The Willms: 17 Months 16 Month Stats

Well, the little ones turned 17 months on July 27th.

It was a very busy month at the Willms' house filled with lots of trips back to Iowa, a mommy and daddy vacation to D.C., weekend visitors, swimming lessons, and play dates! The month of July seemed to fly by!

Here are the new and fun things the twins have been up to this past month at 16 months:

Katherine Ilene

(June 27th - July 27th)

* Can sing along to parts of the "ABC's' and will sometimes just start singing it on her own after she hears us sing it. Her singing voice sounds so sweet!

* New words for the month are: apple, hi, bye, A-B-C, Mickey, Minnie, Hotdog (when trying to sing the 'Hotdog Song' on Mickey's Clubhouse), stinky.

* A silly personality continues to emerge! You love to crack yourself up and will laugh at what you say or when we start laughing.

* Such a little dancer. You will sway your shoulders to the music and try and sing along. You get very excited to start dancing along when the 'Hotdog' song starts playing.

* Started swimming lessons on July 24th. You are loving the water now. You enjoy swimming lessons and don't mind getting your face wet and will try to blow bubbles. You went all the way under three times so far at lessons and didn't cry or seem to mind! :)

* Can now crawl down steps and will go feet first.

* Only eats meat on pizza or will eat ham lunch meat.

* Loves hanging upside down and being pushed on the swingset.

* Will start peek-a-boo with us and then say, "There she is", after pulling the blanket off her head. You wait for us to ask, "Where's Kate?" before you take the blanket off of your head.

* Loved Grandma Joyce's kitchen cub board with the cake/cookie sprinkles. You loved holding them and shaking them like a rattle.

* At Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Bernhardt's you love walking the circle around the house.

* Still holds up hands while walking around. Got to keep that balance I guess! Ha!

* Your favorite foods are: grapes, cereal bars, milk, strawberries, cheese, and Mac n' Cheese. This month you started liking watermelon and muskmelon with some convincing it was good. You still remain a bit of a picky eater. You know just by looking at it in 3 seconds if you're going to want to try and eat it or not.

* You take just one nap after lunch anytime between noon and 1:00 for an average of 3 hours.

* You and your brother have been champs at going to bed. This month we have laid you down and don't hear anything from you until morning.

* You continue to be our little reader. Books are your favorite toy. You'll sit and read books aloud to yourself for a long period of time. You've started bringing the book you want us to read to you and then will sit on our laps while we read it to you. Adorable!

* Mommy and Daddy went on vacation to D.C. to visit our friends, Dave and Natalie and twins Landry and Gracie, at the end of June. You stayed 5 nights in Dike at both grandparents' houses. Mommy and Daddy missed you, but we had an awesome report on how great of kids you were and transitioned well to a new routine.

* You spent two nights at your Aunt Kelly and Uncle Brian's house with us.

* You have 6 teeth but your two teeth next to your top front teeth are ready to come through.

Matthew Edward:

(June 27th - July 27th)

* You've started walking down the step into our living room and the two steps out to the back patio. Quite the coordination for a little guy! :)

* You still aren't saying any words, but we know you are definitely learning more of the words we are saying to you and will follow directions. You do a lot of jabber and look at us like we should have known what you've just said.

* You help us take off your shirt and then know how to put it back on with our assistance.

* Your favorite thing to do this summer is to play outside. Constantly throughout the day you will bring us your shoes, sit down for us to put them on, and then head right to the back door. If we don't let you go outside when you want to, you will throw a bit of a fit.

* When you play outside you love to play in water either in your water table or in a bucket. You will spend most of your time filling up little plastic containers and then walking around the yard watering different things. (Even though you loose all of your water on your walk over to where you're going.)

* Had strep throat for the first time while we were back in Iowa.

* It amazes us how many different foods you try and end up liking such as: Chipotle burritos, Ruben sandwiches, honey mustered and barbecue and sweet and sour sauce, combination pizza, salsa and chips, and much more. You like pretty much everything!

* We have been having you use a spoon or fork a lot more while you eat. You love it and now will motion to us if we forget to give you one. You also love to eat off of a plate and have your snacks or cereal in a snack cup while you play.

* You love your sister and will constantly give her bear hugs, which knocks her over, and then she gets up set with you. When she starts to cry, you'll then pat her on the back to console her. You also want to be her little helper and do things like us like put her paci in her mouth, feed her your snack, bring her a sippy cup, and find and give Kate her monkey blanket. It's so cute to watch, but I don't always think she likes it as much as you.

* When we are done changing your diaper you will take it and head to the door out to the garage so you can throw it away. More evidence of showing us how much you are watching and observing what we do.

* You and your circle blanket are inseparable!

* Any toy your sisters wants, you want too! We are working on sharing!

* Still a monkey, a strong one in fact! You can pull yourself up into Grandma and Grandpa Dufel's bay window. Such upper body strength for a boy in the 5th-7th %tile in weight!

* Love closets! You will open our tri-fold closets and walk in and close the door. You don't seem scared to be in the dark. You started liking to play in closets while we were back in Iowa at Great-Grandma and Grandpa Bernhardt's house. You thought you were hilarious and would laugh when we would open the door and see you in there.

* Like to walk the house circle at Great-Grandma and Grandpa Bernhardt's house. You especially loved it if someone chased you or if you could follow Kate around.

* On the toy with the different shaped holes, you can put the circle shaped blocks through the circle shaped hole with no problem.

* You now take one nap after lunch between noon and 1:00. You will sleep for 2 hours on average. I have to rush in and quickly get you when I hear that you've woken up so you don't wake your sister.

You spent two nights at your Aunt Kelly and Uncle Brian's house with us.

You and your brother have been champs at going to bed. This month we have laid you down and don't hear anything from you until morning. (except when you had strep...we snuggled together)

* You started swimming lessons on July 24th. On the first day of lessons you had you own agenda planned, the playhouse structure, instead of the instructor's plans.

* You still have 8 teeth but your two eye teeth on top are so close to coming through.