17 Months!!

Time sure does fly when you're having fun!!  Austin turned 17 months old yesterday and it blows me away how much he's grown and learned in a little less than a year and a half!

Here are some fun facts about 17 months:

-Austin's speech is really starting to pick up and he loves repeating things we say now and has a pretty good little vocabulary of his own.  Some of his favorite words are ball, banana, baby, mama, dada, block, book, tiger, star, more, no, bye bye, all done, night night, duck, eye, moon, balloon

-He can point to his eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, ears, hair, fingers, belly, toes and back.

-Austin noticed the freckles on my arms the other day and now he loves to point to them and say "gurgle," which I imagine is his version of freckle.

-He loves to look at letters and is starting to recognize several of them on his own.  He knows the letters A, B, C, D, E, I, M, O, and P.  Why those 9, I have no idea!?  I don't sit down and drill him with flash cards or anything, but he loves his Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, ABC books and foam bath letters which I attribute to the reason he's picking up a lot of things.

-Austin is infatuated with our digital picture frame in the den and will stand in front of it for several minutes a day to watch all the pictures scroll by.  Often he yells out mama, dada, or baby when he sees our pictures go by.

-We started working on animal noises a while ago to distract Austin during those wiggly diaper changes.  He now knows what the horse, cow, sheep, lion/tiger, snake, elephant, and monkey say.  He also says "waddle waddle" when we ask what the penguin says...that ones my favorite! :-)

-Our sweet boy loves to give kisses, but he's always fair about it!  Whenever he gives me or Ryan a kiss, he has to immediately go over to the other and kiss them too!!

-Austin has his top 4 teeth, 2 bottom ones and 3 molars.  I have no idea where all the rest of his teeth are, but the older he gets, the better he seems to be coping with teething so I guess I can't complain!  This last molar popped through just this week with a bunch of drooling and chewing, but not a single night waking.

-His favorite toy is a ball, any ball.  He has about 20 that he loves equally and plays with constantly.

-Austin ADORES his Wiggles DVD that his buddy Tyler got him for Christmas.  He's learned a lot of the motions that go along with the songs and does them when he wants me to put the DVD in.  His favorite song is Hot Potato and he gets SO excited when it comes on.

-He loves music and has the cutest little dance moves I've ever sen.  His newest move it to spread his legs really far apart and sway from side to side really fast.

-Austin is a very talented mimic and loves to do whatever mommy or daddy do.  Lately, I've been using his Aquaphor on my chapped lips and now whenever he gets a hold of it, he opens the top, sticks his finger in the hole and then rubs his lips.  :)

-He definitely has an "I can do it" attitude and will throw quite the fit when I don't let him do something by himself.  I tried to give him a popsicle today but he would NOT let me hold it for him and whenever he held it he just dropped it on the floor or turned it upside down and bit the stick.  I ended up having to take it away from him which caused quite the temper tantrum!!