Addison - the 18 Month Old!

Whoops! Where has the time went? I was a bad mommy blogger and didn't update Addison's 17th month. It fell the week we were moving, so I just didn't have time. And, well, the days kept slipping past me and before I knew it, we were closer to her 18-month birthday, so I decided to just wait to give a nice big update for her 18th month - which is a milestone all on its own!

A New Nest

We have been in our new home for almost a month now. The time has gone quickly and we have been very busy unpacking and settling in. To our enjoyment, Addison had no problems adjusting. She was here a few times before we moved here, when I would stop by and drop off a few boxes in the morning. So she would enjoy running in circles and climbing the stairs. I would ask her "do you like your new home?" and she'd nod. I'm not sure if she actually understood me, but the answer was correct!

She loves running laps down the hall, round into the kitchen, then back through the living room. The best part for all of us with the new digs, is that since the kitchen has a HUGE dinette area, we do not have use for the dining room that is connected to the living room. So that is Addison's play area. This way, she's still right by us when she plays and we're watching TV, but her toys no longer take over the entire living room floor! She has some big Christmas gifts coming from Santa, so we will get great use out of that space!
Addison has had no problems sleeping in her new room. It is a little smaller and the walls are just blah white instead of the green/brown in her old room. We hung her pictures up last night finally, so it brought a little warmth into her room. But now, she doesn't spend as much time in there. We are usually downstairs, or when upstairs she likes climbing up on our bed or chair and watching TV.
Addison has had a lot of time to get used to her new house because for the first 2 weeks, Auntie Lorie had pneumonia so she couldn't watch Addison. Tim took a couple days off, as did I - and then between Grandma Simon coming down for a few days to babysit and taking her over to Grandma G's for John to watch her - we covered the 2 weeks off. Then, this past Thanksgiving week, Auntie Lorie and family were off to NYC, so I already had PTO days scheduled off, so we were home this whole week too! So, in the end it actually worked out well to really solidify the home change for Addison.
Even though the warm weather outside play days are over, I am looking forward to taking Addison out into our little backyard to play in the snow this year!

These are a few of her favorite things
TV Shows
Addison still loves her "Melmo!" and we watch Sesame Street almost every day. Her likes have expanded outside of just "Elmo's World", though - and she now knows how to laugh like Ernie and count (laugh) like the Count. It is pretty funny to hear her mimic their laughs! Oh, and the way she tries to sing "la-la lala, la-la lala Elmo's World" is adorable! It's basically just "lalalalalallalala", but we know what she means!
She also really like "Cat in the Hat" on PBS as well, and calls it "Go-Go-Go" from the song they sing in every episode. She associates and watches this show more with Daddy.
The past couple weeks, however, her favorite show has been "Mick!" as in "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" on Disney channel. She squeals with delight everytime Mickey walks onto the screen. She has also started saying "Duck" for Donald and Daisy Duck. It sounds the same when they sing the "Hot Dog" song at the end of every episode - Addison will hop around saying "Dog, Dog, Dog"

Toys
In her Toddler Time play class (which ended last week), Addison was a big fan of shooting hoops. That has transferred to home play as well. She has a few small balls and one volleyball-sized one she likes to toss around and chase after. Yes, at times we do play "fetch" with our kid :)
Several weeks ago, we got her the hokey-pokey Elmo doll that she loves, then when we were up in Milwaukee for Halloween, the Vogels were nice enough to give us their extra E-L-M-O doll. Addison loves them both, but now she won't just play with one. If one Elmo is going off, she runs and gets the other one so they stand next to each other doing their song & dance. She's in Elmo heaven!
She still enjoys her push toys and building blocks/legos.
I'm not sure when this started, it doesn't look like I wrote about in previous blog entires, but Addison LOVES the Geico "little piggy" commercial. Thank God for YouTube as we have used it to watch the commercial about 300 times with her. She loves it so much that when we ask "what does a little piggy say?" her answer is "WEEEEE!!!!!" And she's got the sound down pat! Everytime she sees a piggy anywhere, she points and says "WEE WEE!!!" It's hilarious!
Our 16yr-old kitty Pebbles seems to be on another life here in the new house. She used to sleep about 23 hours a day, but now she is out and about, exploring and romping around with toys. Addison always liked her kitties, but now that she sees Pebbles in this new light, she has been obsessed and runs up to her with arms out saying "hug! hug! hug!" Pebbles has been very tame and usually just sits there and lets Addison pet her and point at her screeching "KITTY!!!!"

Chatty Addie!
It seems like Addison learns a new word everyday. I'm sure I will miss a ton, but here are some of her "new words" in the past 2 months:
-juice
-mick (mickey mouse)
-duck
-two (she doesn't say one, but if you start to count, she will join in at 'two' - the other day she almost said 'three'!!)
-shoe
-bite
-eat
-yuck
-potty
-poop (yes, we are slowly introducing her to toilet training)
-ah-choo
-out
-ham
-hand (when she wants to wash her hands, which she likes to do a lot!)
-belly
-hot (she also knows how to blow on her food when it's hot!_
-bubbles
-Pebbles
-please (I've gotten her to repeat it a handful of times, gotta keep workin' on it!)
-cookie
-apple
-cold
-book

-gobble, gobble

-grandma (she's repeated it a handful of times, knows what it means and has said it on her own a few times - gotta keep working on it for the Grandmas!)

Ok! Well, I apologize for the delay in updating, friends and family. But now you know all about Addison, the 18 Month Old!

Next update will be after Christmas. Which will be amazing, I am sure!

Happy Holidays!

Whew. Ok, that's all I can think of. Seriously, I think there are more! There are some words she'll just say out of nowhere, but then not again - so those are hard to keep track of. More words to come next month, I'm sure!