Yo Gabba Gabba Live!

The day of the much anticipated Yo Gabba Gabba Live Show finally came and Lizzy was ready to go. I made her outfit out of a left over t-shirt I made for her birthday party, and she got to wear her new yo gabba gabba vans shoes!

Eating chicken nuggets on the way.

Lizzy wearing DJ Lance glasses

The show was actually pretty good just a little too loud for Lizzy.

Lizzy enjoyed the show sitting on my the whole time just like this:

Mommy and Lizzy

Lizzy with the Trees!

Lizzy loves Christmas trees, anytime she sees one she yells out "tree!" Every morning the first thing she does now is ask me to light the Christmas tree back up then we can begin our day.

Picnic at the Park

Festival of Lights

The Holiday Season brings so much beauty and lights! The festival of lights is a walk through of light displays in the park. We went to the local festival of lights with the family. Lizzy had lots of fun, her favorite part was an area that had a bubble machine going...she loves bubbles. Here are some photos:

St. Nicholas Day

Our computer is still not 100% yet but I was able to get a few photos on the blog of our St. Nicholas Day. Lizzy set out our wooden shoes by the door. Lizzy is a shoe fanatic and had to try on these wooden shoes several times throughout the night. Here she is setting our shoes out:

We filled them with hay and carrots for St. Nicholas' horses.

St. Nicholas left us lots of goodies in our shoes.

Lizzy was very curious

For breakfast we had St. Nicholas pancakes

After the shoes we opened the gifts. I think Lizzy's favorite gift was this suitcase you can ride. She wants to ride around all day.

When Lizzy saw he doll she immediately gave it a kiss. It was so funny...

She also tried to get into the doll cradle..Ha

After gifts at home, we have dinner and more gifts at grandma and grandpa's house.

Daddy putting on Lizzy's new yo gabba gabba shoes

Lizzy had lots of fun. She was go go go all day long then passed out at night when we got back home.

Update

Our main computer with all our pictures on it is undergoing some maintenance after it crashed so I don't have any pictures to post other than this Holiday photo of Lizzy that's on my work computer. Soon I will post more Holiday photos of Lizzy. (Those are Mike's Hands as Santa : ))

Here is Lizzy last year at 6 months with Mike's Santa hands again.

We weren't sure if we would be able to go visit our family in Indiana due to a possible shuttle mission during the week of Christmas but today it was announced that launch of the shuttle Discovery will be pushed back to February which means we will be going to Indiana this Christmas. This will be Lizzy's first time traveling to see her grandparents in Indiana!

We have a busy weekend with Saint Nicholas Day/Christmas part 1. We have some events planned, and I have some baking to do but otherwise we are all set! Can't wait! Hopefully I can post some pictures of this weekends events to share soon after.

Breakfast with Lizzy

Out of chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and french toast, Lizzy had hash browns and ketchup. Lizzy loves ketchup, she will eat ketchup alone! I took a picture of Lizzy with her drink because she absolutely loves getting straw drinks when we go out. She makes the funniest faces as she sips through the straw.

Good Morning December!

Let the fun begin!

18 Month Check-up

Lizzy is now 2 feet, 7 inches, and weighs 24 lbs! She is growing great and has met and exceeded all developmental milestones. Today she had 3 booster shots and will not need any more vaccines until she is 4! Here she is getting her check up:

Getting Ready to jump

Holiday Footprint Art

Last year we painted reindeer out of Lizzy's footprints on canvas and displayed it out with the Christmas decor, it came out so cute I thought I would do something similar this year. We painted a penguin out of Lizzy's footprint on a canvas to display this year.

Here is last year's reindeer. Lizzy's feet were so much smaller last year.

Now time for Christmas!

I respected Thanksgiving but today meant go time for the best time of the year! We are keeping it very low key here at home because we plan to go out of town for Christmas. This is our Toddler Friendly Christmas Tree ... it's small with all non breakable non sentimental ornaments this year. Lizzy was interested but was really good about not touching it so maybe I had nothing to fear, we will see.
Every year we pick out special ornaments that mark something special for that year. 2007 was our first Christmas together, 2008 we were expecting Lizzy, 2009 was Lizzy's first Christmas, now 2010 we don't have anything extra special so I picked out a porcelain dutch shoes ornament and a Saint Nicholas ornament since this will be our first Saint Nicholas Celebration Day.

We took Lizzy for some Christmas photos, this was her before we left to the portrait studio.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready to eat!

Yummy! (Lizzy had some stuffing, then she wanted grapes and ice cream)

Uncle Christian and Lizzy

Lizzy wanted to sit in the stroller like her doll

Cleaning up afterwards

Thank you!

Lizzy's grandparents sent her some Thanksgiving goodies. Here she is opening the gifts. Lizzy is just starting to actually "get" puzzles, she loves to match the pieces to their correct spots, she also loves her "Tookie" she says turkey like cookie : )

Hand Turkey

We are thankful for our hands.
Art Project: Hand Turkey

Out to Play

Lizzy watched some dogs play at the dog park, played on the playground, and fed some ducks today!

Looking for birds in the sky

Practical Life Activities at Home

It's really amazing how quickly Lizzy is learning right now, she imitates us all the time, repeats words, and the practical life activities she's learned are becoming very useful for everyone. Practical life exercises are highly valued in Montessori because it allows the child to be independent and learn useful skills needed in life while also building on fine motor skills and building the child's self confidence. I haven't taken any new pictures recently so I thought I would share all the things Lizzy has learned in her 18 months.

• Helps with dressing herself. Also gets her shoes when it's time to go out.
• Brushes her teeth and washes her hands, shampoos her hair, brushes her hair
• Helps with laundry, puts clothes in dryer, straightens dried clothes
• Helps get the trash taken out, also helps throw things away in the trash
• Asks for snacks and drinks
• Gets her own bib, get in her booster chair by herself
• Helps wipe up and dust
• Helps put things away to their correct place
• Can drink from cup, and juice box
• Working on using the potty
• Turns on the radio when she wants music, turns on the lamps, turns on the fan, turns on the TV
• Unplugs the bath when she is done for it to drain
• Knows all her body parts

These are the things she's learned that I can think of off the top of my head. She's learned so much and she's such a little person. I'm very proud of my baby!