17 months old

Our little firecracker is 17 months old now! The toddler stage is in full swing. Natalie is constantly into anything and everything. It is quite a challenge to try and keep up with her these days. It is becoming almost impossible to get a picture of her these days (you have no idea how many of the ones I try to take end up being of the back of her head or the side of her or her on the ground since she is CONSTANTLY in motion) She loves to run in the yard & down the halls. She can kick and roll a ball. She can climb up onto the ottoman and can get herself down from the couch and our bed (which is pretty high up so we watch her closely).

Natalie absolutely loves the pool and we have been working on some basic baby level swimming skills with her from the book Learn to Swim. Ryan really enjoys working with her and she is learning to jump in from a seated position and also to hold her breath while being submerged.





She enjoys coloring and playing with play-doh (which isn't allowed very often but when; it is under direct supervision). She has learned to blow kisses and holds her hand up to her mouth and blows kisses to most anyone or anything (haha) without prompting. She recognizes the sound of a plane and stops what she is doing to yell out "plane, plane" if she hears one (even while indoors and busy playing or eating). Natalie now recognizes hot (hot food, hot water, etc) and will tell us when something is hot. She blows on her food if it is too hot. So cute!

She is also putting two words together and says things like "read book" and "see car" and "hey mo-mo" (elmo). She has learned some new signs in the past month from the Signing Time DVDs: hat, sleep, fish, wash hands, and ball. She cut five new teeth in the past month (three of which were molars).




****Also, I finally got around to snagging my Mom's pics from her Picasa album to finish this post that I started back in June so please check it out b/c it has the CUTEST pics of Natalie getting dunked in the pool.