Palmerisms

Oops - started this one in June too. I finally downloaded the blogger app on my phone so hopefully I'll be better about documenting the funny and cute things Palmer says and does. 

6-5-14  "If I eat too much food it will make me poop."

6-6-14  I was eating a burrito.  I asked Palmer if she wanted a bite and she said, "No. But thank you so much for sharing, Mom."

6-6-14  The TV was on the HGTV channel.  Palmer said, "Mom this show is bored.  Maybe we should change it to something else since this one is bored."

Baby!

I started this post in June and then apparently forgot about it.

We'll be having another little friend join our family in November of this year :)  It felt like a really long road to get this to happen, but it's finally happening.  Taylor and I had all the tests done to see why we had fertility problems; they never found anything wrong with either of us that would be keeping it from happening.  I guess it just needed to be on the Lord's time, and not ours.  We did IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) three times and it finally worked on the third try.  We were very happy about this because if it hadn't worked the third time we were going to amp it up and get much more aggressive, which basically means a lot more needles and a lot more money.

I want to document a few things for myself from the pregnancy so far:

4 weeks - It took three positive pregnancy tests to convince me, but I was finally pregnant!

5 weeks - Getting quite sick.

6 weeks - SO sick.  Much much sicker than I ever was with Palmer.  There has been a lot of days with this pregnancy that I've thrown up more in one day than I did my entire pregnancy with Palmer.  Every stereotypical pregnancy symptom was there for me for the entire first trimester.  Constant nausea (and when I say constant I mean literally 100% of the time), vomiting, food aversions, smell aversions, extreme exhaustion, peeing 800 times a day, congestion, heartburn etc.

8 weeks - Went to the doctor because we had a trip to Mexico coming up and we wanted to make sure everything looked ok so far with the pregnancy and talk about getting some meds to help with my nausea/vomiting.  The doctor said I was measuring WAY bigger than I should and we got nervous/excited that it might be twins.  The doc did a quick ultrasound and only found one.  Twins were an exciting idea for about two minutes, but when he only found one I felt relief rush over me.

11 weeks - Went to Mexico.  I didn't throw up once in Mexico.  I still had the constant nausea, but it was so much less than it had been up to this point.  I thought I was getting out of the first trimester yuckiness.  On the plane ride home I got sick.  I threw up on both legs of the flight and on the drive home that night.  I guess the baby just wanted to be on vacation because the extreme sickness was back and it didn't go away after we got home.

12 weeks - Ultrasound and doctor appointment.  Ultrasound confirmed I was further along than we thought - woohoo!  Due date moved up.  So instead of 12 weeks, I ended up being 13 weeks and 3 days along at this point.  

14 weeks - Still feeling as awful as ever.  My hopes of having all the yuckiness leave with the first trimester were dwindling at this point.  

I did slowly start feeling better in the second trimester.  My nausea and aversions eased up a little and I threw up a lot less. 

As I entered the third trimester I started getting sicker again and having all sorts of pains and discomfort.  This pregnancy was all around much worse than my first one but all very worth it!  For my own benefit I'll really really try to do a post detailing labor and delivery of this little man (which was also MUCH worse than with Palmer).

The things this girl says...

I'm a blog slacker, and it's not going to get any better, but I really want to remember some funny things my silly girl says.

One morning, I asked Palmer what she wanted for breakfast; she gave her usual answer of "mac and cheese!"  I suggested scrambled eggs instead, and she said, "Yeah, cause it's kinda like coconuts!"

On Valentine's Day my mom brought over some prizes for Palmer, and while she was here Rachel brought over a Valentine for Palmer from Stetson.  After they had both left Palmer was giddy about her loot.  She picked up a stuffed frog my mom had brought and said, "That's so nice of Grandma!" and then picked up the treat from Stets and said, "and so nice of Rachel!"  I know that doesn't sound that funny, but the way she said it just sounded like how an old lady would say it.

When she's been crying she tells me her "drips are dripping," which means her tears are falling down her cheeks.

