18 Months

I cannot believe my little baby is 1.5 years old!!  She has definitely been growing up and turning into a little girl.  At her 18 month appointment, Hannah weighed 28 lbs (90 %), and was in the 92 % for height.  She is definitely growing like a weed and learning so much!  Over the past few weeks she has learned more and more words and sounds.  She can now say baby (bibee), and knows that there is a baby in my tummy.  She loves giving "mommy's baby" kisses!  She can make a few more animal sounds: dog, cow, and monkey.  She also has started saying yes (yayce) instead of just using signs to indicate her confirmation of a question.  She continues to be a very obedient little girl and follows commands very well.  Hannah is still wearing her 24 month and 2t clothes.  Hopefully at this stage, the growing has evened out and we can hang out with these sizes for a while!! She continues to be a great sleeper, and I think we are just about to make the transition to only 1 nap a day.  Hannah loves going to bed, and when she is tired sometimes she will just point to the stairs and say "more" with her sign language which is her way of telling me that she's ready for bed.  She has also recently stopped letting me finish our bedtime routine.  We usually read a book (Guess how much I love you), pray, and then I sing "On Jordan's Stormy Banks".  Lately she skips over half the book to the very last page, then waits patiently while I pray, then sits up, points to the crib, leans in to give me a kiss, and that's it.  Sometimes I have even asked her if she wants me to sing, and she promptly says no!  I wonder if she is just that tired or if my voice really is that bad!!!  Hannah has figured out how to buckle her self into her high chair, and anytime she sees a buckle, she wants to try to open and close it!  She has also learned how to turn her toys on and off!  Hannah's favorite toys these days are her babies, her stroller, books, puzzles and megablocks.  She has started playing hide and seek with daddy and it is so cute!!!  He will chase her and she will run into the kitchen.  He will then hide behind the counter and she laughs so hard when she finds him!!  She then runs the other direction and hides between the couch and ottoman.  It is so fun to hear her laughter!!!  She truly is a joy to parent, and a joy to be around.  We are so thankful for our little Hannah Page!!!

December

Wow, December has been a busy month in the Seiter household!  We've been settling into life here in Charlotte.  In moving here, our first order of business was to find a church.  We have been visiting mostly between two, and are pretty sure we've found the one where we want to go!  It is north of Charlotte in a town called Huntersville and is right next to Lake Norman.  The things that have appealed most to us about this church is that they have a wide variety of ages, great preaching, friendly people, and a school attached to the church.  We also started the home search and found the perfect house and it happens to be around the corner from church!!!  It all happened very fast, but right before we left for Christmas we put an offer on the house and with little back and forth got our offer accepted!!!  We are thrilled to be moving into a home that we can call our own!  We close at the end of January and are so excited to start building our life up in Huntersville.

The weekend before Christmas, we headed down to Atlanta to spend a few days with my parents and have "Christmas" with my siblings and their families.  We had a wonderful time!!  It was wonderful for Hannah to spend time with her Grandmama and Grandaddy, and also get to play with her cousins!  

We then drove to St. Louis for Christmas and to spend a few days with Matt's family.  The only big downside to moving to Charlotte is that it took us much further away from Matt's family, and so we need to take advantage of every opportunity we can to get back there.  We had a great time!  We stayed with Matt's brother and his wife, and spent most of our days over at Matt's parent's house.  Hannah absolutely LOVED playing with Aaron and Andrew, and it was great to also spend time with the rest of the family.  Hannah has definitely come out of her shell and is not nearly as apprehensive about big crowds of people as she used to be.  Christmas was wonderful, we went to church Christmas Eve and then Christmas day opened present and ate a wonderful meal.  Hannah still has not quite figured out presents, so we had to help her unwrap them.  Once unwrapped she wanted to play with that toy and didn't care at all about opening any others!!!  The "present" portion of the day lasted quite awhile because of this!  I think she would have been happy with just one!!!

We left St. Louis on the 28th, and drove the whole 11 hours in one day.  It was so good to get back home!!!  We finished out 2012 with a delicious meal and family time at home. 

November

We started November out as nomads!  We left Indianapolis on the 1st and drove to Knoxville, TN where we stayed one night.  Then we drove on to Asheville, NC for the weekend to meet my precious niece Lauren Lucille and to spend the weekend with my sister's family.  Lauren is just so precious and it was so wonderful to meet her when she was only a few days old!  As always Hannah had a blast hanging out with her cousins and we just had a wonderful time.  Then Matt left to travel in his new territory while my mom, Hannah, and I headed to Atlanta for a couple of days at my parents' house.  Then, my mom followed me up to Charlotte to be ready for the movers to arrive with all of our stuff!!!  I am so thankful for her because she was able to keep Hannah occupied while I dealt with figuring out what goes where with the movers!  Moving is certainly overwhelming!!!!

