19 Months Old

We've passed the 1 1/2 year mark. Rebecca is 19 months old today. She seems to be getting more and more mature every week. She continues to amaze us with her memory. She does not forget a single thing she learns/sees/does (we have to really try to remember things so we can keep up with her). Just this morning after getting out of bed we walked by the upstairs window and she said "Grandpa" since when the Voogts were here a couple weeks ago Grandpa was working in the yard when Rebecca got up and she could see him. We had beer bread this week, and Rebecca talked about "good bread, Grandma" since Grandma Voogt was talking about good bread (same kind) with Rebecca when they were here in October. And when looking at her "We Like to Eat" book she talked about Daddy's cup and Grandma's cup when we are on the dairy page...since they are the only 2 that drink milk with dinner. She notices and remembers everything! Rebecca also likes to imitate videos of herself. She'll go around acting them out...not just herself, but everything anyone said in the video. She even talks along with everyone when she watches the videos.
Rebecca is doing great with her letters, getting better and better at saying the alphabet and recognizing more and more letters. Won't be long before she recognizes all of them. Her latest thing is picking out R's...and saying "Rebecca." She's been able to do the whole alphabet saying "A is for...apple, B is for...") for months now. But now she's starting to do it by picking out the letters herself/without any prompting. She'll see a U and say "umbrella." She does that with quite a few letters. She is also starting to spell some short words. Not that she really knows what spelling is, but it's just one more example of her good memory. She says "B-I-G, big" and "E-G-G, egg." (check out her latest video to see her do it)
Daddy is turning Rebecca into a sports fan. The only tv she ever sees is sports. So when the tv comes on now she immediately says "football." And she likes to say "Go Badgers," "Go Pack Go" (with cheering) and "touchdown" (with the arm motions:). Mommy is trying to teach her about soccer. And pretty soon we'll be able to go to some Calvin basketball games with Grandpa and Grandma Holleboom. Rebecca has really been doing well with saying full sentences lately. Things like "I see the bear." She doesn't leave any words out. And she is gradually speaking more clearly. It's very rare now that she'll say something we don't understand.
Rebecca's love for baking and cooking continues. She has helped Mommy stock the freezer with cookies, muffins and granola lately. We hardly have any tupperware or freezer space left :P Last week she helped with her first batch of applesauce. She organized all of the apples neatly on the table for Mommy (I wonder where she gets the genes for being organized? ;). And did her job as the apple taster...to make sure they were ok. Yesterday we made apple dumpling muffins...Rebecca was creative and helped Mommy make it her own recipe by adding raisins (not in the recipe) ("bloop"...sound of a raisin dropping:) We're hoping to make some more pumpkin muffins or bread today. And now Rebecca has discovered that she can carry her stool all over the house...so it usually ends up in the kitchen so she can see what Mommy is doing and help out. Not a day goes by that she doesn't talk about flour, sugar, pouring and mixing.
Rebecca is becoming more and more independant. But she's still a great snuggler and a sweetheart. We're enjoying lots of family time lately. And we're looking forward to the holidays. Rebecca always talks about baby Jesus already so it will be fun to read the Christmas story with her this year. And we're pretty sure she'll get more into the gifts too ;)