See how big I'm getting?

I made Doodle a pair of baby legs out of women's knee socks. I love how silly they look on her chubby little legs! She enjoyed them for a while.





But then she had a bit of a breakdown! See how mad she is??





I call these my Lady Gaga sunglasses because they have sparkles on them. I guess that makes Doodle Baby Gaga when she's wearing them!




She looks like such a big girl in this picture! Also, you can see the shirt I made for her for the 4th of July. She helped with the red, white, and blue theme by getting red Hi-C all down the front of it. Good thing it's three weeks after the 4th of July in this picture! (You can also see her latest battle scar by her eye. She was running down the hall, tripped, and slammed her face into the doorjamb. It looked a lot worse than it was. She has inherited my gracefulness, which is to say none at all!)




She's usually really good at feeding herself, unless she's eating applesauce. It gets EVERYWHERE!! She likes to use it as hair gel as well.




She LOVES ribs! She even likes chewing on the bones. I can't pull pieces of meat off fast enough for her most of the time. As soon as I put a piece on her plate, she's shoving it in her mouth and reaching for another piece.






After eating and getting covered in food, she needs a bath. She loves bathtime! She thought it was very funny to splash the day I took my camera into the bathroom with me. Usually she plays with her millions of toys that Gramma and Aunt Katie got her for Christmas.




Lately, she likes to lay on her belly in the tub and try to breathe underwater. She hasn't quite got the hang of that yet! (But, she does pose well!)




Here's a video showing Doodle saying "Ta-da" and saying "Yay, yay, yay" while bouncing. Sorry it's from one side of the baby gate while she's on the other side. It was the only way I could keep her from trying to take the camera.




This is a video from bathtime. Doodle shows how she sings our little swimming song and then demonstrates how poorly she can breathe underwater.

I haven't forgotten!

I have new pictures and new videos to share but Doodle's been kind of clingy as of late so I haven't had time to upload them yet. But I will soon! I promise!

In the meantime, this is from Doodle herself:

"daafhfd b b vh"

(She hit a whole bunch of other keys but they ended up opening menus and shortcuts all over the place, so that's all she gets to say tonight. :o)

50% Mom + 50% Dad = 100% Doodle

Watching Doodle grow up and start to develop her own personality is so much fun. However, sometimes it is still fun to attribute personality traits to genetics. We're always saying, "Oh, Doodle is definitely your daughter, just look at how she _______ (fill in the blank)!" Here's a little list of what she got from her Momma and what she got from her Dada.

Momma - She's got her Momma's smarts, book smarts that is. Ok, so she doesn't really have book smarts yet but she's very intelligent and she picks up on new tasks and concepts very quickly. And she LOVES her books! That trait is straight from Momma.

Dada - Fidgety fingers that need to touch everything. This is a totally normal toddler trait but she is just like Andy when she touches things. To this day Andy still says that he's "just looking" at everything while he picks it up and flips it over and plays with it. I can already hear Doodle saying the same thing for the next several (35 or so at least) years.

Momma - Her chunkiness. Since I weighed over 10 pounds at birth, I went into pregnancy expecting a big baby. At 8 pounds, 7 ounces, Doodle did not disappoint too much. She's been off the charts big since birth and still was as of her 15 month appointment. She's slimming down a a lot as she becomes more active but I still get stopped whenever we're out by someone commenting on how big she is. I always tell them that she's just very healthy.

Dada - Her looks! She looks just like her Daddy. People that see her with me tell me she looks like me and I always tell them that they should see her father. They'd take back their words. She's Andy in a dress. One of the first things to Andy when I saw her was, "She's got your upper lip." (Keep in mind I was drugged and exhausted at the time so coherent thoughts were few and far between!)

Momma - Her talkativeness. She will talk to anybody and everybody when we are out. If she doesn't have anyone's attention, she'll start yelling at people walking by or at the other end of the aisle. She just wants to chat with them (and listen to them say how pretty and smart she is).

Dada - The love of all furry, four legged animals. I often joke that Doodle loves the cat more than she loves me and sometimes I wonder if its more true than even I realize. She loves to pet, pat, kiss, hug, chase, catch, and torment Louie, Brenna, and Charlotte. She can say all of their names. She tells them to "SSSHHHHHH!" when they make noise and likes to sit next to them whenever they are still.

What a difference a year makes!

