Eliana turned 18 months old and Happy Easter!!

First of all I will have to just say...Happy Easter!! Our Easter was fairly unorthodox. We missed the bus for church. There was a lot of grumpy shenanigans all around...and I have no idea what is going on with my hair, lol. I seriously never wear my hair parted down the middle like this. Oh well, the point is we were altogether for in a picture for  Easter.

It has been a couple months since I have done an update post! One is due for Parker too. So much has changed with both of these kiddos. 

Eliana's 18 month stats

Weight: 20.5lbs (< 5th percentile) 

 Height:  31.5" long (25th-50th percentile) 

Clothing size: Wears 18-24 month clothing and some 2T

  Shoe size: 5/6

Eliana's vocabulary has grown SO much since my last post. Amazing how fast she picks things up. I remember Parker being a lot quieter at this age and Parker used sign language more and knew more signs then Eliana. She has had an easier time with her words, that she has pretty much stopped using signing for communicating with us. She still does sign please, more, and change.

I find it so cute when little ones are first learning their words. I hope one day I can make a book for each of the kids with some of my blog posts. I love re-reading the posts I wrote for Parker and seeing how different the two were at the same ages.

Some cute words Eliana says:

Grandpa                                        owie

bye bye                                          cheese

I uv oo (I love you)                        eww

juice                                                stinky

popcorn                                          yucky

Elsa                                                pee pee      

Olaf                                                tubby (bath)

please                                             happy

sorry                                               ball

scary                                               cracker

mine                                                baby

bo (which is her way of saying, "no") backpack

outside

shoes

As you can see from the above picture, Eliana is such a happy, fun loving and silly little girl. She loves to sing at the top of her lungs when she hears a song she knows. She finds ways of making us laugh, all-the-time! The combination of Parker and Eliana together, makes for a lot of fun times. Together they are both so funny. 

Though Eliana is very funny and goofy, she is very sensitive. If we tell her, "no" she will break down and cry. It's so sad. Nearly, the exact opposite of how Parker would respond to, "no." For Parker, it was a challenge and for Eliana, it's the end of the world.

 

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Eliana just cut 4 more teeth. 2 are barely poking out of the gums as of today. She now has a grand total of 16 teeth!

Eliana is getting better at eating. She will only eat a few bites of her breakfast and lunch(sometimes she refuses to even eat breakfast,) but she does have a fairly good appetite by dinner.

She is still nursing, a lot. All day and at night. Obviously, this has a lot to do with her not eating enough food. It's not for lack of trying to get her to eat. If she's not going to eat, at least she is getting her calories and nutrition from nursing. She is only nursing once at night, but during the day it's quite often.  I don't remember Parker nursing so much at this same age, but after a certain time I stopped blogging about it so I'm not really sure. We are letting Eliana self-wean. We did the same thing with Parker and he ended up stopping a couple months before his 2nd birthday. We are hoping for the same timeframe with Eliana. 

Eliana knows and can say a lot of the parts of her body. She will point and say where her eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, tongue, chin, armpit, belly, toes, hands, hair and butt. I didn't get them all in a video I took of her, but she did a lot of these. Her little voice is so cute to hear.


Eliana isn't officially "potty training," but she does understanding sitting on the potty. She knows you pee-pee in the potty. She will take off her diaper and sit on the potty, but she doesn't ever go. Anytime I'm in the bathroom she HAS to go in there and also sit down and "potty." Nolan and I have never been the type to push any of the kiddos to potty train. We will talk to them about it and tell them what it means to potty. We are very open with bathroom talk. When we see that they have a good understanding of the concept, we start to work consistently with them to potty train. They see daddy and I go potty and learn that the potty didn't eat us and it seems to help them not fear the potty. We let Eliana flush the toilet, when needed, so they aren't afraid of the sound. We did the same with Parker, so I think that has a lot to do with why Parker's potty training went so easily?? Vanessa was very easy potty train also.  Again, I can only hope Eliana is the same way. 

Eliana loves:

-playing hide and seek with Parker and Vanessa...one of her favorites. She runs around cracking up the whole time. Doesn't really ever hide. 

-pretending she is a kitty. She will crawl around the house, meowing. 

-going to the park. She LOVES the slides. She will climb up the stairs and slide down all on her own. Though she is still terrified of the swings. 

-playtime with daddy. She might always seem to want mommy, but honestly she is a daddy's girl. So cute when she calls for him. She loves talking to him on the phone when he's at work before her nap. 

-baby dolls. She loves baby dolls. She walks around the house with no less than 2 dolls at a time. She has about 6 dolls and loves them all the same. 

-her red Fisher Price car she received at Christmas. She sits and plays in that car all the time.

-craft time with big brother. We do a lot of preschool crafts for Parker. Helping him to learn weather, time, letters etc. and it's one of Eliana's favorite times of the day.
-loves to cuddle mommy. She will stop everything she is doing to lay in my lap when I go to sit down. 

Eliana doesn't like:

-to sleep in her own bed. To be honest, we aren't really pushing her a whole lot. I love to cuddle my little miss. It will be nice to one day have our bed to ourselves, but for now I'm okay with our sleeping arrangements. Having a 14 year old really puts in perspective just how fast these kiddos grow up. We do have the kids' room all set up for both of them to share the room. We separated the bunk beds and we decorated the room for each of the kids. Parker's side is firetrucks and misc. vehicles and Eliana's is just random cute girly things.
-swings at the park.
-to wear clothing. Unless we are going outside, she takes off everything I put on her. Most times she will leave on her diaper.

I can't believe how big she is getting...so fast too. It's amazing that we are in our second Spring and heading into our second summer here in Montreal. With all that went on last year, in went by so fast.

Here's to another amazing, wonderful and happy month...happy 18 months my little miss :) We love you so very much.