Tyler State Park

We were going to camp at Tyler State Park at the end of January, but the weather turned out to be cold and wet.  Jason still planned on running a trail race, so the girls and I dropped him off and headed to Dallas for Evelyn's birthday party instead.

But, we did manage to get in one quick hike before we left.

    

Mabel's Twenty-one Months Old

Stats: No official stats this month.  Still wearing 18 month clothes.

She's up to 12 teeth.  The molars all came in at the same time.

Sleep: No big changes to sleep.  Goes to sleep between 6 and 7 pm and wakes up anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30.  She tends to wake up earlier when Matilda and I have school and work.  I think she wants to hang out with us before we leave.  Still takes a decent afternoon nap.  She went through a phase where she was crying when we'd put her down, but we started singing a song to her while rocking for just a few minutes before we leave, and that seems to help.

She doesn't really sleep well in the car on trips.   One funny thing she does when she's tired though, is to just lay down wherever she's at.  Doesn't matter if it's at home, outside, in the middle of playing with toys, at a friends house, etc.  She just plops herself down for a little rest.  It's really funny.

Eat: She's becoming more and more of a picky eater.  Depending on the day at her mood, she may eat eggs, little sausages, waffles/ pancakes, cereal/ oatmeal, yogurt, apple sauce, pasta (maybe mac-n-cheese and maybe with marinara sauce), rice, fruit, and carrots.  Sometimes she hates all of that though. She also doesn't seem to like her food mixed or touching each other.

She still does a decent job drinking whole milk and she recently started drinking from an open cup.

Play/ Milestones: The first major change we noticed after she hit 18 months was the start of some pretty serious tantrums.  The first one we can remember was at Matilda's school fall festival.  We wouldn't let her go in the bounce house with all of the wild, crazy big kids and she just exploded.  She was so upset her legs stopped working and she just lied flat on her back on the ground crying.  We were like, "ok, I guess this [tantrums] happens now."

Matilda always had a bit of an intense personality, so her tantrums just weren't as stark as Mabel's seem.  I think it's the big contrast to her normal easy going personality.

Recently, she's started saying "no".  It's been her favorite word for a few weeks.  She can also be a bit firm (pushy) with her big sister and we have to correct her.

Mabel's favorite things continue to be dancing, dogs, and baths.  The book Go Dog Go is a hit.

Oh, she also LOVES shoes.  She wears everyone shoes, especially Matilda's.  She also has a pair of rain boots she loves to clop around the house in.  We just bought a pair of tap shoes for Matilda's dance class, and we had to hide them from Mabel. 

She's still a bit behind on words.  She says Momma, Dad, Tilda, Grandma, Nonna, dog, up, sit, hot, banana (nana), no, yay, ni-night, bye, moo, knock, thank you, uh oh, cheese (for taking a picture) and shoe.  

She's still pretty physical.  She likes to summersault and we signed her up for classes at Little Gym this spring.  She's gone twice now and Jason says she has a lot of fun.

She also goes to the child care at the gym and at church.  Sometimes she gets sad at drop off, but she generally does okay.

She's still just an incredibly sweet and funny child.  She gives the sweetest hugs and loves making you laugh (like playing peek a boo or making cheesy faces).  She also does this supper sweet thing when she watches TV... she gasps and makes excited noises.  And she dances every time a song comes on.  It's adorable.

Christmas Celebrations

We started getting excited for Christmas just after Halloween.  We'd listen to Christmas music on the way to Matilda's school every morning.

A few weeks before Christmas, Matilda and I had a special weekend for just us.  I had a gift card to a nail salon, so she and I went and got our nails done.  Then we went and watched the Nutcracker ballet downtown.  

A few weekends later, we had our church's children's candlelight service.  The girls got all dolled up in their Christmas dresses.

Matilda was an angel in the pageant this year.  Mabel dressed up too, but didn't go up to the front.

It's always my favorite service of the year.

For the holidays, we went to visit family.  We celebrated Christmas Eve at Jason's parents.

Mabel had been having a tough afternoon (I think she was tired), but she perked up once we started opening presents.

Matilda had a great time, as always.

And Mabel got really into it too.

   

We opened presents at my parent's house Christmas morning.

It was a bit chaotic with five kids under 8, but they all had a great time.

The only hiccup of the entire trip was Mabel got an ear infection and screamed all night one night.  (Above picture is us, exhausted, at the Urgent Care the next morning.)  Otherwise, it was a great holiday!