16 Months - 8 Weeks

Kyra and Paige are now 16 months and 8 weeks respectively and it's just amazing how fast they're both growing and changing! (Well, they're both changing but Paige is definitely doing more aggressive growing at this point.) Kyra is still very much in love with her little sister and loves when we let her "hold" Paige (with some grown up help of course.) Paige gets more kisses and cuddles than she'd probably like, but we're just happy that Kyra doesn't show any signs of being jealous of little sister.
Kyra's language skills are growing by leaps and bounds. She still doesn't have a huge amount of spoken words but she's on par for normal. She says Dog, Dad, Food (Boof), Mama, No, Up, Echo, Duck, Papa, More, Done and Go. She makes cat, dog, elephant, cow, duck and car noises too. Her signs though are what are really expanding her vocabulary. She's constantly wanting the signs for new words and she's using them to communicate with us. She does please, help, up, baby, thank you, milk, more, drink and done and is working on some new ones and she'll string together two and three signs in a row to get her point across (like Help, Please, Milk.) She doesn't have any new teeth yet beyond the front eight, but we can feel the bumps where she's working on her premolars and I would guess that when those do start coming through they're going to come fast and furious! She had her first haircut yesterday and did VERY well for a 16-month-old (from what I know of children's haircuts at least.) Her hair was just so much longer on the sides than the back and so many different lengths that it was getting tangled too easily and taking too long to fix in the morning (20-30 minutes a lot of days and that usually wore on my patience before hers even.) We went to a place called "Little Clippers" on the advice of a friend who gets her little girl's hair cut there and it was great! They cater specifically to kids and most of the "chairs" are actually little cars on hydraulic lifts. Kyra was a little too nervous to do a car by herself so she sat in an adult chair (they have one or two) on Dad's lap for the cut. Julie who cut her hair was very nice and Kyra watched a movie and played with a basket of toys while it was being done. She did NOT like the blowdrier so we stayed and played on the climbing toys for a few mintutes after the cut so her hair could dry and Julie could trim the little straggles that were left afterwards. They gave her a certificate for her first haircut with a lock of her hair attatched and a balloon which she didn't find all that exciting until we got home. Now she has a very cute little bob and just looks so grown-up! If you live in the Portland area I HIGHLY reccomend checking out Little Clippers for your little guy's haircuts. They have one in Clackamas where we went and another in Lake Oswego and are very reasonable price-wise too.
Paige is changing every day too. In the last week her personality is just blossoming and she's smiling, cooing and laughing a lot. She really loves riding in her stroller, especially if Dad is pushing. She looks up and grins and makes faces at him. She's going to be rolling over before we know it, she's already close and can go from side to front/back or from back/front to her side but can't quite get all the way over. She's discovered her teddy bear and decided that he's a pretty interesting fellow. He doesn't have a name yet. Since Kyra's bear is just "Bear, or Bear Bear" we should probably get a little more creative on this one. She's going to outgrow most of her 0-3 months clothes here pretty soon and she hasn't even worn them all yet since we've had so many nice days and there were quite a few warm outfits in her hand-me-downs. She's wearing her first 3-6 month outfit today and it's not even that big on her!