Kayla 15 Months

 Well, Kayla is now 15 months old. She is turning into the funniest little thing. She's got quite the little personality and it shows a bit more each and every day. She had a checkup the other day. She's totally healthy and growing so fast. She's gained almost 4 lbs in the last 3 months! I feel like the minute she switched from breast milk to whole milk, she chunked up a bit more. Kayla is 24 lbs and 30 in. She has maintained the 50th% for height but jumped up to the 65th% for weight from the 50th%. 

I sure love this happy cheesy baby of ours!

Kayla is full of energy and is officially not a baby anymore. She doesn't have the time or patience to cuddle for more than a second unless its right before bed time. She is the friendliest baby around and waves to everyone she sees. Her favorite word is also 'Hi'. Sometimes she gets a look of confusion when people don't notice her waving and don't wave back, like, "Why won't they wave at me?" She also laughs all the time. Brett calls her Happy because she's always smiling and laughing. She courtesy laughs a lot too, which is awesome. 

Waving at strangers again :)

Church is getting more and more interesting. I miss the days when she could fall asleep in my arms. Now she is constantly snacking or roaming during the last 2 hours of church. There are a couple other babies and the 3 of them are entertainment for all. One lady asked me in Relief Society if she ever cried, because she'd never heard her. I assured her she does and moments later, she tripped over someone's bag and slammed her head into the chair. Now, the whole building has heard her cry. She really is pretty quiet through church meetings. She just won't sit still so I'm spending more and more time in the halls during Sunday School and Relief Society. I'm counting down until she's old enough for nursery!

Kayla has to go to so many church meetings and activities with me
and she is usually quite a champ. During the Women's Broadcast, I
was taking pictures of all the ladies during dinner. When I asked these ladies,
they thought I meant could I take their picture with Kayla (all was in Spanish),
so I said yes and they loved it! She wasn't too sure though. :)

Kayla is practically running now, especially if she is chasing Iosepa around the house. She's also a pro at playground jungle gyms and is pretty fearless when it comes to slides and climbing up and down, but lately has been hating the swings. Go figure. 

Kayla LOVES Iosepa!

She is always hugging him and he doesn't like it, but I asked
him to hug her and this was it. :)

She is talking more and more each day. I love seeing her focus and try to repeat words after I say them. Its like she's willing her little mouth to do what she wants it to. Her vocabulary list includes: Hi, Daddy, kitty, Jesus, Momma, bunny, Thank You, ball, uh-oh, What's that, where'd it go, Sepa (Iosepa), baby, tickle-tickle, and flower. She's great at pointing at pictures of other everyday items when I ask her to. I just love watching her little brain soak everything in.  She's great at nodding yes or shaking her head no to questions. We can ask her anything and she almost always responds appropriately whether she understands or not. Sometimes it's hilarious because she looks so serious and pensive before responding with her head movements.  Being a parent is so fun!

Friendly baby with her Daddy!

Daddy is her favorite and she says that all the time. She only calls me Momma when she really needs something, otherwise I'm Daddy lately. :) When Brett's gone to work, she loves pointing to him in the pictures on the walls and saying Daddy over and over again. She gets so excited when she hears the garage door open cause she knows that means Daddy is home. 

She laid on her boppy and I snapped a photo to compare since we
laid her on it just like this when she was 2 days old.

Comparison! This was the day we got home from the hospital.
She's changed so much!

Kayla will still put everything in her mouth. I can't wait for this phase to be over. She eats crayons, rocks, flowers, you name it. My finger has been crunched really hard almost daily with all of her teeth! She has 12 now, 4 on top front, 4 on bottom front, and 2 molars on each side. She is getting more picky with her eating, unfortunately, although I wonder if its more of an independence thing. She loves feeding herself with a spoon and is getting better at it, but its still so messy. I try to feed her to save the hassle and she won't have it. So I'll deal with the mess and hope she gets better. She dislikes getting her teeth brushed, but as soon as we're done, she plays with her toothbrush and is happy as a clam. 

She is such a ham!

Her favorite foods of late are apple slices, cuties, crackers, sliced deli meat, cheese of any kind, scambled eggs, cereal, pasta, peas, and ........sweets! With Easter here, Brett snuck her a few pieces of candy here and there and she LOVED it! She always wants whatever I'm eating so its a good reminder for me to only eat healthy food. 

Helping mom workout

She loves playing outside and will stand at the back door whining to go out. Its been so beautiful the past few months that we've been outside a lot, but its now getting hot and HUMID so our time outside is going to be cutting back. I go walking with a friend around a park on the mornings I'm off and Kayla loves to wave at the people we pass. We also go on walks around our neighborhood a lot. They're building lots of new houses and Kayla will just stare at the construction workers. She's so fascinated with them. 

Enjoying the sun on the back deck. 

Kayla is also pretty interested in the potty. Any time Iosepa goes, she stares in wonder and when she sees me going, she tries to hand me toilet paper and says "What's that" over and over again. I got excited and thought I should start introducing her to it more. So one day, during bath time, she made the face like she needed to poo so I whisked her out of the tub and plopped her onto the toilet. Well, I think I scared her to death. She freaked out and wouldn't go potty. I just hope I didn't scar her for life!

My only concern/frustration is her bottle use. She wouldn't take whole's milk when I started weaning her until Brett finally thought to try it in a bottle. She only had a bottle occasionally when I was at work, but she took the milk from the bottle without any problem. Now, we keep trying to get her to drink it from a Sippy cup, which she uses daily for water, but she refuses. As soon as she gets a taste of milk from the sippy, she makes a face and spits it out. It's so bizarre. I don't know what to do about this. I'm open to suggestions. :) 

One of my favorite things about Kayla though is her dancing and singing. Whenever anything with a beat starts to play, she little arms and hips start moving. She has got good rhythm too! Her dance moves are hilarious and unique and she will try to sing along. Her favorite dancing song is "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors. During the 'Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh" part of that song, she sings her own little Oh Oh and I love it! I'm so happy that she loves music! I'll have to post a video of her dancing. It really is awesome. 

We love our little Kayla Rae!

In San Antonio with Kendra!

A little Selena hat!