Essie is 18 months and adorable

  

Thank you God for such a sweetie!!!

She has the sweetest way of saying “thank you” and she says it all the time.  She has not been the best sleeper.  But I can say we all slept through last night.  So we will take that as a win to the sleep bank!  She has the clearest “Mommy” call.  Especially when she is being put down and night and doesn’t fall asleep immediately.  She loves pushing around the baby stroller, with just about anything in it.  She pushed elmo, babie, barbie size princesses, blankets, you name it.  She has a sweet silky lovey that she has grown attached to in the past month or so.  I was hoping for anything to help her sleep.  This may or may not be working.  She loves oatmeal and can say so.  If she sees a bagel she asks for that too, even if she has already eaten her oatmeal “otme”, “bayl”.  She loves her Calhoun.  Though Adeline called him “Ka-Coon”  she seems pretty clearly to call him “hoon”.   She loves to do anything her sister is doing…. even “bad choices”.  She pour tea and coffee like a champ.  She even stirs in my sugar.  She says “up” if you are trying to take a snooze on the couch.  She knows when she wants her window on the car “up” or “oun”.   She has the most infectious smile and eyes that light up any room.  She is now freely giving out kisses.  Before she would lean in for you to kiss her on the forehead.  She loves the doll house Martha and Bill gave the girls for Christmas.  She spins it round and round and caries the people and furniture around.  She really likes the animal noise puzzle Aunt Annie gave us for her birthday.  This puzzle is cool until it is freaky… you turn out the light or the TV changes from bright to dark and if any piece is not in it it goes off making the animal noise not in place (cow, mouse, any of the 10).  So the sounds Essie loves to hear when she puts the pieces in place cause some quick glances at the oddest of moments.  Essie rings the door bell EVERY time we come home or come in from walking Calhoun.  She can ask for “milllk”.  She has just about given up communicating with signs.  A sad milestone for me.  However, I can still remind her to say please with a quick jester.  So she still knows them.  She can same “ovie” for movie.  Isn’t that sad.  But after a few car trips she is hooked.  And her big sister watched Cinderella so much I think today she said “cinella”.  I almost didn’t want to acknowledge it.  She say “ehmow” for elmo.  And for a minute I thought a baby elmo was going to be her lovey, but that was only for a night.  She is not as good of a variety eater as Adeline.  But maybe we haven’t been serving them right.  Today she ate broccoli dipped in ketchup.  Who knew!  She is great to warm up to folks she doesn’t see everyday.  She went up to my Dad and practically crawled up in his lab.  She once stood at our front window and kept calling for “meme” and then after a while started calling for “meme and papa”.  We had seen them often the week before and I guess she was going through a withdrawal.  She loves her teachers at Sonshine Day.  She has them wraped around her pinkie.  She has been parroting us around the house and apparently them at school.  Ms. Becky was amazed when she said “clean up boys” after she did.  I even heard her say “urple” when someone was showing her a purple pen.  This has ramped up Adeline investing in her by trying to get her to say every word.  Imagine where Adeline got that idea.  She seems to like it though.  These two sisters are adorable. Kisses are often shared.  Adeline is very good at sharing and Essie is working on it, but really does surprise me how freely she will share.  Baby dolls go back and forth by the minute.   Pom poms are always shakin’.  Today there was a lady exercising on the TV and Essie even started kicking her feet around.  She can sing the key words to Jesus loves Me, Isty Bitsy Spider, Row Row your Boat, Patty Cake, Happy and you know it, and some others I am forgetting I am sure.   She says “appy” so sweetly.  She loves taking pretend pictures with our pretend camera.  She tells everybody “eese” for cheese.  She has other words too like ball, ock (for rock as in the rocking chair), play, hold you (that melts my heart and I have to admit I trained her on this on – she learned it very early on to get picked up), goo goo, GO, NO (she use to say this sweetly, but I think that the sister influence might have changed the delivery of this one), YES (with a big ole head nod), please, juice/shoes (they sound so similar you have to guess sometimes on what she wants),

“eese”

giving and getting kisses on our cruise:

so grown up

just looking up at momma

Essie loves hats:

Just so cute

Safety first and so independent:

The oldest picture of the bunch, but thank you Aunt Sissy for the warm and matching JamJams… even for the sweet babies!  Perfectly fitting the girls to the floor.

Angel sleeping:

Sisters having fun:

Thanks to God above for giving her to us and for giving us so many people that pour love into her life.  She can help but ooze out sweetness!