We moved to townhome apartment.  It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and LOTS of stairs!!!  We also have a garage so there is plenty of storage.  It took me a couple of weeks to get the boxes unloaded and even a month in its still feeling a bit unsettled.  But the area is really nice and we are certainly happy to be here!

The first weekend we were in town was Matt's birthday!!  Matt has an aunt and uncle that live here in Charlotte so Aunt Mary invited us over for a birthday dinner!  We were so thankful to be able to spend time with them and she happens to be an amazing cook!!!  Hannah took to Mary right away and just had a blast at their house.  Hannah discovered that she loves to play piano but definitely prefers Mary to sit and play next to her!

For Thanksgiving we went to my parents' house.  We had a wonderful visit with them and great day on Thanksgiving with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and her mother.  It was somewhat quiet and low key, but just a wonderful time with family.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Matt and my dad headed to Athens for the UGA vs Tech game, while Hannah and I went to my dear friend Bonnie's baby shower!!!  Bonnie lives in Philadelphia and she had never had the opportunity to meet Hannah!  It was a wonderful time spent with her and reconnecting with a few other dear friends.  Hannah was super sweet and had a great time in her tutu dress working the crowd!!

Hannah is saying more and more words!!  It is so fun to finally be able to hear her voice!!  She now knows how to say eye, nose, hair, toe, shoe, hot, daddy, mama, car and no.  She says something for mouth but it is not understandable at this point!  And she continues to talk talk talk!!!  She is also very obedient and just continues to impress us with her ability to follow simple instructions.  For example, one afternoon we went shopping with Matt's Aunt Mary to a store that is like a little marketplace full of different "shops or boutiques".  Well, it was a somewhat impromptu trip and I had forgotten Hannah's stroller.  And when I say boutiques, I'm talking candles, glass, ornaments, jewelry, and LOTS of other things that little hands want to get a hold of and accidentally break!  So, while being a nervous wreck the whole time we were in the store, I tried to teach Hannah the "you may touch anything with 1 finger" rule.  And to my surprise she was able to do it with minimal coaching and maximum hovering on my part!  I certainly wouldn't trust her in there alone but with constant reminding we left the store without a thing out of place!!!

In other news, we made the following big announcement to our family and friends at the beginning of the month!

As of June 2013 Hannah will be a big sister!  We were moving right when I was feeling at my worst so timing truly was "impeccable", but somehow we've made it through!!!  We are so excited about this new little addition to the family!!

October

October was an exciting month in the Seiter household!  Matt got an offer from his company to take over the North Carolina territory! Although, it was very sad leave all of our Indianapolis friends, we couldn't be more thrilled at the opportunity to be in North Carolina!  We will be moving to Charlotte which is 2 hours away from my sister in Asheville, and 3.5 hours from my parents in Atlanta.  It is also a wonderful place because you are only a few hours from the ocean and even closer to the mountains!  It is amazing to reflect on all of the places Matt and I have lived, and now to think we are dragging our precious Hannah with us on our crazy adventure!  The best news of all is that Matt's company has made it clear that this will be home.....we are renting for 6 months and then buying a house!!!  We are so thrilled to finally be able to own a home and begin to put down roots!!

Hannah turned 16 months old this month.  We made the best of our last month in the Midwest with an outing to Connor Prairie among other things.  Connor Prairie is an interactive history park.  They have basically recreated a town set back in the Civil War times and everyone who works there is in character for the era.  Hannah loved seeing the animals and playing on train tracks.  It was a neat thing to experience and we were a little sad that we hadn't been there before!  We also took a weekend to go to St. Louis to spend time with Matt's family.  We had a wonderful time!!  It was Matt's 10 year high school reunion so Hannah got to spend some good time with Grandma and Grandpa while Matt and I went to reunion festivities!  We also met Aunt Julie, George, and his three kids at the pumpkin patch!  It was so different with Hannah this year!  We had a blast watching her run around and play on the pumpkins. 

At 16 months Hannah has only gotten better with her words.  She also knows where her eyes are, and usually gets her ears right too!  She can point to her mouth as well.  Hannah continues to be a great eater, and is just so full of personality.  She loves to laugh and make us laugh too!  She is just about too tall for all of her 18 month stuff and is moving into the 24 month and even some 2T clothes!  She hasn't really increased her words at this point but she definitely gets to talking and we are certain she knows what she is saying!  Hannah also LOVES to read books!  It is so precious to listen to her read!!!

We did not take Hannah trick or treating this year but dressed her up as the sweetest little fairy.  Moving day was November 1st so Halloween night we were living amongst boxes!!!  When we put Hannah's fairy costume on, she immediately started twirling around and around!  It was so adorable!!!  She really enjoyed watching the older kids that were dressed up come by the house, and we even made it out a little past her bedtime for a Halloween party.

At the end of the month, my sister had her fourth little girl!!!  I am so excited to have 4 sweet nieces, and this makes granddaughter number 5 for my parents!!!  We are thrilled to meet sweet Lauren Lucille Goforth soon!!!