Sweet Sixteen!

Ashlyn hit the 16 month milestone last week. I'm really trying to be better at writing down the things she's learning. It seems like she's doing new things everyday. Sixteen months really is a "sweet" time. In fact, I think it has to be one of my favorite baby stages. I glanced back over my post of Ashlyn at fifteen months and it seriously blew my mind that it's only been a month since I wrote about what she's doing. She has changed SO MUCH in the past thirty or so days. I think the biggest difference is that she understands things better. For example, whenever we sit down at the table for a meal, she folds her arms and says her own little jibber-jabber prayer. When she wants to go outside, she finds her shoes. The other day I put her in the tub. I guess the water was a little too warm. She said "hot" and then started blowing the water like she would blow her hot food. Tonight when I went upstairs, I thought she was following me. A few minutes later, when she didn't come up, I went to see where she was. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs. I told her to come on up to go to bed and she responded with "hand." She was patiently waiting at the bottom for me to hold her hand as she went up. Whenever I ask her a question that she doesn't know the answer to, she say's "ummmm" like she's thinking. The other day Ashlyn and I were reading a book on the couch. She started to slide off my lap in the middle of the story. I asked her what she was doing and she responded, "falling down."

Some of the new words she's saying are: Ashlyn (first time today), cereal, backpack, outside (she says this five hundred times a day), bike, sippy, and cracker. My favorite thing that she says now is "Oh, man." I never realized how many times I say this in a day until she started copying me. She can basically copy anything we ask her to say but the words above are some that she says on her own and understands what they mean.

Last Saturday the kids had their baths at Grandma Whipple's house. When they got out of the tub my mom combed the girl's hair for them. I don't usually comb Ashlyn's hair when it's wet because the curl stays better if I don't. Grandma did comb it. So, it was a little straighter and slicked down. Mickell saw Ashlyn and said, "She would look really handsome if she was a boy." I thought that was so funny.

Ashlyn has an obsession with markers. You've heard the expression "finding a needle in a haystack." Well that's how Ashlyn is with markers. I think I have them all hidden but somehow she manages to find them. Her favorite things to do with them are #1 suck on them until her whole mouth is the color of the marker #2 decorate her legs. It may sound like I don't watch her very well. However, she can find the marker and have both of these things accomplished in a matter of seconds.

Ashlyn is an excellent whistler! I wish I had a video camera to record her whistling because it is the funniest thing. Anytime she hears someone whistling, she sqeals in this high pitch "whistle." She really thinks she's whistling!

Ashlyn is BUSY! Last week after sacrament meeting ended, Ashlyn decided to run off. With everyone in the chapel up and moving at the same time, I had a hard time tracking down where she went. When I finally found her, she had found a seat in the middle of a big group of people talking. One of the ladies that was standing there said, "She's a busy one, isn't she!" Baylen's response was, "You have no idea!"