Jane at 14 Months

Some notes about Jane at 14 months old:

• Walks everywhere now.  She picked it up a few weeks ago and now she's pretty steady.  I can't  believe we have a toddler.  
• Loves to stack blocks end on end and can get her towers up to 4 blocks high.  She claps for herself after each successfully placed block.  
• Still loves stuffed animals.  Her bunny, Buster, is by far her favorite, but this pig gets some hugs now and then too.
• Doesn't say much yet or even try and repeat back anything we say.  It seems that "mama" and "dada" work just fine for her.  She knows what they mean, but just likes to chant them over and over as she walks around.
• Loves finding belly buttons (mom's, dad's or her own) but won't do it on command.  
• Knows where your nose is, but again, won't ever perform for us.
• has 5 teeth.
• knows that we keep snacks in the diaper bag and often unloads everything in the bag and brings any food to me to open.
• Loves bath time, but only wants to walk around in the water.  She won't sit anymore.
• bounces aggressively in her jolly jumper and then leans her head back and looks up while she twirls until the rope is nicely twisted and then releases.
• LOVES to watch TV.  She definitely prefers kid shows, but she'll sit happily beside dad on the couch and watch football with him too.  She watches Bubble Guppies every once in a while and thinks the opening song is pretty funny.  If I put Fantastic Mr. Fox on, she'll watch almost the entire movie leaning forward, eyes glued to the TV, and mouth hanging open a little.  It's a little scary.
• Prefers dad when he gets home (which is wonderful since I'm about out of energy by that time of day).  She makes him walk up and down the stairs with her, pushes him around on the floor (he rolls over when she pushes and she giggles), and goes and gets books for him to read to her.  

She makes us laugh all the time as we see more and more personality come out.  She's still just a dream child to us.  She makes excited noises randomly all day long and comes and hugs our legs.  She rarely gets into things she shouldn't.  In the kitchen she seems to know which cupboards and drawers are fair game for her, she doesn't throw anything in the toilet or unroll the toilet paper...  She doesn't even put up a fight when it comes time to go to bed.  It feels like a magically time and we're trying to appreciate every minute of it since this next little guy or future Jane could completely rock our world.  Right now, anyway, things are really good.

October

 

 

I LOVE October!  Pumpkins and candy, corn mazes and colorful leaves, football and fall shows, and maybe most of all... costumes.  I start stressing about costumes around mid August.  I don't do anything about it until mid October, but it's always in the back of my mind as we try and figure out what we're going to be.  We talked about a lot of ideas, but being big and pregnant is really limiting.  Chris finally  said we should just pick one and go all in.  We decided on the Frankenstein family.  Chris likes classic Halloween characters and LOVES makeup.  He was pretty excited when we bought his prosthetic forehead and neck bolts.  Even better, he got to use his "death pallet" and "rotting flesh" makeup from his Zombie days.  Chris' costume came together quickly.  We found some big clompy shoes at DI and he already had the tattered blazer and pants.  His 80's mullet wig turned out to be PERFECT for this costume. (He still considers it one of his greatest purchases.)
We found a simple white dress for Jane at DI and the tattered arm bandages were easy enough, but the tricky part was her hair.  I decided to make her a yarn wig by tying bunches of it to a baby hat.  Then I slipped it over a pumpkin and began styling it with scissors, a glue gun, and some fabric stiffener spray.  I was pleased with how it turned out, but since she won't even wear a bow these days, I had little hope that she would even wear it.  She surprised us and tolerated it most of the two nights we wore these costumes.  
I already had a white sheet in my costume box from an old toga party, so I sewed it into a simple tunic-style dress for me.  Getting the hair up was the key to this costume.  Thank goodness I have a crimper and a three barrel curling iron for just such an occasion.  Using "second-day hair"  I made it as frizzy as possible and wrapped a chunk around a small baby cup at my crown.  Then I just teased the heck out of it and pinned pieces up locking it in place with some hairspray.  Chris then helped me spray it black and white on the sides.  Once up, it was actually quite light and secure.  I could have worn it all day like that.  Getting it all out was another story.
Chris and Jane really stole the show.  People could hardly tell who he was, and let's face it, you put any costume on a 1-year-old and they look absolutely adorable.  It was a lot of work this year, but so fun. Yes, we sure do love Halloween.

 A profile shot.