Brianna is 18 months old!

Brianna turned 18 months old on October 9th! She is now 33 inches tall and weighs 23 lbs, 13 oz. She is just below the 50th percentile for weight and just above the 75th percentile for height. She is a very active, funny, opinionated and independent little girl. She refuses to be overlooked. If she is in her highchair and I am not bringing the food fast enough, she will yell "MOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" at the top of her lungs. I have also learned to ask her what she wants to eat/drink because if I give her something she doesn't want, she'll shake her head back and forth and say "Nooooooo!" and may even throw it on the ground. And then, ironically, despite the fact that she's the one that threw the food on the ground, she gets frantic when she sees Jedi eating it. She then yells "Mine! Miiiiiine!" and tries to pick it all up.

As I said, Brianna is very opinionated - she's a girl who knows what she likes. Here's a rundown of some of her favorite things...

Favorite Books: Little Porcupine's Christmas (this has been one of her favorites since summertime) & Old MacDonald Had a Farm (she calls it the "ee-i-ee-i-o" book)

Favorite Foods: Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, strawberries, macaroni & cheese

Favorite Movie: Baby Einstein - Baby MacDonald

Favorite Animals: Fishies & Duckies

Favorite TV Character: Elmo

Favorite TV Show: Sesame Street

Favorite Security Object: Blankie (aka "Dakie")

Favorite Toys: Baby Dolls (She particularly likes to buckle her babies into the stroller. Then she insists that Mom or Dad unbuckle the strap so that she can buckle it again. That game can go on for a very long time.)

Favorite CD: Tots Rock (She requests it by name: "ROCK!")

Brianna has a vocabulary of at least 40 words now. (She is very chatty.) Here are some of the cute ones:

"NaaaaK!" = snack (this word is pronounced with a very hard K and always has an exclamation point after it)
"bok bok" = duck or chicken
"Ay-mo" = Elmo
"Baf!" = bath (pronounced with a distinct F; Brianna LOVES to take baths.)

One of the biggest changes we've noticed in Brianna over the past few months is the color of her hair. She has become quite blond! Take a look at the change from April to October:

Here are some of Brianna's many moods:

Pouty / Chillin'

Happy (with Blankie) / Mad

(For quite a while, whenever Brianna was mad she would bend over and put her head on the floor. We have no idea why, but it was pretty funny.)

Lastly, I leave you with some funny pictures of Brianna riding a watermelon:

Why is she riding a watermelon? Well, we were at Meijer and I decided to buy a watermelon. I put it in the cart next to Brianna. The next thing I knew, she was sitting on it and bouncing up and down like she was riding a horse. I thought it was so funny I took a picture with my cell phone. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the picture off my cell phone. So, in my desire to not let a scrapbook-worthy moment pass me by, I took my camera the next time we went to the store and staged these shots. It's even a stunt watermelon. I didn't buy it.