This will be a random post. I don't think any of the pictures relate to each other, other than they are centered around Baby Girl (shocker, I know). First picture, Baby Girl applying deodorant. I'll admit that she is growing up really fast, but she hasn't hit that stage in life yet where she needs to wear deodorant. She is fantastic at being a copy cat. She copies EVERYTHING we do and say. Needless to say, I left the deodorant within her reach one day and she decided to copy me. It always amazes me how observant she is. She notices things and remembers things that surprise me. The other day we walked past a pop machine and she pointed to it and said 'coke'. For real? How does she know that? We don't drink Coke. A couple of days ago, she started saying a new word that is secretly my favorite to hear! I smile everytime she says it. She learned months and months ago to say 'up' when she wants to be held. Now she's started saying 'hold you'. It is so cute! 

Now for picture 2: my toddler looking like a teenager. Everything is there: her adorable off-the shoulder style of shirt, her headphones on her ears, her mouth hanging open and the blank stare on her face. I just thought this was a cute picture. We got new headphones today in the mail, so we were playing around with them. She surprisingly kept this style of headphones on. We recently purchased a portable DVD player. We hope to use it on future family vacations and long car rides to keep our child from driving us crazy! We decided to see if she would watch her Elmo movies with headphones on, so we don't have to listen to Elmo for the entire drive. We'll have to see if it will work!

Now for the final random video. We're pleased to announce that Baby Girl is currently learning another musical instrument. She's mastering the piano. Morgan is teaching her the guitar. And she has self-taught herself how to play the glockenspiel. Yes, that's right. She's a genius! She got this glockenspiel as a birthday present from Morgan's Aunt Christine (and family). She loved it immediately. Since then, she has practiced and practiced. Here's her debut performance:

Luckily, you have a volume control. In real life it is REALLY REALLY loud. And she loves to play when we are trying to have a conversation. It's rather cute to see how much she enjoys playing though!

We had another play date with some friends this week. My friend Britney, who I used to teach 3rd grade with, met us in Salt Lake. Her daughter (Baby H) is about a month older than Baby Girl (Baby G). We've had several play dates together, and its more for the moms than for the girls. They don't really play with each other. We decided to try playing at Red Butte Gardens. It was gorgeous weather - AND Morgan's brother, Dana, works there. He was going to hook us up! Unfortunately, it was crowded. There were tons and tons of angry people waiting in line to buy concert tickets. Dana was super busy, and there was a massive line to get into the gardens. Fortunately, Britney and I found each other, and got into the gardens with no waiting and no problems! (Thank you Dana!)

There were a lot of pretty flowers. We played in the Children's Garden for a while. Baby G loved the little chairs made out of wood logs. Then we had a picnic in the shade. It was great! We wandered around the pretty gardens for a while. We saw some ducks swimming by the waterfall. We saw some geese swimming with some giant goldfish. We bought some fish food to feed the fish, but the geese wouldn't let the fish get any. Baby G loved throwing the little pellets. When I wasn't looking, she slipped one of them in her mouth.  Gross.

I think Baby G's favorite part of the day was playing with Baby H's stroller. And Baby H loved playing with our stroller. Isn't that a silly thing? So, we switched for part of it. I pushed around Baby H, while Britney pushed Baby G. Such a simple thing, but they loved it! 

We had a great play date, and look forward to our future ones! 

I'll apologize, in advance, to the few of you that read this blog. I know that this blog is turning into a tribute to how smart our child is. But we're first time parents, and our child is actually a genius! She loves to play the piano. Recently, she loves playing songs from the Children's Songbook. She turns the pages and plays the different songs. She's learned to identify a few of the songs by the pictures on the pages. So, if she wants to play "Do As I'm Doing", she starts rolling her arms - to let me know that I need to find the page with that song. I can't fool her, she knows if its that page or not. She also touches her shoulders for "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes". She does the popcorn action for "Popcorn Popping". She claps her hands for "If You're Happy and You Know It". Well, yesterday, she surprised me with a new one. She was turning the pages and found a new song and said "hello" and pointed to the picture. I didn't know she knew how to say 'hello'! And sure enough, she was pointing to the "Hello Song". All day yesterday, she was playing and singing the hello song. I actually got it on video! It's hard to understand, unless you know she is saying "hello". So listen for it! 

We got a second chance at celebrating Easter, which I am grateful for since we were sick. Last Saturday, Morgan's grandparents had their annual Frame Family Easter Party. I'm glad it was the weekend after, so we could recover from our illness and enjoy the family. And the weather was a lot better than the snowy Easter we had this year. We told Baby Girl that we were on our way to see grandma and grandpa. That was a slight mistake on our parts, because we had to drive a good half hour to get to the party. So for the entire 30 minutes, she would say "maama", then she would say "baapa". We would reply: "Yep, we're going to go see Grandma. And Grandpa". Replay this tiny conversation for 30 minutes straight and it gets a little annoying. Needless to say she was pretty excited to see her grandparents. She was shy for a good 10 minutes, then was just fine with our new surroundings. She even was big enough to eat lunch at the little kids table this year. She loved her own size chair.

Another favorite part of going to Grandpa Frame's house is his chicken coupe. He has a bunch of chickens, and this year he even had baby chicks. Baby Girl loved going to see the chickens. She even pet some of the baby chicks. Today (3 days later) she was asking me where the chickens were. Silly girl.

