17 months old - what fun!

Doing my "love" sign to Daddy

Family picture - May 2007

Hangin' out in my new kicks in Georgia!

I love chalk!

Art Dabblers class with my friends

Throwing rocks in the creek with Daddy

Our little girl isn't quite so little anymore! She is really getting quite independent and loves to do things by herself. We have to allow at least 5 extra minutes to get out the door b/c she has to put her shoes on herself. :) She also loves to help Mommy and Daddy around the house. She helps Mommy push the vacuum cleaner, uses her own rag to dust alongside Mommy, helps put the dishes away, and make Daddy's coffee. Her favorite thing is to help us with our shoes. She loves to give Daddy his shoes in the morning before he goes to work, and then to put them away each night when he's home.

Annika is a huge fan of being outside. She likes to throw & kick balls, push her stroller, ride on her "car," play with the sand table, and draw chalk pictures on the driveway (and herself, when Daddy's in charge!).

Our girl is still a terrific eater - now if only we would eat as well as she does!! Her latest trick in her high chair is doing "cheers" with our drinks. She saw one of her little friends doing it with her mommy a few times, and two days later I finally caught on to what she was trying to do with me! I definitely got (and deserved) her look that said it was about time I figured it out. :)

We're still battling with her eczema, which tends to get pretty severe when she's teething. We finally have her taking an antihistamine twice a day, and that has seemed to help. Hopefully this ensures that she doesn't get another horrific breakout. She could hardly open her mouth the last time b/c of all of the sores, and we certainly don't want to see that happen again.

We think we also have a handle on her pulling out her hair. She started doing it when Daddy was traveling for a couple of weeks - she just didn't like her bath as much with me and was out of sorts at bedtime too, as Daddy usually does those things with her. She quit pulling out her hair when Justin came home, but started again when her eczema got bad. In 2 days, she had pulled out enough hair to cause a bald spot and lose most of the curls on her right side. We had tried all of the pediatrician's suggestions - telling her nice hair & gentle hair, getting her a doll with real-life hair as an alternative, and putting vaseline on her head ... none of that worked. So we bought some pajamas a size too big and sewed the hands shut. We cut a hole for her thumb and she's been wearing them for a few weeks now. She got used to it fairly quickly and we think we're even seeing some hair growing back - woo hoo!!