Hannah at 18 months

I just love this photo of her. That's the typical Hannah look. She's got attitude.

Hannah had her 18 months check-up this past monday, the 19th. She's where she should be at for 18 months, no issues and a clean bill of health.

Her stats:
Weight: 28 lbs 2 ounces (90%)
Height: 33 1/2 inches (93%)
Head Circumference: 19 1/2 (97%)
If you can't believe she's 28 pounds, just look at that belly:


Hannah at this age...

Teeth:Just like Ian, she has all of her teeth. She has so many I don't even count.

Talking: The doctor asked can she say 15-20 words to which Andrew answered..."Definitely". She can repeat a lot of the words we ask her to say, but some of the words that I hear out of her mouth: "Noooo", "Mine", "Eeeeyaan", "Bliam Bliam" (for Liam), "Diego", "Dora", "banana", all of her teachers, all of her family members, "milk", "cookie", "cracker", "water", "help", "open", "apple", "more", "ket sup", "outside", "bye-bye", "hi"

She knows her eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and toes

Sleeping: She knows when she's tired and doesn't fight us going to bed. Falling asleep though is quite a challenge. We'll usually put her to bed around 8. She'll usually get grumpy around that time and we ask her "Hannah night night?" . She shakes her head yes and then walks off to her bed. She then spends the next 15-20 minutes rolling around and grumbling, until she can put herself to sleep (with us next to her still). Her one pet peeve is she doesn't like anything covering her feet.

Little Hannah things:
- She loves to pretend to talk on the phone as you see here. I gave her my old Blackberry so she mimics me. She'll often pick up her play phones, put it on one shoulder, lean in to it and say "hello"

- Loves to clean. Always wants to help wipe the floor, the table, etc. I think it's because she sees it happening at daycare all the time so she wants to join the fun. I'll give her the Swifter sometimes to push around the house and catch some of the dirt off the floor. I might as well put her to work while she's young

- Loves bath time, bubbles, and playing with the water

- She helps herself to the pantry. When she's hungry, she walks in and pulls down the cereal or cracker boxes. This is often what we see when we come out of the bedroom:


- When she sees Mommy or Daddy's shoes, she likes to put them on

- She's bossy and has attitude

- Her daycare teacher says that when she has a toy, she shouts to anyone that comes near "MINE!"

- Drop-off has gotten much better, she's not crying anymore. We learned to drop her off at breakfast time. She goes right to the table, but this is the Hannah thing...she will not say bye to us. When we're trying to kiss her and say bye, she has a dead stare and will not make eye contact with us nor will she smile at us. (oh well...at least she's not crying)

- She hates the doctor's office. When we get there, she clings to us and then she'll ease up a bit. When the doctor walks in though, where ever she is, she freezes, remains absolutely still and tries to camouflage herself with the wall or table in hopes that the doctor will not see her.

- Dogs. She's afraid of dogs but not as much as Ian. She'll point them out and want to see them, but she doesn't want to touch them or have them come close to her.

- She mixes up Mommy and Daddy. Daddy is Mommy and Mommy is Daddy

- As most of you know, I shop a lot for the kids and buy them clothes all the time. You will be proud of me though, Hannah is wearing hand me down PJs. I was smart enough to save Ian's old PJ's, so now Hannah is sporting them. I think you've seen the Batman and Superman PJs on her. They're just absolutley cute on her.

- Hannah's hair is getting longer. Daycare loves to put her hair in ponytails and pigtails. I tried to do that to her one day, but she wouldn't quite sit still for me. I think it looks really cute on her, so I've been trying to catch pictures of it for all of you to see too.


Favorite things
- Ket Sup - She absolutely loves ketchup. She can just eat it plain with her fingers. She's always asking for more.


- Her "me me". I don't know where "me me" came from but it refers to her blankets. When she sees her blankets, she says "me me" and hugs them. Her favorite one is the one that Cecillie crocheted for her. Since she likes it to much, we gave her the one than Cec gave to Ian. Thank you Cecillie! Your blankets are a hit!

- The Little Tykes red, blue and yellow coupe car. She's inheriting it from Ian. Ian still thinks it's his, but Hannah will not let him in it. She says "MINE!". She loves that car and as soon as we head in to the garage, she runs for it.