She speaks in a patronizing voice to her friends, and even to me sometimes.  She uses this voice like she's just so knowledgeable and she has to slowly explain things in a way that we'll understand.

Bryir was playing over here the other day and Palmer got hurt.  They had the cutest and kind of weird little conversation.  Bryir was trying to get Palmer to come play some more after she'd gotten done crying over her "injury."  Palmer said, "I can't play right now Bry; I'm so sad.  I wish I could be happy, but I'm just sad.  Look at my eyes; do you see anything in them?"  She wanted Bryir to see the tears.  Then Bryir said, "Yeah!  I see a strawberry in your eye!"

I wish I did better about writing down the funny things she says because she keeps me laughing every day all day with the things she says.


A few fun facts (as of early February, since I left this post in draft mode forever again):
Palmer finally has her bottom two-year molars.  The left one came in first a few weeks ago and the right one has just recently partially busted through.  No signs of the top ones yet.  (Update - since it's June now, her top molars have busted through).

She recognizes all of her numbers and letters.  She can sing the ABCs, usually getting tripped up on a letter or two here and there.  When she counts she says, "one two three six seven..." 97% of the time.  I don't know where the four and five went, but she always skips them.  She can count to ten in Spanish, sometimes missing a number or two (Thanks Dora).

I haven't dared take on full-blown potty training, but I intend to in the next two weeks.  She is ready.  She has peed and pooed in the potty a few times and she knows when she needs to go.  She definitely has a little fear and anxiety about it, but I'm hoping if I commit to it I can help her to see that it's not scary.  Today when I went to the bathroom she said, "Mommy, you went pee!  I'm so proud of you!"  (Update - I tried to take on for real potty training, but she was psychologically not ready.  She has a ton of anxiety about actually releasing the poop and pee.  She loves to sit on the potty and say she's going to go, but as soon as she has the urge to go she totally freaks out.  We spent a few days where I kept her in panties and each day got worse than the last and she had so much anxiety about it.  It was breaking my heart, so we stopped.  I'm hoping she'll want to try again sometime soon.)

She's still a horrible eater.  It's a complete power struggle and I am working on backing off and letting her feel like she's more in control of the situation.  Some days are better than others, but I guess she won't let herself starve.  Update - as of June Palmer is slowly getting better with her eating.  We have gotten to a point where I can usually get her to eat some of the food we're eating and it is SO nice!

She had become a MUCH better sleeper and overall a much more pleasant person...until this past week.  Her sleeping habits took a horrible turn for the worse about a week ago and she's back to crap naps every day and inexplicable emotional breakdowns.  I have no idea what changed, but I hope we can go back to the better sleep soon.  (Update, we're back to pretty good sleep again.  Except she is skipping naps about half of the days now.  She goes down for a nap just fine, and sometimes she goes to sleep, but others she will play in there for an hour or two.  Last week there was a day that she played happily in her crib in her dark room for two hours and 20 minutes before I finally accepted that a nap was not happening and took her out.)  She's doing a lot better with less sleep these days.

Just Hangin' Out

This time I'm not going to start this post and then leave it hanging for 3+ months.  (Well I didn't let this sit for three months, but now it's three weeks later and I'm finally getting around to finishing it up.)

Life has been BUSY lately.  When I sit down and try to think of why it's been so crazy I can't even figure out why, but I feel like I need about 10 more hours in every day.  I try to fit in some fun things for Palmer, but sadly a big part of my hecticity (not a word) is my stupid coding.  It's such a blessing and a curse for me.  I've been transitioning to some different work, which will be good in the long run, but for now it is killing me to keep doing my old stuff and try to learn new stuff, including work that I've started for a different company.  Hopefully things will calm down real soon though.  I am so so so thankful that I get to spend my days with Palmer, even if it means I have to spend a lot of the time on my dumb laptop.


