Leah is 20 Months Old

I'm way behind in this post, but it's been a while since I did a post about what Leah is up to these days. Last week she turned 20 months old. Some of these pictures are from a while ago, but they are some fun random pictures of her.

Here's Leah getting her first hair cut from her aunt MoMo around Halloween time. My sister, Melyssa, is a professional. So there is no way that I would try cutting Leah's hair on my own as long as she's around. She does a great job cutting all the nieces and nephew's hair.

She only got her bangs cut, but didn't seem to mind it at all. Her hair is getting pretty long now and is so curly. She's pretty good about letting me do it and loves to have "pretties" (i.e., little clips) in her hair. I love having a little girl whose hair I can do all cute!

Our little girl is an eater! And not a slow one. I feel like I'm always telling her to slow down and chew her food instead of shoving huge bites into her mouth and swallowing it nearly whole. She eats all on her own now and only wants us to feed her if she's gotten down to the end of her food and can't get it on to her spoon or fork. These pictures are from a while ago, she's actually pretty good at getting all her food into her mouth now.

Leah's favorite foods are still cheese, cottage cheese, pasta/noodles, crackers and fruit. She doesn't like potatoes (unless they are french fries or tater tots) or rice. We've also noticed that she's not really a fan of white bread. We almost always have wheat bread, so I guess she's just more used to that.

Oh, and another funny thing that she likes is salad dressing. We often have salad with dinner and our dressings are usually the Italian or vinaigrette type. So she insists that we put a little bit on her plate and she will dip her food in it. Sometimes when she has some of my balsamic vinaigrette dressing, she'll make the funniest face like the flavor is too strong, but then she always goes back for more!

Look at this cheesy grin!

Leah loves music. When she's in her room she wants to hear the Sesame Street CDs. And she likes to hear the Primary songs CD that we have in our stereo. She also wants to hear the songs on my iPod. You know when she wants to hear it because she'll point to the music player and say "Singing." Last night at Ross's mom's house she even insisted that we turn on the music in her CD player. During Chirstmas time she showed Leah that it plays music and now she wants to hear it whenever we are there.

She also wants us to sing to her all the time. Right now her favorite songs include "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree," "The Insty-Wensty Spider," and "Once There Was a Snowman."

She still loves Sesame Street. She can name almost all the characters and even identify most of them just by their voice.

Right now she's really into "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." Her favorite characters are Mickey, Goofy, Pluto and Donald. I'm guessing they are her favorites because she'll get excited and say their names when she sees them. Here she is in one of her favorite pajamas. She's pointing to her Minnie Mouse.

Leah loves to go places. Sometimes when she can tell I'm leaving, she'll try to grab my hand and say "Coming." We've taken her to a few basketball games lately. Sometimes she does great, sometimes she's a real pain about sitting still for so long. So we've learned that if we really want to pay attention to the game, then we find her a babysitter.

Here she is with her beloved binky. She is so attached to her binkies. For so long she just called it "beeps" but in the last couple of weeks she's started to just call it binky. I try not to let her use it too much when she's playing during the day. But when she knows she wants it, she can be pretty stubborn and will say "Binky!" over and over again until she gets it.

Leah is a little monkey. She LOVES to climb. She'll even use her toys or plastic containers as step stools to get herself up to what she wants to reach. She also loves to go up and down the stairs now that she has figured out how to do it standing up.

One day I found her playing in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. She likes to empty it on a regular basis, but this day she had climbed into it and was using it to reach the counter. She's a thinker, this one is!

Here she is at one of the basketball games. We've taught her to say "Go Cougars!" She loves Cosmo. After a game we took her over by the victory bell where Cosmo was ringing it with some of the fans. She was so excited. And when we left she started crying and just said "cougar" over and over again.

With the help of BYU and Sesame Street she knows the letter Y really well. She even points it out when I have a letter Y somewhere on my shirt. She can also identify O, A (although she calls it "apple" instead of A) and sometimes Z.

Look at this face! What a funny kid!

Leah has started going to nursery at church. Although we have church at 1:00, which I've decided I hate. It is right in the middle of her nap time, so she's pretty tired and clingy when nursery time comes around. She does ok after I leave, but sneaking out when she's occupied with something else is always a challenge.

She really loves seeing pictures of Jesus and sometimes can get SO excited over them. She likes to look through our Book of Mormon reader looking for pictures of Jesus. And will even say "prophet" when she sees a picture of President Monson.

Leah likes going to church and knows many of the ward members by name and likes to point them out when she sees them. One of her favorites is one of the young men named Riley. He played with her during sacrament meeting once, so now he's her buddy. She likes to track him while he's passing the sacrament and say his name over and over again. One week when he was out of town she just kept saying "Riley?" over and over again all through the meeting. Here she is ready for church on Christmas morning.

Our little girl is a little parrot these days. She likes to repeat the last word of our sentences and seems to pick up a new word or phrase every day. Some of her favorite phrases right now are "I know" (meaning I don't know - used whenever we ask her where someone/something is) or "all gone" (her other answer to the aforementioned question). She also often says "I stuck" (which she actually pronounces more like "Ahhhh STUCK!). Her other new thing is to make a sad face and say "seepy" meaning that she's sleepy. However, she'll say that and then run circles around the house two minutes later so it's hard to take her too seriously.

Leah loves to play with computers, cell phones and iPods. She also loves toys that allow her to figure things out like puzzles. She also loves to play with anything that she can dump out and fill back up again - my purse is a particular favorite for this activity.

About a week ago I went to a funeral for my mom's uncle. He was buried in the same cemetery as Ross's dad. So I made sure I got a few pictures of Leah by her Grandpa Leslie's headstone. She loved playing with the little marbles that help hold the flowers in the vases.

One night I got out some of my old Elmo dolls. Leah had a blast playing with them even though most of their batteries are run down. She really liked this big Elmo, so I left him out so she could play with him some more.

Overall, Leah is a really good, happy little girl. Our biggest challenge with her still comes with her inability to sleep through the night. We keep hoping and praying that she will eventually figure it out. In the meantime, we'll keep loving this cute little girl to death!