Ashley's Latest - 18 Months

Ashley will be 18 months next week!  I feel like we were just celebrating her first birthday.  She is growing up so much and turning out to be such a great little girl. 

She has her 18 month doctors appointment in a couple weeks but here are a few of her "other" stats:

Weight - (from the bathroom scale) - 22 lbs which she has been at for a few months (Bennett was almost 27 lbs at this age)

Clothes - size 18 or 24 month

Shoes - size 4 (Bennett was wearing a tight sized 6 at this age!)

Diapers - size 3 (Bennett was wearing size 4 and 5 at this age!)

Teeth - I'm pretty sure she has 16 teeth - 8 on the top and 8 on the bottom

• Ashley is a girly girl all the way.  She loves clothes and shoes and dressing up with hats and necklaces.  But, at the same time, she loves playing with Bennett's tractors, trucks and balls.  She loves looking at books, dancing to her cartoon theme songs, and playing with Bennett. 
• Ashley is a wonderful sleeper!  She takes a nap in the afternoon from 12:00 to 2:00.  She goes to be within minutes at 8:00 and wakes up at 8:00 in the morning.  She is still sleeping in her crib and because she sleeps sooo good in there, I probably won't be switching her to a twin bed until she's closer to 2.  But, I do have her bed and bedding already for her when she's ready.  My mom had an extra set of twin mattress's which she needed to get rid of since she didn't have room or a need for them.  And, I got her some really really nice little girl bedding, sheets and curtains with butterflies for $25 at a garage sale.  (By 18 months I had Bennett switched to a twin bed already because I was pregnant and I kicked him out of the crib)
• Ashley has started to try and walk down the stairs.  This is troubling because she has taken a few tumbles doing this.  One time she log rolled down about 10 steps all the way to the bottom - little stinker - scared her and me!  I keep trying to reinforce to her that she still needs to go down on her butt or belly.  This is one of the things that she has apparently picked up from watching Bennett. 
• Ashley is doing SO good at talking!  She can say so many words which is great.  This is quite a change from when Bennett was her age and all I had him saying was animal sounds.  This is great because she is able to tell me what she wants so many times during the day.  Example - she'll bring me her cup and say Water or if I ask her a question she knows to answer with Yes or No.
• Since Bennett was little, I would sing the ABC's while brushing teeth and changing diapers - it's a good distraction plus it reinforces the ABC's.  Anyways, when I was singing this to Ashley while changing her diaper the other day she kind of started singing with me!  She mumbled the A B C and then when I got to P, she said P with me and then the same with T!  I was majorly impressed with my big girl.
• She is a master at the "Ashley go get your____ or Ashley bring me the _____ or Ashley go put this ______."  It's so great that she's able to do small things on her own now which helps me out.  She likes throwing things in the garbage so this is many times her little job.
• We got rid of the high chair and welcomed the potty chair.  A couple of month ago already we gave up on the high chair.  It took up too much room plus, she would always try to climb out of it.  She sits at the table in a booster chair with us now making her look and feel like a big girl.  And, we got the potty chair out a few weeks ago.  She can say Poop and Potty and always likes to go in the bathroom when Bennett is going and shows a small interest.  Also, a few times in the past few weeks I've caught her pooping and say "Ashley what are you doing" and her response is "poo poo".  I've gotten her to potty a couple of times and poop once.  I'm sure we are months and months away from her being trained but I guess it couldn't hurt starting slowly already. 

In this picture she is looking at her newly painted toenails.

Ashley and her favorite friend!