We have gone out of town about a million times in the last few months.  I've gone on girls weekends with two different sets of friends, both of which were SO fun.  I also went to St. George with my mom and sisters for Time Out for Women; that was great of course.  We've been to SLC for about one million doctor's appointments in the last few months.  Palmer is a horrible traveler and I truly believe that she can fight sleep in a car more than any other child in the universe.  It's been rough.  We went up for Thanksgiving this past week; we ate with Taylor's family at Abby's house and it was lovely (other than the driving).  We also bought a new (to us) car while we were up there.  We had talked about getting a bigger vehicle in the near future, but it just kind of happened that we got one this soon.  It's a Nissan Rogue.  There were a couple of other vehicles we probably would have preferred, but we found such a good deal on this one that we felt like we couldn't pass it up.  I think it'll be a good car for us.  Part of the awesome deal was that we got the dealership to pay to have a DVD player installed.  I am hoping that will save us A LOT of headaches while traveling with Palmer.

Palmer has FINALLY started sleeping better.  She's still not as consistent as I would think a 2 1/2 year old should be, but she has finally started taking better naps and even sleeping longer in the mornings.  This definitely doesn't happen every day, but most days it's so much better than it used to be.  This has probably been happening now for 1-2 months.  She is SUCH a happier girl and we have so many less tantrums in general.  I thought this day would never come.  On the note of tantrums, I think the worst of the terrible twos are behind us (knock on wood).  I'm not saying that we don't have terrible threes and fours coming our way, but she is able to regulate her moods a whole lot better than she used to.  I sure love my girl.

Taylor and I are almost licensed to do foster care.  We're not 100% sure how we feel about the whole thing, but it's something we've felt that we were supposed to do for a very long time now.  It's an intense process to get licensed.

Palmer is my favorite person in the universe!  She is such a funny, spunky little person with so much attitude.  Everything is a power struggle with her.  I hope that she uses her powers for good in the future because I have a feeling that she is always going to be a very stubborn person.  She says the funniest things.  I wish I did better at writing them down.  I'll try to remember some of my faves for this post:

Palmer picked out this huge shark at Ikea a few weeks ago and she LOVES this thing!  It goes wherever she goes and she will not sleep without it.  She calls it her "big heavy baby shark." (The shark has its stomach side up in the pic)

This child is obsessed with stuffed animals.  She has a few staples that are always among the favorites, but she does a good job of rotating through all of her millions of stuffed animals.  In her crib at nap time and bed time she is completely surrounded by all her cuddly things that she insists on sleeping with (including everything seen in this pic, plus more)

Tonight we were putting up our Christmas tree.  Palmer reached out her hand and literally shook a branch like she was shaking a hand and said, "Hi Tree.  How are you?  I'm Palmer and these are my friends" (while pointing at Taylor and me).  I don't know how she even learned something like that.

This was the night we put up our tree.  It needs a bunch more balls and it looks crooked in this pic, but we LOVE it!  Palmer has done pretty well with leaving the tree alone and she's done GREAT with the presents we have under the tree.

She loves to say that she's just "hanging out."  When it's time to go to bed sometimes she'll say, "But I wanna hang out more!"

Lately, whenever I try to get her to eat something that she doesn't want to eat (which is 99% of the food I try to feed her) she says, "It's too spicy!"  Mind you, I am not feeding her anything that is too spicy.  I think she learned this phrase from trying my soda one time.  She hates soda, but insisted on trying it; as she was pulling a face after drinking some I asked her if it was too spicy and she's used that phrase ever since.

This girl LOVES to play with friends and cousins.  I wish I could just steal a couple of other kids and have them come live with us because she definitely gets bored with me and does so much better when there are other kids around.  Luckily she's got some great friends that she gets to play with regularly and she has fantastic cousins that are so good to play with her.  She would still choose to have Cheyna as her mom if she could and that would be double bonus for her because then her bust buddy Bryir would be her sister.

This is how Palmer and Bryir watched Mickey Mouse for like 10 minutes recently.  Bryir put her arm around Palmer first and Palmer was not loving it.  But when I told her that Bryir was just being sweet and friendly Palmer joined right in and kept turning to me and saying, "We're being friendly."  Cute girls!  P.S. how cute are Palmer's pigtails?

