What has Palmer been up to?

Well I've been a pretty big slacker about posting any Palmer updates.  There's a lot of stuff I feel like I need to document for my own sake; because I have such a bad memory this is the only way I'll be able to tell Palmer what she was like in her second year of life.  As usual this post will be long, but I've got seven months of stuff to document for myself, so I realize I might be the only one that ever reads this entire post (although I bet that Kacey and Cheyna will cause they love Palmer like their own - and also I'm not sure if anyone else reads my blog).
Palmer is 19 months old today.  She is my absolute best friend and so much fun.  She gets more and more fun and silly every day.  She is learning and growing so much and I love watching her learn and figure out new things all the time.

This picture was taken yesterday after church.  You can't see Livvy and Palmer's skirts very well, but they are cute homemade skirts that say "LOVE" across the front.  Heather made one for Livvy and then kindly helped me make one for Palmer.  Cute cute girls.

At her 18 month checkup last month she weighed 20 pounds, which was around 3rd percentile if I remember correctly.  They couldn't get a good height measurement on her because she wouldn't stand up to be measured; she just wanted me to hold her.  She's definitely a little short for her age, but not crazy short.  They didn't measure her large noggin, but whatever size it is, it's just perfect.
She didn't really show any interest in walking until she was around 14 months old.  Within a couple of weeks she was walking pretty well, and by 15 months she was running all over the place.  She loves to be a big girl and walk/run everywhere we go.  She has recently decided that crawling up and down the stairs is no fun, and she insists on walking up and down them.  It scares me to death, but she hasn't had a fall yet.  Her little legs are so short that each step takes a lot of effort, and she has to balance herself with one hand on the wall, but she does pretty well with it.  She climbs on EVERYTHING.  Our kitchen table and chairs are too high, but if we go anywhere that has normal height tables, she always finds her way on top of them.

Wearing Kacey's glasses and looking very intellectual.

I just discovered her first molar today.  It's on the upper left side of her mouth.  I have been feeling like she was on the verge of busting out a molar on her right side for months now, so it was a surprise for me to find that one.  The matching one on her right side feels like it is super close to breaking through the gums also.  She still just has the two teeth on the bottom, and now has her four front teeth on top.  So seven teeth counting today's molar.
She is not really eating any better than she was in my last post.  She mostly just treats food like it's a nuisance that she doesn't have time for.  She definitely has her mom's sweet tooth though; she will never turn down cookies, cake, candy, ice cream etc.  She also loves peas and most fruit.  She has started shunning bread most of the time, but she'll still eat my mom's bread.  She loves milk, chocolate milk and water; she usually turns up her nose at juice, and that's fine by me.  Every once in a great while we catch her in just the right mood and she'll eat without making a big fuss, but that is rare.  Very rare.
For the most part Palmer is a good sleeper.  She took after her mom and dad in that she is a very tired girl and needs more sleep than the average person.  All of her little friends are down to one nap, but Palmer still requires two naps most days.  Within 2-3 hours of getting up in the morning she is ready for a nap.  On the days that I've kept her up and done the one nap thing, she is basically a beast for a couple of hours leading up to the nap, and then she ends up napping for only about an hour and a half usually.  So she wakes up not well-rested, and usually ends up cranky by bedtime.  But she is getting to that awkward middle area where her body seems to be transitioning to thinking it just needs one nap, but she's not used to that schedule; so many days her body fights two naps, or like I said, if we do one nap it doesn't work out so well.  I'm sure that soon we'll be doing one nap every day, and I'm just hoping that she learns to sleep as long as her body needs to get rested.  It's good that she usually wants to go to bed, because every once in a while when she decides that she doesn't want to sleep she FIGHTS it big time!  This is one stubborn girl.

I took this picture at about 5:30 tonight.  This is what she looks like when she doesn't get her full two naps.  Today was a one nap day, and you can see it in her eyes in this picture.

