belly, hands, fingers, knees, feet, and toes.

She is very friendly to everyone and loves to say "HI!" It is such a joy to see her develop and I look forward to many more years!

Easter 2012

We hope that all our family and friends had a blessed Easter! Except for Ryan being on call, it was a great Easter for our family.

Brooke and Heather had a great time hunting for Easter eggs this year. It took Heather a couple of hunts to finally get the idea. At first, she would pick up an egg and immediately want to open it, instead of hunting for other eggs. It is so much fun to participate in these kinds of activities.

On Easter we ate lunch with Ryan's family at his Aunt Dona's house, after attending our church Easter service. Then we took a nice long nap at home. Me and the girls headed to my parents house to celebrate Easter dinner with them. It was a great day and reminder of what Jesus did for us.  

Here are some pictures from Brooke's Easter party at school and the Wildwood Easter egg hunt.

Brooke and her class mates

Brooke enjoying a treat at her class party

Brooke hunting with her class mates

Can we go hunting already?

Cousins with  the Easter bunny

Heather hunting

       

 The Loot

The Easter bunny left behind some goodies

Checking out what the Easter bunny brought

Skiing

Ryan and I took a skiing trip to Big Sky, Montana this year. We went all by ourselves, which I think is a first for us. Normally, we tag along with Ryan's parents. The girls stayed with grandparents while we were gone. I was actually a little nervous about this trip because I always think I'm holding Ryan back by waiting on me and not wanting to ski blacks or double blacks. So, I was worried if this would actually be an enjoyable ski trip.

After arriving at our ski in/ski out condo, we quickly realized it was not really a ski in/ski out condo. Not even in the best of conditions. You have to walk up their steep driveway and then cross the street to get to the trail. We got a really good price on the condo, so we decided to not complain. The owners just rented out the basement of their house. It was really nice and cozy and had all the amenities of home including a washer/dryer. We ended up driving to the main base area to park and ski everyday.

The first day of skiing was nice. It was definitely spring skiing and at the base area the snow was slushy. We explored all over the mountain. Ryan even convinced me to go down a bowl, which was a black, but I figured I could traverse the whole thing down if I was scared. I made it down, but it wasn't pretty. After two more runs of that trail, he decided he wanted to try some runs off this other lift. Unbeknownst to me it only serviced blacks and double blacks. Upon quickly figuring this out, I waited at the bottom while Ryan rode to the top. Ryan said it was a good thing I didn't follow him. After the lift got to the top of the peak there was only room for about 3 skiers and they were surrounded by 4-5ft snow drifts and there was only one way out, which was a hole poked through the snow. After jumping through this hole there was a 5ft drop off. Not my cup of tea, so I am very glad I didn't go up because that probably would have been my last run of the trip!

The next day of skiing was probably our best day. It actually started out raining and was pretty slushy, but you could cut right through the slush and there was no ice. We have an app on our phones that is called ski tracks. It keeps track of your speed, distance, and altitude and subtracts the lift rides. We skied nearly 16,000 vertical feet in 5.5hrs on our second day. I think that is pretty awesome!

Our last day of skiing was the coldest and they actually got about 6" of snow the night before, so we thought it would be ideal conditions. And it might have been had the previous few days not been so warm. We quickly discovered it was like cutting through powder to find slippery ice. We found our way to a few groomed runs and stuck with those until everyone else figured out that was the only ski-able terrain. We decided to call it a day after lunch. Since we were so close to Yellowstone (within 45 minutes) we decided to check out what that had to offer. Yellowstone was still closed for the winter season, but there was a neat bear/wolf discovery center that was just outside of the park. It was a really neat place to visit. They take care of nuisance bears that have been accustomed to eating human food. They also have two wolf packs and some birds. We got to see some bears feeding. The two we saw were from Alaska and were their largest grizzly bears.
It turned out to be a really nice day and I'm glad we got to visit the Grizzly discovery center.
The next day we traveled back home. It was nice and relaxing not to have to worry about getting kids ready in the morning and planning around nap/bed times. I had a great time, but I was ready to see my girls!

Sleeping wolf

The bears trying to find their snack