Palmer went through a phase where whenever I would ask her what she wanted to eat, whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, her response 90% of the time was mac & cheese...a girl after my own heart :)

We always ask Palmer questions like, "Who is that?" or "What color is that?" etc. when she's watching shows.  Lately she has started asking us that question.  She'll be watching a show and say something like, "What animal is that?  Do ya know?"  Any time she quizzes us she ends it with "Do ya know?" with the cutest little inflection in her voice.

Palmer has had an unhealthy obsession with Mickey Mouse for quite awhile now.  A few weeks ago she watched a "Dora the Explorer" movie and has since become so obsessed with Dora.  She still wants Mickey every once in awhile and Little Einsteins once in a great while, but it's almost always Dora now.  Today while we were singing a song at church she started singing, "Nochebuena" over and over.  In a Christmas episode of Dora they sing a song about Nochebuena (Spanish Christmas Eve).

She loves to cheer us on by saying, "You can do it Mom (or Dad)!"

As I'm finishing this post it is the Sunday before Christmas.  Palmer wore a cute frilly dress today with sparkly red shoes.  She LOVED them and kept telling everyone to look at her beautiful dress and sparkly shoes.  She FLIPPED out when I took her shoes off after church before her nap.

I don't know how much she understands about Christmas, but if you ask her about Santa she says that
he is coming on Christmas, that he says, "Ho ho ho," and that he's going to bring her presents and toys.  If you ask her whose birthday we're celebrating she'll say it's Jesus' birthday.  I think this is the most excited that I have ever been for Christmas day because she is going to LOVE the whole thing!

This is such a stereotypical stubborn Palmer face.

Noelle, aka my favorite photographer, took some family pics for us a couple of months ago.  Palmer did not make it easy!  But we got a few good ones.

Life

Turns out I started a post on August 12th and then left it as a draft until now.  Rather than adding whatever I thought the post was lacking (including pictures), I guess I'll just publish it now and hopefully do another post soon.  So the below is all from three months ago:

Well, life gets in the way of my blogging.  I guess that's good - I'd rather live life than write about a boring one.  But there are just some things that I feel need to be documented, as long as I have a blog and such.
We've been in our house for a year and I still have about a million projects that I would like to do to decorate and add function, but we are really really loving it here.  The best part of the house is still its location.  Living so close to family is the best...seriously the actual best.
Palmer is growing up way too fast; she turned two a month ago.  She is my funnest and cutest and favorite little friend.  She says funny things all the time and has such a strong/fun/emotional personality.  We haven't really made any new progress in the potty training department, but since she's barely two I'm not stressing about it too much.  She did actually poop on the bathroom floor today so I'm not sure if that's a step in the right direction or in the wrong one...
She knows most colors now and almost always gets them right.  Sometimes she mixes up pink and purple and also yellow and orange, but she is really good at them.  She knows the basic shapes.  She's also learning how to count, but we're in the very early stages of that.
Somehow she's gotten even more clingy and attached to me.  And somehow she's still kind of the most inconsistent sleeper.  She actually does fine with sleeping; I very very rarely have to go into her room in the night and she goes down for bed like a dream 98% of the time.  But she rarely sleeps as long as her body would like her to sleep in the mornings and at naps.  She's an emotional girl that needs lots of sleep, so her shortened sleep leads to lots of emotional days.
She's still a very picky/finicky eater, but I feel like she has gotten the tiniest bit better about trying things she thinks she doesn't want to eat.  She still loves her cookies and treats.
She definitely went through a growth spurt a couple of weeks ago and is noticeably taller now.  She hasn't gotten her two year molars yet, but she's got the rest of her teeth that come in before those molars.
Some funny things she's said recently:
My dad was dumping a bunch of ice into a cooler and it was fairly loud and Palmer said, "Oh goodness!"  I'd never heard her say that before and it was so cute.
When something isn't quite how she'd like it to be she'll say, "Oh dear."
Her automatic answer to almost anything that you ask her is always "uh uh" while shaking her head "no".
She loves to bring us random things and show us all excited while saying, "What's this?  What's this?" over and over.
When she does something she's proud of she proudly exclaims, "I did it!"  When she finds something she's looking for she says, "I found it!"
She's started saying prayers at night when we prompt her and it's the cutest thing I've ever been a part of in my life.  She also sings along a few words to some of the songs she's heard a lot when we sing to her at bedtime.  
Whenever she hears a toilet flush she starts clapping and exclaims, "Yay Mommy!" (or whoever just went potty)
She absolutely loves her aunts, uncles and cousins.  If you say the name of one person in a family she'll go through and name every other member of the family.
She's obsessed with animals and loves to make animal sounds and loves to visit Grandma and Grandpa's petting zoo next door :)  She's also becoming obsessed with bugs and dirt.
She's OBSESSED with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and life is good for her if Mickey is on the TV or on my phone.
She loves the pool, but she usually doesn't want to stay in the water for more than a half hour.  She prefers to wrap up in a towel and then eat lots of snacks and play in the sand with Bryir.  We did a two week Mom & Me swimming lesson course at the beginning of the summer.  She wasn't so sure she wanted to learn new things, but she really did get more brave and try new things.  She'll now blow bubbles with her mouth in the water.  She'll float on her back or stomach (with me holding her) and kick her legs.  If I warn her that she's going to go under the water then she lets me dunk her and usually comes up with a smile on her face.  She loves going down the slides too.

