Thanksgiving this year started out fun. I got to run the Turkey Trot in downtown Dallas, and so did 45,000 other people. It was crazy crowded, much different than when I was a child with 15,000 or even in college there were still around 30,000.  But I was still able to meet my friend Karen down there to do the 3 mile.

After I got home and put Luna down for her nap, she then woke up and had gotten sick. Poor girl had been battling a cold and choked on her own drainage, so it caused her to get sick.  We waited an hour to make sure she wasn't going to get sick again, and then headed up to my Uncle's house.  I had made the stuffing, so they were anxiously awaiting our arrival.  My mom, Raul, Uncle Jeff, Erika and cousins Meghan and Grayson were all there and we had a yummy meal of turkey, green beans, stuffing, sweet potato crunch, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.  Yum!

Sorry, I forgot to snap a few photos of the food, it was good but I had my hands full with a toddler and fixing her plate as she anxiously awaited to eat.  After dinner we watched the Cowboy game and Luna went upstairs to play Grayson's drum set!

Our little Luna Bean turned 18 months old on November 13th!  This is a huge milestone, since I consider this to be when the real toddler stage begins!  At 18 months, language has a huge burst at this point, they are really into pretend play and they have learned to say the word 'no' which we all love to hear!  They just become so expressive at this time, and super, super cute!

We had her check-up on Tuesday and everything looks great.  Her doctor said she is right on target for everything, and even though her weight is a little low, she is not concerned as her height and head even it out.  She said at this point they don't eat very much and are on the go so much they are burning tons of calories.

Weight: 20 pounds, 12 ounces (5th %)
Height: 31.5 inches (50%)
Head: 46.5 (40-50%)

What is Luna up to at 18 months?

Sleep: She wakes up around 7am-8am, naps around 3 hours from 12-3pm, and goes to sleep between 7-7:30pm. She goes to sleep very well ever since we did the harder than heck Dr. Ferber method. As you can remember, I was sooo not wanting to do this and put it off, but by 9 months of age, could not take the 30 minutes of trying to rock her to sleep, and the waking up every hour!  It worked like a miracle and has ever since. Her nighttime routine is bath at 6:30pm, brushes her teeth, combs her hair and she even puts her own lotion on her tummy. Then we rock her in her chair as we read stories and then put her in her crib wide awake. She snuggles with her blankies and goes to sleep.

Eating: For breakfast, she eats strawberries, yogurt, whole wheat muffins, bananas, blueberries and cereals. She loves her carbs and bread! 
For dinner and lunch she likes pasta (I hide pureed broccoli and veggies in there), peas, avocados, cheese, yogurt, turkey (nitrate free) hotdogs, turkey lunchmeat, beans, soups, PBJ, bread, veggie dumplings, and loves her newly discovered ketchup and CFA sauce.  She is using her fork and spoon so well now, to the point where she won't eat without it and HAS to feed herself.

Milk: This deserves a separate category. I am presently trying to wean her from breastfeeding. Right now she is having it once a day but she asks for it several time a day. I usually have to distract her with something else, but she does get really upset. She crawls into my lap, lays down and says 'ilk' and makes the sign for milk.  She really wants it in the morning when she wakes up, so I usually give it to her at different times of the day so she doesn't expect it. Her doctor thinks it's great to keep it up as long as I can, but I think doing it once a day for awhile is the best way to slow her down from it. I give her lots of cuddles and attention instead!  She drinks cows milk, but not as much as I would like, so I try to push this too during the day.

Language:  Her little voice is so cute and is saying new words EVERY day like mama, dada, bow, up, down, high, low, honey, balloon, hippo, no, head, hat, nose, duck, milk, bubble, dog, owl- makes owl sounds and moo, quack, meow, tweet tweet, oink, hee-haw (donkeys), fish face for fish, nay, roar, pretty much most animal sounds, Coco, Jack, Bao, bow, Elmo, and several more that I can't even think of. I'm telling you, she has reached the word explosion point. Next update I won't be able to list anymore. It's so crazy how fast they pick them up.
She signs eat, more, all done, milk, bath, duck, bird, please, hat, and shows you all her body parts. 

Motor: She loves Kindermusik classes and it was so cute today, I put on one of the songs and she started doing the routine where we walk forwards towards a friend, then backwards, then wave. She did all of that on her own after hearing that key song. Then I had her walk 'backwards' and she giggled and walked backwards, then I told her to walk 'forwards' and she walked forward.  She is really getting all of her commands.  She also LOVES to climb. We have a playground in our backyard and she loves to climb the ladder now, over and over again.  She also loves to climb on her chairs.

Social: Besides Kindermusik, she goes to a lot of our group playdates and loves interacting with all of her friends. She also is enjoying MDO now and the past few weeks she has reached for the teacher, not cried and even rested her head on each of her teacher's heads when I hand her off!  Amazing! I still pick her up before nap so she can rest at home. Pick up is at 2:30 normally, but she sleeps from 12-3, so I'd rather have a happy toddler in the afternoon than a not well rested one!  We do MOPS twice a month and I've taken her to that daycare a few of the times and she doesn't like it as much, but is getting I've also noticed she does not like leaving the house a lot during the day so I try not to run too many errands with her in one day, so we do an activity either in the morning or the afternoon.  Too many transitions for her = temper tantrum time :)

Todd and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary Tuesday night the 8th, and we had a great dinner at the new Lombardi's restaurant, La Fiorentina.  It's in an old converted Church and the atmosphere is romantic and kind of like a Tuscan setting.  The waitstaff bent over backwards for us, bringing us things promptly and we felt like kings and queens!  The food was amazing and I loved my pasta trio.  Todd got the salmon and it had a really tasty salsa verde sauce that was slightly sweet.  Of course the best part was the dessert, a chocolate mousse cake that was 'on the house!'  Hopefully my iPhone pics of our meals turned out okay, they're not the best but hopefully you can see how yummy it all was.  We definitely recommend La Fiorentina and will be going back for sure!

Saturday we had 2 fun filled birthday parties to attend. The first one was for Ella Grace who turned 2 years old!  It was at the Lake Highlands Recreation Center and Luna had a great time running around and playing with all of the gym equipment.  Ella was so cute in her little birthday outfit and her mom Jenny did such a great job with the food and decorations!

After a nap, Luna and I headed to her next party at Michelle and Brad's for their little girl Quinn's first birthday party!  Michelle went all out and decorated her house so cute with little butterflies everywhere.  Luna had a great time running around and jumping in their bounce house.

Luna has been doing so well eating with her fork and spoon, I captured a cute moment with her eating her oatmeal!

Luna, Todd and I spent Saturday at our friends Brad and Michelle's house for a Thanksgiving friends dinner and an Alabama/LSU game watching party.  Of course we were the only ones wanting a win for Alabama with Brad having gone to LSU, but they were still a nice and understanding crowd.  What a crazy game! 

We had a playdate on Friday the 4th at the Fair Park Train Museum.  It has apparently been there since the 1960's and I had no idea!  My mom joined us for the excursion and the toddlers loved running around the tracks.  It sure made Chuggington look super real to them!  The staircases to go up into the trains were huge and scary.  But they had a great time running up and down the aisles of the old trains, looking at the old dining and sleep cars and the huge engines!  We are sad the museum is moving up to Frisco :(  Doesn't anything stay in Dallas anymore?