- Loves to climb, especially the couch. We've repeatedly told her not to climb on it and run across it, but she doesn't listen. She also likes to climb on to the kitchen chairs

- She likes to brush her teeth. She'll walk in to our bathroom and say "brush brush". Of course, she's not really brushing, but more biting on the bristles

- She loves to dance when she hears music

Her best time of day is when she wakes up at 6:30 in the morning. Mommy and Daddy are half awake, but she'll wake us up with her cute dimply smile and say "HIIII" really loud. Picking her up from school or coming home from work, she runs to us and greets us with the biggest smile, it just melts your heart. Our princess...

The Marler Family Disneyworld Trip 2008

In lieu of Christmas presents this year, we decided to take a Marler family vacation to Disneyworld. It was Papi, Wee Granny, the Freeds, the Hesemanns and of course the four from Phoenix. Since we had to travel so far and knowing how Ian wants to ride the same rides over and over and over, we flew to Florida earlier and arrived on Tuesday. The rest of the family arrived on Friday. For Andrew and I, it was quite a long trip, so I have to give you the breakdown of our trip, so prepare for a long one of novel proportions. (This also helps me to remember what happened years from now.)

Day 1 - Tuesday
We had an early flight, like 8 in the morning. So, we had to be at the airport by 6. Anyone who knows us, knows we are ALWAYS late no matter how much we try not to be. The plan was to leave around 5:30 - 6 and get there no later than 6:30. The alarm woke me at 4:30, but I probably rolled out of bed at like 5:15. Took a quick shower then Andrew showered. Got the house ready to be vacated for a week and finally got the kids dressed and ready to go around 6:30. Yes, we were already late. Left the house and being a tuesday, we hit commute traffic. The whole drive there, we worried if we're going to make the flight or not. Got to the airport and then had to stand in the long Southwest line just to check in finally at 7:15. Headed upstairs to Security and by some wonderful luck, TSA started a special line for families with small kids. (I could kiss the person who came up with that idea). Zoom, we zipped to the front of the security line. We made it through Security, bought milks and breakfast foods really quick and made the line to board the planes, just in time. We got lucky big time.

Even better, the plane was half full, so we had two full rows to ourselves with not too many passengers in the rows around us. We gave Hannah some "night night juice" and she fell asleep shortly after we were in the air. Ahhh...we got an hour or so of quiet. Ian, as usual, was thrilled to be on a plane and kept talking about all the things he was seeing and being on the plane. Then, when he got bored, we took out the DVD player to amuse him...or so we thought. To add to the stress of the day, we're 90 minutes in to our 4 hour flight, and the DVD player is not working. We count on the DVD player to entertain on our son. When Mommy was rushing through the Security area, the DVD player fell out of Mommy's backpack and we highly suspect that was the cause. The DVD player would not recognize a disc in the player. We tried everything we could think of to fix it, but nothing worked. Luckily, Ian was great the rest of the flight and amused himself with other things. Hannah woke up and flirted with the male passenger behind us and since we had the rows to ourselves, she was tossed back and forth between rows quite often and was quite happy. The flight was a good one.