Stuff to Remember

This post may end up being long (and boring for most) with picture overload, but there's so many little things that I want to be sure not to forget about Palmer.  She's such a funny and stubborn little goof and has such a unique personality.  I just love her so much.

She usually does a pretty good job of not making too much of a mess when she feeds herself, but this time she had yogurt all over her face and up and down her arms.  She was pretty proud of herself.

At 22 months Palmer:
*is the WORST eater imaginable.  I think that this girl does not feel hunger.  Some nights when I put her to bed I feel like she's eaten about three bites of snacks and nothing else.  She is getting pretty good at feeding herself and she loves the independence that she feels with that, so sometimes she'll eat quite a bit when she's given full freedom to do it herself, but sometimes that isn't even enough to get her to eat.  Luckily she loves milk, so she gets some calories and fat from that.  The doctor told me to give her Ovaltine for the vitamins, and she LOVES that.  I switch it up between Ovaltine and Carnation Instant Breakfast mix.  One day she started calling her sippy of chocolate milk "tuppy" and it has stuck.  So any time she wants her chocolate milk she asks for tuppy now.  It's pretty dang cute.  She also usually loves yogurt.  Greek yogurt is a staple of her diet.  One time a few months ago when I was feeding her yogurt I was saying that it was nummy and ever since then she asks for "nummy" when she wants yogurt, so that's what we call it now.

*is an EMOTIONAL girl!  She can go back and forth between goofy happy and throwing herself on the floor sad and then back again before you realize what is going on.  She is obviously an only child and is used to getting her way all the time.  I am trying to keep her from being a crazy spoiled thing, but between her strong personality and the fact that she doesn't have any siblings it is hard to tell her no.

*is a medium sleeper.  She usually wakes up once or twice in the night and fusses a bit.  Some of the time she settles herself back to sleep pretty easily, and other times it's just easier for me to go in and make sure she's ok.  I never take her out of her crib; it's literally a 10 second ordeal to just make sure she has her binky and is not laying on top of any of her cuddly toys.  She goes back to sleep right away and life is good again.  She never sleeps as long in the morning as she needs, which is frustrating.  She wakes up around 7:00 and is very tired and emotional all morning long.  For about two weeks she slept until 8 or 8:30 and she was a whole different person.  It was so nice!  But that ended as abruptly as it began and now she is back to not enough sleep.  She goes to bed super early, anywhere between 6:30-7:30; we've tried putting her to bed later and even earlier to see if it helped, but around 7:00 seems to be her magic time.  She also has a hard time napping as long as she needs.  She usually naps about an hour and a half and wakes up grumpy and emotional.  If she naps over two hours it makes all the difference in the world.  Shortly after my last post she decided she was a one nap a day kinda girl.  Every once in a great while when she is really tired in the morning she will request a morning nap and those days are such a breath of fresh air.  She will NEVER go for it if it is my idea for her to take a morning nap, but the one or two times a month that she asks for it I am happy to oblige.  She is a very light sleeper and any sound in the universe wakes her up.  If she wakes up at all during a nap, there is absolutely no going back to sleep.  **UPDATE - I started this post a couple of weeks ago (don't judge, I'm slow) and now she is getting up between 6:00 and 6:30 every day...awesome.  BUT she has actually been a little less emotional and tantrumy the last week or so, so I'm ok with less sleep as long as she can handle it emotionally.

