16 months and Easter

Blakely turned 16 months on Easter Sunday, and I didn't even realize it until today!  Monthly milestones are going to get harder as she gets older.  We are busy busy, and will only get busier once little brother gets here! 

Life has been crazy around the Billings household.  We are putting our house on the market tomorrow- long story short- we want to rent for a year and try to save aggressively.  So we have been working nonstop on getting our house ready to sell.  It is bittersweet.  We have done lots of renovations that I wish we would have done as soon as we moved in!  New carpet on the stairs and in the bedrooms, new paint in the bathrooms, we painted these hideous green cabinets in our basement (I am embarrassed it took us this long!) and we have been doing lots of "simplifying" and MUCH more  It is amazing how two people can accumulate so much junk over a short 4 1/2 year period.  Our shed is full and there is next to no storage space! 

All that to say, the last couple of weeks haven't been the best for Blakely.  It is so amazing how much her attitude is affected by ours.  As Stephen and I are distracted by house stuff and unable to give her the attention she is use to, she has so many more behavior issues.  When we take a break and sit down on the floor with her and give her our attention, she is a different baby.  Not to mention that we are stressed, and thus she is stressed.  I also don't think she likes that things are changing.  I think babies pick up on all the little things, and new carpet, rearranging, etc. really stresses her out.  Her behavior is also directly affected by her schedule.  Today she took two "schnoozers" as Stephen calls them (naps under an hour- meaning=worthless) and she was pretty fussy all day.  However, yesterday, she slept in a took two awesome naps, and she was GREAT all day! 

On to her update!  She is signing a ton these days.  She does food, more, and lots and lots of please.  She will do all done if we ask her.  She is trying SO hard to talk.  We will ask her what she wants, and I know she is trying her hardest to tell me what she wants, she just doesn't have the words.  (more likely, I just don't understand her words...)  But it is fun to see her try to talk, and I will ask a million questions to figure out what she is telling me and she gets SO excited if I can manage to figure it out.  But it is also so sad when I know she wants something specific, I just can't figure out what it is. 

Her hair is getting long!  I put it in pigtails for the first time yesterday.  It was so cute, but she looked SO old.  It made me sad.  I felt like she looked like a 2 year old!  She isn't a fan of having stuff in her hair, so I had to distract her to keep her from messing with it.

I doubt she has grown too much since her last update, but it sure feels like she is getting heavier by the day.  I know I am! 

This is her buddy Hudson.  We play with him at least once a week.  I can always count on his mom, Katie, for a last minute play date, lunch date, or shopping date.  We also plan ahead, some, but this picture was an impromtu trip to baby gap.  They were loving running around in their sunglasses that we did not buy.  We also took our first trip (with Blakely) to Chick-fila.  She experienced the play area for the first time.  She loved it, however, I did not.  I was a little freaked out by the germs, and the bigger kids, and one bigger kid in particular that wouldn't keep his hands off Blakely.... He was one touch away from me telling him to keep his hands to himself.  :) 

With this hot weather, we have been wearing tank tops, shorts and diapers every day.  (Blakely is the only one that runs around in a diaper...) But of course, Easter Sunday was our first cold day in a while!  I had to dig out a sweater for B so she didn't freeze.  She LOVES the church nursery.  We have snuck up a few times and she is just running around playing with all the toys and playing with all the kids.  They always tell me she is so good.  I am glad she isn't the bully.  With her personality, I think it's a good thing she is on the small side.  I think she can hold her own, and she doesn't need to be any bigger than other kids, otherwise she might pick on them.  (she might pick on them anyway...)

The next few weeks will be crazy for us!  We will be cleaning our house nonstop, this weekend we have an open house, next weekend we are going to OKC for Ray Burbank and Lauren Cook's wedding, the next weekend is our April Staff Training - which I will sadly not be able to attend thanks to Henry, and the NEXT weekend is Claire Lewis and Nathan Gertson's wedding in AR- in which Stephen is officiating, I am a bridesmaid, and B is the flower girl. :)  Here's to hoping Henry cooperates with that plan at almost 37 weeks.  HA!

Ps.  Could anyone out there help me with the look of my blog?  I am really not great with this stuff and I honestly don't even know how to change the picture or the background... sad, I know.  How did I graduate college you ask?  I am not sure either.