She is talking more and more every day, but that being said, she's not super interested in talking.  If you catch her in the right mood she'll repeat whatever words you ask her to say, but most of the time she just smiles her sly little stubborn smile and won't say whatever it is we try to get her to say.  Her favorite words are: hot, Mommy, Daddy, puppy, Grandma, Grandpa, bye bye, ni-ni (ni-night), bink, hi, no, no no (while waving her finger back and forth), cookie, cracker, and the hybrid cackie (cracker and cookie mixed - this is what she calls graham crackers and nilla wafers), teeth, shoes, poop (while touching her bum), pat pat and blastoff (from Little Einsteins), belly, coat, snow, cold, milk, bread, baby, Kristi, Carcar (Carter), Cam, By-by (Bryir), Piper, bath, seat, please (pronounced "peez" and always whispered; I'm not sure why but I have never heard her say "please" in a normal volume).
She loves to play with her friends, but is a very typical 1 1/2 year old.  She steals toys from them, hits from time to time, screams when they touch something that she wants etc.  Overall I think she does pretty well though.
She used to throw a pretty good tantrum, where she would throw herself on the floor and cry HARD for a couple of minutes.  She would hit me or herself.  Any little thing could set her off.  It wasn't awesome.  Luckily that passed pretty quickly.  She still has a smaller version of tantrum, but it's much less frequent and less intense.  She still hits others or her own head if she gets frustrated sometimes.  I don't love that obviously.
She still loves baths and would probably take 10 a day if I would let her.  She loves animals and calls all animals puppies.  When you ask her what owls say, she says the cutest, "hoo hoo."  She loves to go bye bye and would leave with any stranger without giving me a second look if they will take her out of the house.  Needless to say we're excited for warmer weather soon (hopefully) so we can get out of the house more.  She loves to give kisses, mostly to her toys and animals, but she'll usually give kisses to people too.
Palmer loves to dance and has recently been experimenting with new moves.  She's got a pretty good variety of dance styles and they are all awesome. 

She is still not super cuddly, but is becoming more and more so as time goes on.  She is still a little mama's girl, but loves her daddy a lot.  She started going to nursery a few weeks ago.  She did great the first week, and it has gotten a little worse and harder each week since then.  We now go to church at 11:00 and that time is very hit or miss with her random nap schedule.  Sometimes she "sings" little soft songs and it is so sweet and cute.  She loves to cuddle her baby dolls and stuffed animals and push them around in her doll stroller.  She loves her toys, but seems to get bored of a toy quickly and will move from toy to toy every couple of minutes.  By the end of the day my living room and her bedroom are covered with every toy and book that she owns.  She loves books a lot lately, and will bring me 100 books a day to read to her.  She doesn't really let me read them though.  She starts flipping through the pages quickly and sometimes she'll jabber and tell me the story - so cute.

Reading "Baby Night Night" - by far her favorite book these days.

She doesn't let me get anything done in the kitchen.  I can't cook or clean with her on the loose.  She insists that I hold her.  I end up having to put her in her seat and give her snacks if I want to get anything done in the kitchen.  Needless to say, I haven't been cooking or baking nearly as much as I would like...which is probably good for my waistline.
Palmer only gets a binky at nap and bed time.  She does just fine with that.  If she sees a binky she'll ask for it, but then she'll quickly say "ni-ni" like she understands that it's for ni-night time only.  She sleeps with her blankie, two lovies (usually Violet (purple bear) and Minnie Mouse, but sometimes Sage (green elephant) or Eeyore).
She HATES to have sun in her eyes.  I am making a note of this so that I remember how badly she hates it.  If we're ever driving anywhere and the sun is shining in her eyes she will cry like her world is ending until we turn away from it.
She loves going grocery shopping with me and insists that I hand every item to her first and then she'll throw it into the back of the cart.
She won't let me change her earrings.  She's been wearing the same turquoise earrings for months now, and there's no end in sight.  She got a whole bunch of new earrings for Christmas, but we have yet to see any of them in her cute ears.

Halloween.  Taylor and I were Sheldon and Amy from "Big Bang Theory" and Palmer was a cute little cheetah.

I'm sure there is stuff that I'm forgetting, but I guess I can always come back and add more if I think of anything super important.  I could just sit and watch this girl all day every day, and I guess I pretty much do just that.  She is so spunky and so sweet.  We love her so much!