This was my day on May 23rd.  The top picture shows what my living room looked like by 9 a.m. even though we woke up to a clean house.  Some days I feel like it's her goal to take out every single one of her toys and spread them throughout the house as much as possible.  Today she hasn't taken out a single toy.  The bottom picture shows what she did all day - cry and tantrum.  She got up way too early and napped way too short.  Today she got up even earlier (5:48) so we're in for a good one I'm sure.

*will not go to sleep unless she has her Cosmo pillow pet, owl pillow, two lovies, stuffed Elmo, stuffed Lion, and of course her blankie so she can rub her fingers on the tags.  She always tries to get us to let her take books and her milk to bed, but that's where we draw the line.

*LOVES cookies and treats!  She asks for cookies and treats all day long.  She's definitely my child when it comes to junk food, especially chocolate :)

*talks all day long.  She is getting really good at telling me what she wants or what is wrong.  She says funny things already and I absolutely love her little voice.  She is turning out to be quite the polite little thing.  She says, "thank you" and "you're welcome" (sounds like "a welcome") and "please" ("peez") a thousand times a day.

*thinks she owns mine and Taylor's phones.  She can navigate herself all through the phones and the apps.  She loves to watch her shows on my phone.  Her favorite shows are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins and Sesame Street.  She also LOVES to take pictures and video of herself.  And she loves to flip through and look at the pictures and watch the videos over and over.  If I was as cute as her I'd want to look at myself all day long too.

Here's a very small sampling of some of the pictures she's taken of herself.  They almost always end up as pics of her forehead.

*wants to be outside all day long.  I really really want to put in some grass this year, but we are having a major drought and we don't want to get sod laid just to find out that the city is going to implement water restrictions and have our expensive new grass die.  Taylor keeps promising me that we're going to get a sprinkler system put in soon and after that we plan to fence in our backyard.  So then I can at least let Palmer go out and play in the dirt.  We're very lucky to be next door to my parents and my sister so that we can go play in their yards a lot!

*has the weirdest obsessions.  #1 weird obsession is with ceiling fans.  She's not mesmerized by them like tiny little babies are, she just LOVES them!  She can't handle being in a room that contains a ceiling fan and it not being on.  She gets SO excited when she can turn a fan on and points out every fan in every place that we ever go.  She loves our fan in our living room so much that she has a hard time leaving it when we go somewhere.  She used to cry and reach for it and say, "fan fan fan" over and over when we had to leave.  Now she just blows kisses to the fan and tells it goodbye.  Today she went as far as saying, "Bye bye fan.  Miss you.  Love you."  Cutest and weirdest thing ever. She is also obsessed with my mom's turtle.  When she walks in my mom's house she immediately starts asking for the turtle and wants to be able to see it at all times.  She used to have a really hard time leaving my parents' house because she couldn't handle leaving the turtle, but she has eased up a little bit on her turtle love recently.  She used to be very scared of the turtle.  I think she would still freak out if she had to touch him, but she LOVES to look at him!  Speaking of that, she is afraid of funny stuff.  My parents have a squishy little toy lizard thing that FREAKS Palmer out!  She starts breathing heavy and does whatever she can to get far away from that thing.  She used to have the same reaction to the turtle and to a toy turtle that my mom has.  She got over those, but she still gets freaked out when she sees a little turtle bath toy of hers and won't let me put it in her bath with her.  She HATES vacuums and has the same heavy breathing freak out whenever she can see a vacuum.  It doesn't even have to be turned on, but oh man if you do turn it on she may as well be being chased by a big scary animal.

