Library time

We love to read at our house. Lainey is pulling books off her shelf constantly to look at and for me to read. As much as I love reading to her and hope both of my kids become lifelong readers, there are a few books that make me cringe when she pulls them out. I'm just tired of reading them. We go to the library almost weekly for story time, but we hadn't yet checked out any books ... partly because getting in and out of the library is like a circus act and partly because I was nervous about how she'd treat the books.  

SO... Thursday morning as she was doing her typical morning reading we talked about how we were going to the library for story time and then we would get to pick out some NEW books to bring home to borrow for a few days.  She seemed mildly excited.

Parachute is her most, most, most favorite part of Book Babies.  She gets so excited!

We walked around and I let Lainey pick out 4 books.  Okay, I picked out 2 and she picked out 2, but she was still pretty excited about all of them.  Mostly, she was excited about putting them in her little tote and carrying them to the car.

Enjoying her library books at home!  Looking forward to many, many more trips to the library and more books to enjoy TOGETHER!

Learning and growing!

This post is more for my own memory than anything else but I just wanted to make sure I captured where Lainey is at right now and all of the fun things she is learning, new words, etc.

At 13 months, Lainey is...

• walking EVERYWHERE!  She only slows down to eat and sleep!
• able to recognize dogs anywhere... on a walk, on a package of dog food at the grocery store, in a book, on TV... anywhere.
• already able to scold Simon.  She'll point her little finger and repeat us by saying "bad dog!"  It's maybe not the best thing we've taught her, but it's pretty hilarious to watch your toddler scold the dog.
• working on her chompers.  I felt around in her little mouth this weekend and to my surprise, she has 3 new teeth so a total of 8 (as of today).
• a mover and a shaker.  She can dance on command.  C'mon, are you really shocked that MY child likes to dance? :)
• pointing to what she wants or where she wants you to go or take her.  She'll point and then look at you and nod.  For example, at church on Sunday, she was pointing to the back of the building which coincidentally, is where the doughnuts are. :)  She's a smart girl.
• enjoying playing with things like pots, pans and play dishes and is figuring out the purpose of forks and spoons and will gladly share her delicious "food" with anyone.
• trying to climb up, on and over anything and everything that is her size.
• obsessed with shoes and loves trying to put them on.
• saying words like ma, da, dog, ish (fish), bah-bah (baby).
• giving lots of kisses and hugs to her mom and dad and of course, to Simon and her stuffed animals.
• able to point to and recognize where her nose, belly, mouth and head are.

And of course, any post without pictures isn't a post worth checking out, right?  These are all from my phone from the last week or so...

The girl love, love, LOVES dogs.

We've gone twice now to Book Babies story time at the Urbandale Library.  The best part about the class is the rule that there are no rules, which is perfect for a story time for 12-24 month olds.  Lainey has zero interest in sitting still so she's usually doing a lot of roaming around like this...

We are slowly but surely transitioning from 2 naps to 1.  She was showing some signs of being ready 2 weeks ago or so but due to the fact that she's such an early bird, she really did NEED 2 naps some days.  She has graciously been sleeping until 7 or 7:30 (which I realize is still pretty early, but better than 6!)  and therefore can now make it all morning (most of the time) and nap after lunch.  We definitely don't have it totally figured out yet but I wanted to make the switch before baby boy arrives in November.  Anyway, this has lead to much, much longer afternoon naps, which is AWE-SOME for this Momma.  It takes her a little while to come out of the nap coma so I get some sweet snuggles for 15 or 20 minutes while she wakes up.  Definitely love that!

And finally...

I mean...COME ON!... How precious is that?!  I think she's going to be a sweet, sweet big sis!  Loving our adorable 13 month old!