We finally made it to Florida. WhooHoo! Go down to the baggage area and, yes, one of our bags (MINE) was not there. I have the worst record with bags. When I flew in for my wedding, a bag with wedding items was missing. For Laura and Nathan's wedding, they didn't have my bag. Now, I'm at Disneyworld and I have none of my clothes and all of the food I brought for the trip. I do eventually get my bags like a day later, but it's stressful not knowing if you're going to get your stuff and if you have to buy things. Back to the trip... we hopped in a van taxi and headed to the hotel. To save money, I had pre-ordered our Disney tickets through a discount I get from work. I had paid an extra $10 to have them deliver to the hotel before I arrive. So, I check in and ask for my tickets. The front desk manager who was helping me couldn't find it. Oh my, what more could go wrong. On top of that, I had the confirmation number for my order, but forgot to write down their phone number. I eventually got them and found out the tickets were delivered and went back down to the front desk. We went to dinner and by the time I got back, they found the tickets. Phew! Now, it's 7pm and Southwest said they haven't located my bag yet. I didn't want to be stuck without my basic necessities, so since we didn't rent a car, I caught a taxi to go to Walmart. What I didn't realize before I hopped in the taxi, was that it's not a fare by the mile or time, it's flat rate taxi. So, I paid $45 to go to and from Walmart which was like maybe 10 miles away. At least he was a nice driver. Fast forward to 11pm, I got a call from Southwest that my bag arrived, they'll deliver it to the hotel by 2am, and after some complaining, I got $50 reimbursed for my Walmart purchases. End of Day 1, what a day it was.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Woke up and picked up my bag from the lobby, all was better with the world. We showered, ate some cereal that was in my bag and we were off to the Magic Kingdom. We were late for the Magic Kingdom bus, but we hopped on the Epcot bus where we could take the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. It's a much longer route to get there, but hey, we're on vacation. Ended up being the best part for Ian. Ian our transportation lover, was so excited to be on a bus. Then, after that, we got on the monorail and that just made him even happier. We finally made it to the Magic Kingdom and being a wednesday, it wasn't very crowded. We rode several rides since the lines were short. We enjoyed Fantasy Land first (Small World, Dumbo, Peter Pan ships, Merry-Go-Round) and then to Toon Town where Ian got to ride the Goofy Roller Coaster. Ian's a brave boy, no fear when it comes to roller coasters. Hannah didn't quite enjoy the rides so much, but we found alittle play area in Toon Town that she loved.

From Toon Town, we hopped on the train. We had to do a full round trip ride for Ian. He just never gets bored with trains. We then headed over to Tomorrowland and did Buzz Lightyear, a People-Mover like ride, and the Autopia where Ian got to drive a car.

We stayed at Disneyland to about 7 or 8pm and then headed back. Day 2 was definitely much better than Day 1.

Day 3 - Thursday
We started the day at Disneyland and rode a few rides in Fantasyland again. We decided to go to the other parts of the Magic Kingdom. First up was the Haunted Mansion. What's a Disney trip without going on that ride at least once. We walked in to the line and Ian was a bit hesitant, but we kept saying it's not scary. Then, we walked in to the main room where another kid just walked out screaming, and Ian lost it. He freaked and wanted OUT. They rushed us out of the room before they had to start the ride and there goes the Haunted Mansion. Next up...Thunder Mountain. From a distance, Ian wanted to go on it because it's a train ride. The minimum height for it is 44 inches for which Ian just made it, so I took him on it. I tried to get him excited that this is a fast train ride. As we got on the train, he started to get alittle nervous, but he got on. This is us before the ride started:

And this is us after...

Ian and his fake smile. He said he was scared of the inside parts but liked it better outside. He didn't want to ride it again. I forgot what we did after that, but I wanted to finish that side of the park. I had to ride Pirates of the Carribean at least once. Forced the kids on the ride and of course, Hannah didn't want to sit and Ian was not enjoying himself even though we kept telling him it's pirates. He told us he didn't want to go on that anymore either. So, I felt bad and bought each of them a toy to make them happy. We then went back to Fantasyland and let them have some fun at the Winnie-the-Pooh play area.

We had enough of the Magic Kingdom and it was almost lunch time, so we headed over to Epcot. Ian and Hannah fell asleep on the way over.

With such an eventful morning, can you blame him? We ate at the Japan area at Epcot. It was a nice break from burgers and fries. Then, we walked past all of the different countries.

It's hard to get a picture of the two kids together smiling, much less a family picture, but this was the best we could do:



That's Day 1, 2, and 3. Still have Day 4, 5, and 6 to go over. That will be for another day. To be continued...

More videos added

My brain finally started to work and figured out how to search all of my old files for past videos, so I posted most of the videos I've taken of the kids. They touched my heart. I forgot how small the kids once were.

Videos Added

It's been awhile. I forget to take videos of the kids besides just pictures and then when I do, I forget to upload them. Now the videos I've taken in the past are buried in my folders with the hundreds of pictures I've taken of the kids and I can't find them easily. Shame on me. Oh well...I added two videos of the kids from this past week. Go to the Vidoes page and check it out. Enjoy.