At the Park with Stacey and Lydia!

We sure do love our friends Stacey and Lydia! Unfortunately, things have been so crazy lately, that we haven't had much of a chance to see them! The weather has been absolutely amazing lately, so we have been taking lots of opportunities to head to the park! We played on the playground for a long time and then went on a little wagon ride! The girls had a blast!!!

Sweet Lydia!

Sliding! - Lara tried out her stomach this time!

Ready..... set......

Go!

One of my favorite shots! Can you tell that she LOVES the slide?! I love this smile!

Snotty... (gross) but so pretty!

Ready to try out the big girl slide!

All by herself! :-)

Two girls driving a bright yellow car... sounds like trouble to me!

Giddy-up!

Hi Mrs. Jen!

Playing the drums!

Haha - this face cracks me up! Lydia,

Love how this one turned out!

Thinking about rock climbing... hehe!

Wagon ride time! Didn't get any good pics of the girls in the wagon, but I'm sure we'll have another chance!

Yay for beautiful days at the park!

At the Park with Granna and Granpa!

My parents came to visit at the end of January (yeah I know... I'm a little behind...) We had such a great time having them here, and it was actually really nice weather, so we decided to go try out the new park in town. Lara hadn't really been big enough to try this one out yet, so we decided to give it a go! As you can see, she had an absolute blast!

Heading to check out the little kids' playground!

"ball, ball, ball!" - Lara loves this word!

Love this one! Having so much fun checking things out with Granna!

Making some music on the playground! Very serious business I guess! ;-)

Watching all of the big kids!

Uh oh, watch out... we might run over you!

"quack, quack" - Lara was pretty excited to see this duck (her favorite animal) although he seems a little scary in my opinion...

First time going down the slide.... Catch Daddy!

She is so pretty!

Getting a little braver....

All by herself! Big girl!

Now what?! Ha!

Heading out for a walk... Hailey was glad that we were finally done with the playground part... now time to explore!

See-Saw!

Haha - This one makes me smile! Lara sure does love her Granna and Granpa!

Love this one! *sigh* sure do with we/they lived closer so we could do this more often!

14 months old!

Well, I guess I missed the 13 month post... Oh well! Here we are at 14 months! I can't believe Lara can possibly be that old! (Do I say that every month?!)

She is learning really fast and her language skills are really starting to pick up!

Here are some highlights from the last two months:

• Lara has 6 teeth – 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. She really needs to work on getting some more teeth... it's proving difficult to eat toddler foods when she doesn't have any molars! ha!

• Lara learned a lot of new signs this month and improved on the ones that she already knows. It is so nice to have this tool for communicating with her!! She added ‘thank you’, ‘baby’, ‘cracker’, and ‘juice’ to her signing vocabulary!

• Lara can show what a fish says when asked in either English or Portuguese (or when she wants to eat her goldfish) She can also say what a dog, duck, monkey and sometimes a cow says. She's getting really good at identifying animals in her book now too!

• She has really picked up on identifying her body parts this month! She can now show me where her belly button (her favorite!), head, hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, tongue, knees, hands, fingers, toes and feet are! My smart girl! We just need to learn shoulders and we can sing my favorite song! Head, and shoulders knees and toes! :-)

• Her favorite book is her Goodnight Kisses Book that her Grammy and Papa got her (she wants to read it at least 30 times a day, seriously – After a while I have to find a hiding place for it!)

• Her favorite toy is her blocks that Levi and Ashley got her! They squeak and she thinks it's really funny to knock them down... over and over! so cute!

• Her vocabulary has really picked up this month and I can tell that she is really saying real words! So exciting! She can say Da-deeee (her favorite), Hailey, Hi, Bye, Book, Juice, Duck, More, Quack Quack, Cheese (this one cracks me up!), and Tank-you.

• We bought her a potty a couple of months ago, and had great success with her going on it for a couple of weeks then she decided she didn't want to anymore... she's really young, so we'll try again in a month or two! They are still working on it at school and she will go occasionally on the potty!

• She moved up to the next class at school and has really been thriving in there. She is getting really good at using a spoon and is sleeping really well on the cot! (which I find hard to believe! Ha!)

• We had a fabulous trip to Brazil - as you can see from the previous like 25 posts! Ha! She has now been to Brazil 2 times as well as to the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, and Washington D.C. I'd say that isn't too bad for a 1 year old! :-)

Brazil - White Dress Photo Shoot!

I had a good time taking candid pictures of Lara in this cute white dress that I borrowed from my friend Amanda! I think a few of them turned out really cute! I just LOVE my camera! :-)