Guess who's one and a half!

Does it look like I'm joking?

Emily Kate! Wow. Honestly, can you believe Baby Em is 18 months old already? I cannot. She has really grown into a fun, smart toddler, especially the last couple of weeks. She has started talking non-stop. She's putting words together and repeating so much. The other day, Tanner ran outside and I told him to "get back here." And as if she knew the urgency of getting Tanner back inside, Emily immediately repeated, "get back here." Okay, so it sounded more like geh ba heeerre, but it still counts! Some other things I'd like to remember about this half birthday are:

• She says "please" and "thank you", sometimes without even being asked. She especially likes to hand us things we've asked for and say, "thank you" to us. She says please after we've told her "no," which means of course she's going to get what she wants. I 100% lack the ability to tell her no, and her little "please" just does not help me at all.
• She likes to throw trash away. She will almost always take something to the trash can for you if you ask her to. (Yes, we are lazy).
• She's developing some of my OCD and likes to wash/wipe/clean her hands. She will walk clear across the room with her hand out (think, a waiter carrying a tray) to show me her hand is dirty so I can help her wash it.
• She knows how to wipe her hands/mouth/nose/whatever by herself. She even gets the tissue or napkin by herself.
• She is learning new words everyday, but a few that are noteworthy are: turtle (this was one of her first words, but she stopped saying it after a few weeks); duck (see previous parenthetical); quack quack; nana (for banana); MEEE! (her response when I ask her "who is that?" and point to a picture of her. This is accompanied by her patting her chest with both hands); Baba (=Barney. As in the big purple dinosaur. Don't judge); teeth (to eat her toothpaste, I mean, brush her teeth, of course); two; toes; mama (she's said this for months, but usually when asked. Dada was by far her favored word. But now she says mama ALL the time. I love it); no no no (which comes with the wag of the pointer finger and a smile. She says this to herself every morning when she goes to mess with the dvd player and cable box); and hu (this means "bad" in Vietnamese).
• If you ask her something that ends with "okay?", like "Em, let's put on your shoes so we can go outside, okay?", she'll respond with, "k."
• Granny says she likes to tattle. She will always run to Granny to tell her that Aaron fell down or that he ran into the wall. She'll point out Aaron's "booboo", go to the wall, hit it, and say, "hu." I'm told she also calls Aaron "bad boy," but I don't believe it. Yet.
• She is still loving her toothpaste and will cry if we don't give it to her.
• Instead of "yes," Em says "si." That's right. She's trilingual. Sometimes "si" is even accompanied by a nod of the head.
• She likes to run into the room or around the corner and yell, "Boo!"
• She's tall enough to open doors now.
• She is getting really good with puzzles and fitting shapes/objects into their respective holes. She can also stack about 9 blocks. She loses interest after this point so I'm not sure if she can stack more than that.
• She likes to kick the "ball" and laughs when she does so.
• Hahaha, have to put this one in here- The other day, Donnie asked her, "Emily, do you love Dada?" She said, "Mama." He asked again, and again Em said, "Mama." If it wasn't so funny, I bet I would have cried.
• The other night, I woke up at 3:30 am to a little girl's sweet voice saying, "down. Down. Down here. Down. Down." There were no tears. She was wide awake, wanting out of her crib. Earlier that night, I went to check on her at about 10:30 because she was crying, only to find that she was sitting up in her crib, playing with her toes, no longer crying, and totally asleep.
• Every night, oh since she was born, I've hummed the lullaby song to her. I don't sing it because, well, I don't know any of the words except for "Lullaby, and goodnight." Anyway, twice now Em has hummed along with me. Really. Makes my heart melt.
• Stats: just shy of 26 lbs (whoa!) and approx. 31 1/2 inches tall. Lol, I mean really, where did she get her frame?!

I don't think Donnie and I have laughed or loved as much as we have this last year and half. As if it's possible, we fall more and more in love with our daughter each day. I often wonder what I ever did to be so abundantly blessed, and I am forever grateful.

This perhaps explains her frame. She's pretending to eat an egg in her skillet.

And so does this: Give. Me. That. CUPCAKE!

Mmmm.