14 months

Anna is so darn sweet and she just makes you want to squeeze to pieces.  Her Pop Pop calls her "Gumdrop".  

She certainly had a busy month on her feet.  She is officially cruising and transferring like a champ.  She knows the stairs are off limit so she is a lot sneakier about getting to them, always checking behind her to see if anyone is watching.  She antagonizes us to get us to chase her across a room.  Anna definitely loves to use her push toys to get

  

She is a little water bug.  My approach to bath time is to stick her in the back of the tub and let her play until the other kids are clean (a good long time), then I wash all her soft slippery parts before wrestling her out of the tub. 

Anna's ability to communicate with us is so much fun.  She points to and says "doggy" and attempts a bark at anything that is not a bird, monkey or duck.  She loves hugging and kissing everyone and everything.  She climbs up our legs and says "mamamamama" when she wants us to hold her (clearly I confused her somewhere).  She knows Mommy, Daddy, Ate, Ax.  She is learning the parts of her body - but her belly button is her favorite.  She is still good about saying thank you and we are working on please.  She says "All Done" when she is finished eating.

Play time is a blast.  Mostly she wants to be involved in whatever the kids are doing which is a mixed blessing.  We have found some ways around this challenge by filling Kate's shopping cart with animals and dolls for her to load and unload or doing projects up high while she plays under the table. She loves playing in the kitchen cabinets and filling containers with her snacks like she sees Kate doing all the time for all her "girls" (i.e. stuffed baby bunnies).  She is mimicking us more and more like putting bottles in her baby's mouth, combing her hair, trying to put on her socks and shoes, adding accessories (bows, necklaces, hats, scarves), writing, reading books.