13 and 14 months!

So, I'm way behind here!  Can you believe the girl is already 14 months old?! In the last 2 months, she has definitely gone from baby to toddler.  She is ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE and into everything.  She wasn't even walking at 12 months but is now walking very fast to wherever she "needs" to be.  She's also quite the climber and has been found up the slide in her brothers' room, on the couch, in the plants, in the fireplace, and even on the foosball/pool table.  We have to keep our eye on this one!

She now has 8 teeth, but those molars aren't far behind!  

For the most part, once we get her to sleep, she does very well.  The morning nap is short, 20-45 minutes most days, but that makes for a better afternoon nap, 2 hours most days.  Bedtime is at 7, but we usually cry for 20-30 minutes.  Troy and I have gotten into the bad habit of rocking her again but need to truly cry it out again soon.

She still eats like a champ and loves her milk.  She's still on the straw cup, but we have attempted other sippy cups too since the straws tend to leak.  She's still working on tilting the other cups to get the drink out.  I can't really say that she has a favorite food right now, other than whatever's on my plate.  I guess it tastes better when you're stealing it, even if it's the same thing that's on your plate!  She is not a big veggie eater.  We've had to do some rearranging to our cabinets lately because Poppy started helping herself to the crackers that were within reach.

Poppy is learning new things each day.  She is learning how to clean up and is sometimes better than her brothers.  Her interest in books is really picking up, and you will find her fighting for a spot on the couch during bedtime reading now. 

In some ways, she is such a girly girl!  She LOVES her shoes.  Actually all shoes and has been known to steal from her brothers (and strangers at Sea World).  She is also loving her bows and won't let us leave her room without picking one out.

One thing that we seem to be "behind" on is talking.  She saws Mama and dada occasionally but doesn't really have other words.  Well, she says "yes" sometimes and maybe "ball".  She babbles a lot and thinks she is talking, so I'm not too concerned.  All my boys were late talkers too; my theory is that it takes them awhile to make sense of the 2 different accents going on in our home.  We'll see what the doctor says next month.

She loves to sit in her brothers' chairs at the craft table.  She has her own set of color wonder markers now that she can get the lids off theirs.  She's not into coloring so much as she is into carrying the markers around and occasionally tasting them. 

 I take back what I said about no favorite food.  Her favorite food is hands down spagetti, especially the sauce.  We obviously needed a major scrub down after this meal!

 4th of July pigtails.  She doesn't really tolerate bows or hairdo's right now.  They generally only last a few minutes before it's all pulled out.

 This captures what she does a lot.  She loves to point!

 She stole this peach out of the fridge while I was getting something else.  Notice she's willing to hold it on her own now that it's stolen.

 The last successful pigtails.

 Our first of many (I'm sure) questionable wardrobe choices.  This girl LOVES shoes.  Several times a day she goes to her room and brings out shoes to put on.  She also loves to put her brothers' shoes on her hands if she can find them.  At Sea World last week, she tried to take another woman's shoes.  Gigi will be proud of this shoe-love and can't wait to take her shoe shopping!  Did I mention we wore this outfit to Chuck E. Cheese?

 A favorite pastime right now: the water table.  If the brothers are outside, she wants to be there too.  Luckily, I can usually contain her to this table on the porch if I need to be doing something inside.  Usually we take her clothes off, though, since she is always soaked by the end.

Can't wait to see what month 15 brings!

Dress Like a Cow Day

We weren't sure we'd get to participate in "Cow Appreciation Day" at Chick Fil A this year since we would be travelling back from the beach.   It turns out that a free meal for all 8 of us was just too much to pass up!  We got home from the beach, unloaded, and then Troy, the expert cow costume-maker, went to work. 

By 4:45 we were at Chick Fil A for our photo opportunities:

It seems sad that we put so much work into costumes that lasted literally 10 minutes!  Even Poppy ate free, so all together is was a $50 savings!  Can't wait till next year!

Sea Turtle Inc.

One of my favorite things to do at South Padre is visit Sea Turtle Inc.  It's a sea turtle rescue place that houses turtles that couldn't survive in the wild after being injured.  They also rehabilitate turtles and release babies just after they've hatched.  It actually started with a lady doing it all at her house; I used to go there as a child.

The big boys especially enjoyed the visit.  This turtle is the original turtle that the "Sea Turtle Lady" kept at her house. 

 She was very friendly.  The other turtle in this tank had a prosthetic limb, similar to the one used in the Dolphin Tale movie.

 Jonas face looks exactly the same in all the pictures of this sign.  He can be very cheesy when he's in the right mood.

 Something about this seems cruel to the turtle.  Kids hold lettuce up to the window so he will swim over for a picture.  The lettuce gets thrown into the tank after, so maybe it's ok...

Seagull Feeding

Of course we had to feed the seagulls at least once while we were at the beach.  The boys loved it!  Poppy had a death grip on Troy the whole time but was chasing seagulls down the beach later.  Guess she just needed time to warm up.

Pirate's Landing and Lighthouse

We zipped over to Port Isabel one day before nap during our beach trip.  The boys were DYING to see the pirate ship before it took off on the lunch cruise.  We just couldn't justify the money of going on the lunch cruise, plus you couldn't pay this motion-sick-mama to get on that boat!

There were several pirate statues, and we had to take a picture with each one. 

After the pirates, we headed across the street to the lighthouse.  It was closed for lunch, so we couldn't climb it.  But that was probably best since that costs money now too!
They loved running up this hill.  Notice Poppy couldn't be left out!

A group shot on the steps.

On our way up, we saw a boy rolling down the hill.  It looked fun, so they had to try it out.

After one roll, they thought racing would be better.

South Padre Island Trip

While Troy's parents were here, we decided to try something new and take a family trip together.  The boys were super excited about a trip to the beach with Oma and Opa.  I love South Padre Island since that's where we always went as I was growing up.  It doesn't hold a candle to Oz beaches in terms of beauty but was still a great place to make some memories.  Our condo was on the 15th floor of a complex right on the beach.  It was AMAZING! There was plenty of space for everyone to sleep.  Poppy slept in the master closet.  We were actually kind of surprised at how well everyone did at naptime and nighttime since they boys aren't known for doing well with 3 in a room.  The weather was also perfect, especially since we heard it poured every day in San Atonio while we were gone!

Lachlan loved the sand a lot more than the water but did braves the waves a couple of times.

 Jonas loved chasing seagulls, not an uncommon thing for my guys at the beach.

 Poppy's first ocean swim.  She didn't love it.

 But, what could be more fun than a Poppy-sized hole in the sand?

 Wave jumping.

 Sand writing

 The guys working on some sand castles.  Since our condo was right on the beach, Troy and I took turns taking Poppy up for a nap while the other stayed on the beach.

 This sand doesn't taste good!

 This castle took about 3 hours to complete. The only thing that kept them from continuing was rain...and a monster named Poppy.

Stay tuned for more beach posts about the Sea Turtle place and seagull feeding.