When you tell Palmer to smile for a picture you never know what you will get.  But it's usually something awesome like this face.  How can something slightly evil-looking like this still be so sweet and cute?

*is further away from potty training than she was three months ago.  Three or four months ago she was getting really good at telling me when she was about to poop, and sometimes told me when she was peeing, so I started pulling her pants and diaper off quickly and putting her on her potty.  She actually did poop in her little potty twice and in the big potty once and peed in her little one once, but none of those times was smooth and easy.  She always kind of fought it and climbed off the potty multiple times before anything happened.  Each time seemed a little more traumatic than the last for her.  And after a couple of weeks of trying she just stopped telling me altogether when she was doing her business; and now if I ever ask her if she wants to go on the potty she automatically tells me no.  So we've taken a little break from the potty training thing.  I mean, she's not even two yet so it's fine, but she had me excited there for a bit; I really thought she might be a super early potty trainer.

*has the oddest little bedtime trick she has to play each night.  So Taylor and I put her to bed together as long as we're both home.  We read scriptures with her, say a prayer and then sing a couple of primary songs while she cuddles on my lap with her sippy of milk.  So then when Taylor kisses her goodnight and goes to leave the room she always says, "milk" and hands her milk to him.  But then as he's walking out the door she yells, "milk" again and makes him bring it back to her.  On the nights when Taylor cuddles her and I leave she sends the milk with me and makes me bring it back to her.  She laughs like it's hilarious every night.  She started doing that at least a couple of months ago and without fail does it every night. 

*has 12 teeth right now (I think...there may be more that I haven't discovered yet).  She's got her four front teeth on top and bottom and four molars.

*her middle toe is the longest.  She has the cutest little feet and toes I've ever seen (even though they're ALWAYS dirty and sweaty and stinky), but I always notice that her third toe is the longest and I think it's weird.

*her eyes stayed blue, but they're a little darker of a blue than when she was a baby.  I'm not sure what color of hair she's going to end up with.  It's always been kind of a dirty blonde, so maybe it will lighten or darken up, or maybe it will stay dirty.  Her hair has a little bit of curl, but not enough to really hold the curl all day long.  By the end of the day it's always kind of scraggly but luckily she pulls off the scraggly look very well :)

Putting Desitin on her baby after changing her diaper

*is starting to know her colors.  She still gets them wrong as often as she gets them right.  But quite often she knows blue, purple, pink, yellow, green and black.  She also knows the difference between one and two...sort of.  She knows that one is one and I think she thinks that two is anything more than one.

This girl loves baths and bubbles!

This day she took a red crayon to her bedroom door and the cream colored glider chair in her room.  This is a picture of her "helping" me to wipe it off the door.  You can't see the red in the picture, but it was there.  It came off the door easily.  The chair took some serious work to get clean.  EVERY time she colors she ends up coloring something she shouldn't...the couch, the coffee table, a non-coloring book, the dishwasher etc.

Crazy morning hair!

Cute Mason and Palmer at our Easter picnic.  Don't mind my finger in the bottom corner.

Palmer and her best buddy, Bryir.  They were so cute this day with Palmer pushing Bry in the doll stroller.  Palmer LOVES Bryir and Cheyna.  She would go live with them gladly if I would let her.  On the days that she is going to play at Bryir's or Bryir is coming to play at our house I can't tell Palmer until right when it's time or she sits there and begs for "Bya" and Cheyna nonstop until it's time.

Palmer loves dirt.  We went to the Bluff cemetery to try to clean up the grave-sites of some of our ancestors and Palmer literally just rubbed dirt all over her face.  It didn't help that the wind was blowing like crazy, but most of this dirt was her own doing.

My cute little gardening helper.

How cute is she with Kristi's glasses?

I just love this picture.  This is a classic Palmer smile, with her little nose scrunched up.  I think she looks so much like her cousin Lexi in this picture.

She discovered Robin's Egg candy at Easter and loved them!

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!