The Hartsell Family: 2015

Allison is at such a great age. Her verbal just continues to explode and her physical feats are amazing and sometimes scary. Here are her memories.

Physical

In May, she started giving high fives.
She now can open door handles that have levers which means she is now able to access closets and bathroom doors!
Allison loves shoes and can pick out a matching pair!
She loves sitting on the bathroom counter and playing in the sink much like her sister liked. She loves the water and turning on and off the faucets.
No one can quite believe how much a of a monkey she is on the swingset. She loves hanging on the monkey bar and swinging all by herself. If we go to spot her, she says "no-no." It is impressive that she can hold on for so long and lift her legs up so high and get herself back to the platform after swinging. Future gymnast?
We put the baby swing away since she likes to swing like a big girl. She also really likes the tire swing under our swing set.
She isn't bashful when she wants what Brian is eating. She'll grab her own spoon spoon and heads right over to him asking to sit on his lap and eat his food.
She is a cold little one and wore winter PJs all summer. Sometimes with a wearable blanket and heater on too.
She is showing interest in the potty and on July 11, she actually pooped in the potty and then did it again July 12. She was so proud! She has perfected her backing up and sitting down on the potty (she's getting so big).
She can jump by almost gets her feet off the ground
On June 25, she surprised us by getting down from her high chair herself.
She is getting more daring and slides down stairs forward on her butt.
She is constantly doing down dogs, a yoga move, where she puts her butt in the air and has both her hands and feet on the ground. Apparently they do it at school. It's so cute to see.
She walked up the outside of my parents stairs, which have railings on both sides of the stairs but some of the stairs overhang past the railing, proving that she is a dare devil.

Verbal

She loves these books: Kittens are Like That, Counting Kissing (where she affectionately gives the baby a kiss every time we read it when it says "My tired little baby, do you need a kiss?"), I'll See You in the Morning, Puppy Boo (she loves saying "BOO"), Brown Bear Brown Bear (she can call this by name and loves the animal noises), Find the Kitten or Puppy, Who's Looking at Me (although she doesn't let me read the information on the animals, just looks at them under the flap), When Madelyn was a Baby (where she likes pointing to Leia, Mommy, Daddy and baby), Peek-a-Who (she laughs hysterically when we say Peek a "BOO"), Love My Shoes, and That's Not my Teddy.
She makes the following Animal Noises: Moo, quack (which she says in the back of her throat), meow, roof roof, and baa sometimes.
Madelyn and Allison have a special language. Madelyn will say something non-coherent and say "OK?" and then Allison will respond back "OK" It's quite cute.
She loves saying "bye-bye pee-pees" as they are flushing down the toilet.
She loves to say "Bonk" when she hits her head even if it's barely a bump.
She likes phones (or anything that looks like one like a remote or a calculator) and always puts them up to her ear to talk and says "HI." She is good about holding the phone with her shoulder.
Allison has lots of new words some of which include saying "Mine, Mine, Mine" over and over again. She also says uh-oh, mama, dada, da (for dog), A Ba (for Aunt Beth), YEAH!, cheese, off, dump, move, ball, bowl, yep (for yes), no, meh or ma-de (for Madelyn), uh-oh, up, down, baba (for blanket), more and bonk.

Special Memories

She is our animal lover. She LOVES picking up dog poop (both girls fight over who gets to pick it up!) She constantly points out dogs and always wants to pet them when we are outside.
She also loves feeding both Preta and Leia. She especially likes getting Leia's food ready and placing it down for her to eat and then signing all done. She also loves filling the dog water bowls outside.
She feeds Leia WAY too many treats at a time but loves it.
She says "kong"and then says "cheese" to fill Leia's dog Kong with cheese. She then gives it to Leia sometimes purposely putting her fingers in it and licking them and then asking for more! (So gross!)
She prefers to put on her own diaper cream!
She started blowing bubbles into her drinks in June. I am hoping this is short lived skill but she thinks its so funny. She also seems to think that when she is done eating, she is to clear her tray off by throwing everything off it. :(
She is so affectionate and loves to give hugs to people in books.
She loves food and will even go get what she wants and hand it to you while saying please! It's so hard to resist.
When we are having a hard time figuring out what she wants, she will push our walking legs over to where she wants us to go if she can't explain it in words. It's actually quite effective! She also is great about saying YES! with a big smile when we figure out what she wants.
She loves to pretend drive the van and can even turn the car on so she can adjust the music!
Unfortunately, Madelyn gives Allison whatever she wants when Allison cries which is so not helpful! Tantrums have started.
These three months were known as code brown: Allison kept pooping whenever she was in water whether it be a bath with Madelyn, a shower with Mommy or just swimming at the pool resulting in having to change reusable swim diapers which was horrible!! When in the shower with me, she'd say uh-oh and I'd know that she had just pooped. Ugh!
She loves to dispense water from our refrigerator and then say "DUMP" and do it over and over again. She finds such joy at filling up cups with water!
I love driving with Allison when she claps and dances in her car seat. It's so fun to see her get into the music.
She loves to push the button on the Refrigerator Farm that sings songs and then dance to it over and over. Then she'll cheer "YEAH!" when the song ends and then go push it again. Madelyn commonly joins in so their is a dance party in our kitchen. They have so much fun.