18 months of Mac

MacKenzie,

Tomorrow you are 18 months old...a whole year and a half! I cannot believe 18 months have already passed. To me, 18 months seems very old, you are past the baby stage and definitely a toddler. It seems like just yesterday you were keeping mommy up at night like sister does.

In the past month you have gotten very snuggly. You like to sit in our laps more, to cuddle up with us on the couch, and you love being held by anyone and everyone. Seriously, we go to functions and get togethers and you walk around to everyone holding your arms up in the air asking to be picked up. You are not shy or bashful and it is a good thing you are so cute otherwise people would probably ignore you!!! You love to give Mommy, Daddy, and Keegan kisses and hugs. Mommy randomly asked you "Who do you love the most?" the other day and you responded with a very enthusiastic "MaMa". It made me happy! Since that went over so well I am trying to teach you to respond "dada" when I ask "Who do you have wrapped around your little finger?". Needless to say, Daddy is not very happy about that! In all fairness I tried to get you to respond Dada when I ask "Who is your favorite person in the whole wide world?", but you decided Henry (En-nee) and Avah (Vah-Vah) were your favorites!

You love your stuffed puppys still and will make the stuffed Rudolph "fly" whenever he is talking. You have enjoyed playing with blocks more and more and enjoy when you and Daddy sit on the ground to make towers and knock them over. You play with your toy food, but less with the actual kitchen and will carry around the strawberry and the ice cream. Like most kids your age, you love push toys that you can push around and crash around the room. Bubbles and coloring are favorite activities too. Your favorite books are "Bear Snores On", the elmo and big bird books Dee got you, and the teeny Bible story books that are in the box. You will have us read book after book to you on the couch which makes Mommy's life easier when nursing Keegan.

You still call your sister "Nee-nee-nah" and call yourself "Tinsey". When you say Keegan's name you always bounce as you say it. Very cute! You have learned what a dolphin, whale, and shark say in the past month, but we have mainly been focusing on learning letters and colors. You can usually pick out which block is red, blue, yellow, purple, green, or orange and you can identify about half of your upper case letters. I need to teach you the signs for all of these as it will be easier for you to respond that way. The only letters you will say are O and S, but you can identify many more than that. We marvel at all of the things you will identify and retain from us reading you your books, you are so smart. The other day we were driving down the road and you saw an 18 wheeler truck and you started to make the honking motion and said honk honk. It is so cool to see you transfer things we ask or show you in books to the real world. Of course your favorite new words are "uh-oh" and "wow". Funny that you haven't picked these words up until now, but you say them like a grownup! It is so cute.

You are eating well still and it's hard to tell what you don't like and what you just don't feel like having at the time. You decided you really like lettuce salad recently, but I think that is mainly because of the dressing. You also have a deep fondness for peas and steamed broccoli which makes Mommy happy. She rather enjoys veggies too and is glad she doesn't have to fight you on eating them. You love oatmeal or eggs for breakfast which makes for a great start to our day. You still love milk and will pass up ice cream at Chick Fil A if you have milk in your cup to drink. In fact, you will eat a little bit of sweet, but most of the time will take a bite or two and be done. You have been doing amazing eating with a fork or spoon and while you still use your hands will try and succeed often with eating utensils. We have to be careful not to cut your food up to small because you want to be grownup like us and eat what we are eating. You love to dip food into any sort of sauce which is an easy way to get you to eat. We recently gave you rigatoni noodles to dip in pasta sauce and you put your fingers into the tube of pasta and ate it that way.

This past month we have had multiple play dates, had lunch with grandparents and great grandparents, went to Mommy's family reunion, had an Easter Egg hunt, made bags for the homeless people, played on the park (you climb up the slide to the top of the play structure), and in general enjoyed each others company. You are a good little girl and you make us smile regularly. We love you and everything about you. We know you are a gift to us from God and feel blessed with your presence in our lives.

Love you always!
Mommy and Daddy