After lunch, it was time for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. She was a lot more able to get the eggs this year, compared to last year! We still had to find the eggs and point them out to her. If the egg was hidden in the branches, she was too afraid of the bush to grab it. Even if it was on the long grass, she didn't want to pick it up. But she loved to shake the eggs and find the candy that was hidden inside. After it was all over she was wanting to find "one more".

After the Easter Egg Hunt, we even had a piñata! Baby Girl was even given the chance to break it. Probably not the smartest thing giving a 19 month old baby a bat that weighs half as much as she does! The piñata was too tall, so I had to lift her up so she could hit it. I was afraid she was going to smack me in the face with a baseball bat. Luckily it was heavy enough, she couldn't quite swing it very hard. She loved being apart of it though. She cried when her turn was up. None of the great-grandkids were able to break it, so they finally turned the bat over to Morgan's cousin, Max, to demolish it. You can see the video here.

Another successful Frame Family Easter Party to go down in history! 

Baby Girl is entering the phase where she is getting really good at copying the words that we say - and she still remembers them weeks later. She is always surprising me with what words she knows. I think her vocabulary has tripled in the last month. We were looking at the junk mail ads the other day, and Baby Girl points to the ad and says "car" and I look at the ad and sure enough its a car! So I ask her again what it was (just to make sure), and yep, its a car. When did she learn that word?! I don't remember teaching it to her, but I must have said it enough for her to know. That happens to be the case with a few other words that are now a regular part of her vocabulary. I didn't teach them to her, but obviously I said them around her enough for her to learn what they were!

Example A: Booger and Booger Ball (the little suction ball to extract the boogers). She knows what both are and can say both of them. Especially since she's been sick, we've seen a lot of both of these items. She likes to use the Booger Ball on her stuffed animals and dolls. I didn't realize that she knew this word until a few weeks ago, when we sat down for dinner to eat hamburgers. She asked "Dat? (what's that?)" and I said 'burgers'. Then she started pointing to (and inside) her nose. Then I realized that she thought I was saying boogers, instead of burgers. Lovely.

Example B: Burp. Not only does she say the word when she actually burps (and when other people burp), but she can pretend burp. She does a little cough/grunt noise that is her attempt at imitating a burp. I'm also trying to teach her to say 'excuse me' after she burps. She's trying to say it, it usually sounds more like 'amen', but at least she's trying.

Example C: Poop. This word originated a couple of weeks ago. We were looking out the window at this random dog wandering the streets. I didn't know whose dog it was, and it didn't have an owner or a leash. Nevertheless, Baby Girl LOVES looking at dogs. She points and giggles and says 'doggie'. This dog decides to stop and poop on our neighbor's lawn. So I say "What is that dog doing pooping on the grass?" Then magically, Baby Girl says "poop" and "doggie". Ooops. As the dog continues on down the street and out of our view, she continues to ask "poop" and "doggie"? Then the next day, comes the same words from Baby Girl "poop doggie"? Here it is, two weeks later, and she still wants to know where the doggie went that pooped. Now, several times in the last week, she's come running up to me and says "poop" and points to her diaper. Sure enough, she has a poopy diaper. One time, she even looked at me and said 'poop', then started to poop.

I'm sure this is only the beginning. Luckily, these words aren't as bad as other words! We just need to be careful about what we say around her now!

This year we had a very uneventful Easter. It snuck up on us without warning, and passed very quietly. It was kind of nice. About a week ago, Baby Girl developed an awful cough. The next day, I started feeling achy. Oh no. Yuck. It's bad enough having a sick baby, but it's even worse when I am sick too. Three days into the sickness, I take Baby Girl to the doctor - hoping she could get an anti-biotic that would make her magically get better. Of course not. Diagnosis: some viral bug. I'll be sick for a week and Baby Girl will be sick for 2-3 weeks. What? That day it goes from bad to worse. Baby Girl is coughing and crying miserably. I'm trying to focus through my haze and sinus pressure. Morgan comes home from work to a messy house, no dinner prepared, and both of his girl acting crabby and miserable.  This is how our weekend began. Luckily we didn't have any plans. We could stay home all weekend and try to recover. Morgan did a great job of taking care of us. He even got up with Baby Girl when her coughing woke her up in the middle of the night.

So, for Easter weekend, we spent at home watching General Conference. It was relaxing being able to be at home in our pajamas, listening to the messages. Between sessions on Saturday, we dyed Easter eggs. Baby Girl liked the purple and blue ones (those are the two colors she knows and can say). I thought she would have liked it more than she did, but she was pretty sick. And luckily the Easter Bunny still made a visit on Sunday - even though we were so sick! He brought Baby Girl a stuffed animal, sidewalk chalk and smarties. He brought Morgan a bag of peanut M&Ms. And he brought me some nighttime cold medicine! Yay! Thank Heavens for the Easter Bunny!

We are on the mend now. I am almost  better. Baby Girl still has a nasty cough and a lot of congestion, but she's a little happier than she was last weekend. Or maybe I'm just healthier and more patient with her now. And it looks like Morgan escaped the illness altogether. Now if it would stop snowing, we could start enjoying Spring!