Quinn is 18 months old

One and a half years old today! Counting down to 2 years.....I can't believe our little girl is this big already. A true toddler. Very sweet and funny, but also with a powerful mind of her own. No is no and yes is yes. Not much you can do to change her mind.....

Quinn's 18-months old stats:

weight: 20 lbs 2 oz / 9100 grams

height: 32,5 inches / 82,5 cm

She's still on the lowest line weight wise, but with her length she's at 75%! Wonder who she got that from??? Dad's all excited about it: he can't wait to see his little girl be a pro in basketball!

18-months old facts:

* we're truely down to one nap a day, normally from about noon to 3pm. Bedtime is between 7 and 7.30pm and she sleeps for about 11 to 12 hours. Safe to say we don't have any complaints about her sleeping habits thus far.
* Words are being added to her vocabulary regularly and she amazes me often of all the things she understands already. The most funny thing is when she is imitating a bunny, which I only had to show her once. Now every time she sees a bunny in a book or on tv, she makes the "bunny face".
* She loves books and actually starts to sit down with me and listens when I read her the story.
* She is full of LOVE and loves to give kisses all the time. Hopefully this love giving continues once the new baby arrives :-)

Quinn's new room

We've been working on it quite a while and finally ready enough for Quinn to move into her new room and her big girl bed. That was a week and a half ago now, July 8th. With the baby at that time only about 5 to 6 weeks away, it was really time to make this move, because we wanted her to be completely adjusted into her new room/bed when the baby is here.
I have been nervous about this step. And also a bit sad, because it's another step away from "babyhood" for my first baby.
I was surprised how well she did for her first nap. I heard her talking for a about half an hour and had to go back in once because she dropped one of her stuffed animals (I heard something drop and then a 'uh oh'......, so I figured that was the problem) but she fell asleep fine and no crying. She slept for about 1,5 hours, which isn't too long, but not bad for a first time in a new bed.

Sleeping........

In the evening, it was a little bit different. We had her night stand standing next to her bed, and she was playing with the drawer the whole time. Open and shut, open and shut. So I went back in there and turned it 90 degrees so she wouldn't be able to reach for the drawer anymore. Well, my mistake. I wasn't gone for 60 seconds and bam........she fell out of bed (when trying to reach for the drawer). So that was it, the night stand was moved to the other side of the room. It will be back where it "belongs" when she's a little bit older. After that, I laid in bed with her for a while and when she started to snooze of, I left. She fell asleep and slept till 6.30 the next morning. (I went in to check on her every time I got up to go to the bathroom, which is quite often these days.....) And when I came in her room to get her out, she was sitting on her bed waiting.

Now, one and a half week later, she's still sleeping very good in her new room and she never really tried to go into her "old" bedroom. We've kept that door closed the first few days, but now she goes in there once in a while when I'm getting it ready for the baby. We've moved some furniture around in there too, so it looks different from when it was her room. 

I'm such a proud mom! I expected a lot more resistance and crying. As the matter of fact, I was mentally prepared for about 2 weeks of non-sleep and sleeping with her in her bed. The second day, her nap lasted 3 hours (!!!) already and in the evening she fell asleep after about 30 minutes of babbling. She still likes to play around a little (play with the window blinds which she can reach at the end of her bed), but up until now, she never came out of bed herself. She patiently waits for one of us to come in when she's up.
That's my girl!

4th of July weekend

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

We went up north for the weekend of the 4th and it was actually the first weekend we have been up there that the weather was beautiful. Yeah!!!!! How lucky were we.
So, with all this sun, we spent most of the time at or in the water. Quinn's swimclasses have been paying of. She is not afraid to get in the water, even though it's a lot colder than the pool water at swim class.

Grandma and grandpa got a new innertube for the (grand)kids.......we went around the lake a few times on it. Quinn was good at wearing her life jacket even though those infant one's don't look very comfortable. Also on the boat she didn't try to take it off, which is a good thing of course.
Tubing doesn't excite her as much yet as daddy would like it to be, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Next year will probably be a different story already. 

Floating in the water. It looks like she's out there all by herself, but just so you know, Ryan was very close to her......

Playing with water and sand, what more does a kid need?
With her sunhat, shirt, botttoms and thick layer of sunblock I had her all covered up to protect her pearly white skin from the rays.

Sunday morning we went to the Lakewood Zoo, which is only 10 minutes away from the cottage. It's a small zoo, with not a lot of "natural" areas for the animals, but the Zoo is fairly new. I'm sure (or I hope) they will continue to improve the setup they have over the next years.  

Feeding the goats some corn.

Checking out the potbelly pig....

....and the baby cubs. They look so cute. Why the double fencing???

There was more corn on the outside of the fence than on the inside, so Quinn decided to throw some back in there for the ducks.

We had a wonderful weekend at the cottage. We got the weather we hoped for and plenty of outdoor fun time at the water. We're going to try to squeeze in at least one more weekend like this before baby #2 arrives.