Here are pictures of Doodle from last July. She was five months old and just learning to roll over. It's amazing how things have changed in such a short time!

Looking to the future

As all parents do, I've been contemplating what Doodle will be when she grows up based on her current behavior. Here are some of my ideas.

Roller coaster designer - She's already an adrenaline junkie at 17 months old. She loves being upside down and going fast. She likes being dropped and thrown in the air. She's definitely going to ride roller coasters even if she doesn't design them.

An Olympic runner and/or swimmer - The child is happiest when she's running free. Period. I don't know if it's the running that makes her so happy or the being free. Either way, she loves it. She also loves water. She has since her first bath at 8 weeks because it took that long to lose her cord stump. She even sings a little song about swimming. It goes something like this "Swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming." Yeah, it's one that I taught her but it's cuter when she does it.

A mommy - She LOVES the baby doll that Aunt Katie bought for her. She carries it around and rocks it. She even sings the dry diaper song to her (yeah, I taught her that song too). I just hope she gets out of the habit of carrying kids around by their leg by the time she has her own.

A scientist - She's fascinated with figuring out how to do new things. Maybe she can translate that into finding cures for diseases or inventing new machines or robots.

An artist - She loves to "draw" anytime she can manage to get possession of a pen or pencil. My address book is very well decorated since she got her hands on it. She also loves her bath crayons. Now if I could just get her to stop trying to eat her regular crayons long enough to actually get to use them she'd probably love them, too.

Doodle's Favorite Things

Favorite foods: Macaroni and cheese, fruit cocktail, bananas, animal crackers

Favorite toys: Anything that is not a toy! Plus her baby dolls and stuffed animals

Favorite words: BYE! Uh oh! Hi! Momma, Dada, and BooBoo (for Brenna)

Favorite part of the day: Bath time. She loves to play in the tub but hates the actual washing part!

Favorite thing to do at midnight: Run laps around the couch. Anything to keep herself and her Momma awake when they should be sleeping.

Favorite thing to do at noon: Wake up and start her day

Favorite store: Target. They call her "Target Baby" at my store. I really don't think half of the team members know her real name! She thinks that anybody in a red shirt is her friend. But, she doesn't want to work there when she grows up. One of the girls I work with asked her the other day and her answer was a definite "NO!"

Favorite object: By far, this would be a phone. She pretends like anything rectangular is a phone. Remote controls, McDonald's toys, iPods, you name it, it's a phone to Doodle. When she gets a real phone, watch out. She likes to say hi and then hang up!

Favorite activities: Brushing her teeth, sliding down her slide in the living room, rocking her baby dolls, taking her diaper off and running around naked

Favorite TV show: We don't have cable so she only gets to watch qubo which most people have never heard of. Her favorite show is Jacob Two Two. Well, I'm assuming its her favorite because it's the only one she can pronounce. Her Granma would be proud because the show is Canadian.

Favorite pet: She loves Brenna (dog), Charlotte (dog), and Louie (cat) all the same. She says all of there names and tries to pick them all up even though Louie weighs almost as much as Doodle. (Yes, our cat is the biggest of the three!) They all run away from her, though.


Favorite people (besides Momma and Dada): Granma and Granpa. She can say both in sign language. I think she uses the same verbal word for both because they sound so much alike, though.

Favorite outfit: A pretty dress with sneakers

Favorite book: A tie between her Peter Pan board book and the duck book that Granma bought for her that nobody likes to read because it's soooooooooo repetitive

Favorite animals (aside from our pets): Ducks and fish (or "ish" as she calls them)

Showing off!

Today's post is pretty basic. It's just some video and pictures from the other night. Doods and I were eating dinner and the camera was sitting on the table so I thought I'd get her to show off a little. (I wrote that and then realized the only thing from while we were eating was the video. The rest are from hanging out on the couch watching TV.)



Here is a little profile shot so you can see the hair that I mentioned was growing.




A picture with her actually smiling! She sees the camera, squinches up her face and says "CHEESE", and then reaches for the camera to see it before I can even get a picture most of the time.





This is her "CHEESE" face!



This is a little video of her showing off. She also does a little bit of the sign language we've taught her. She was tired and covered in ranch dressing from her chicken nuggets but she did a great job showing me Mickey Mouse, quacking like a duck, and giving her opinion on Captain Hook.