LITTLE RASCAL!

I've got a serious little rascal on my hands!  This girl is a handful and is full of ideas and mischief!  Ah but how can you resist that face, no matter what mischief she is causing?  Each morning I get to wake up to this bright eyed face!  Check out that little nobby chin!  Classic Mike!

 She loves to suck on bottles of any kind whether they're full of milk, lotion, or acetone!  Gotta make sure those lids are on tight!  I think the only thing she's got a little drink of is some cuticle oil--she was very upset when I took it away!

 She is so silly!  She always keeps me laughing!

 I love this little face.

She is s serious climber!  She climbs on and in anything and everything she can!

This kid climbs up on top of anything she can get up on! 

 

 She is into everything.  Not only does she open the cupboards and take everything out but she actually climbs right in!

 And she climbs right into the dishwasher too!

 Little rascal!

 She loves fun and adventure.

 She's a dare devil!  I don't think we'll have trouble getting her on roller coasters and waterslides.  But we'll see!

 And sometimes she is a total ham!  I left her to eat her lunch while I was cleaning up the house a little.  When I came back, this is what I found...

 AHH!!  EWW!

 SICK!

She is usually a pretty good eater but sure gets messy!  Here she is with her ravioli!  She LOVES ravioli!  When she's done, however, she always throws her bowl on the floor and throws any extra food wherever she wants.  Chief usually gets it, but apparently some pieces of food got behind the garbage cans and we didn't know about them.  We got a MAJOR ant problem and had to follow where they were going to discover all the missing food behind the garbage cans.  GROSS!

 The other day Melia was playing by the air vent.  She dropped something down it (just something small that fit between the slats).  Without thinking I walked over, took the vent cover off and got it out.  BIG MISTAKE!  Ever since then I haven't been able to get her to stop taking the vent cover off and either throwing things down there, or climbing right in herself!  UGH!

This particular vent goes down and over a little before dropping all the way down.  But she got the cover off another vent and threw something down and I heard a clunk clunk and whatever it is, it's gone now.  I hope it wasn't one of her favorite toys...but I haven't seen that particular toy since then so...  Any suggestions on how to get it back?  She's such a STINKER!

She loves to get in the pantry.  I cannot believe how much she's grown up since some of these pictures were taken!  Ahh!

 And she LOVES drinks, especially if it's something Mommy loves!  :)

There is hardly anything that this girl loves as much as the bath.  She will even climb in there fully clothed without any water!  :)

Silly girl!

When she's taking a real bath, she gets SO MAD when you turn off the water.  She LOVES the water.
 
She just recently learned how to turn on the water herself.  At my parents' house the knobs are on the side of the tub so the other day when we were over there people kept discovering the bath tub on with no one around in the bathroom.  I'm pretty sure we know who the culprit was...what a stinker!

She loves to snuggle under blankets and feels really big and special when we sit with her and put a blanket over us together.

  She likes it even more if Chief is under there too.  She won't stop laughing!

 Melia loves the glider/rocking chair in her room.  We sit in it to sing songs before bedtime, but now she climbs up there by herself.  If I ever don't know where she is you can bet I can find her rocking in her glider.  She takes her bottle in there or a book and just sits there and rocks.  It's pretty sweet.


 The only thing better than rocking in the glider is rocking in the glider while the dog licks your feet!  :)

 And she loves to do ANYTHING with her brother, including rocking in her glider.

Speaking of her brother, this picture was taken right after Spencer got mad at her for dumping her cereal bowl on the floor.  Look at those crocodile tears!

 Melia seems to handle it pretty fine when I get mad at her and sometimes just stares at me blankly.  But if anyone other than Mommy gets mad at her, she loses it!  I think she thought maybe Spencer would think she was funny for dumping her cereal on the floor.  But he just said, "Melia!" in that disappointed tone and she started crying so hard!  She KNOWS she's not supposed to dump her food on the floor, but she was so sad when Spencer was disappointed in her.  Poor sensitive little rascal.

Melia is definitely a girly girl!  She LOVES lotion, lipstick, shoes, etc.  Well the other day she got into my lipstick stash under the sink.  I don't even wear lipstick very often, I don't know how she even knew what to do with it.  But she sure made a mess!

Lovely!

 She was pretty proud of herself.

The other day after I got Melia out of her highchair I was cleaning up in the kitchen.  I turn my back on this little goose for a second and when I turn back around she's sitting at my computer pounding away on the keys, acting like such a big girl!  :)  Anything to be like Mommy.

 Melia LOVES to read.  All day long she brings me books over and over and over to read to her.  She has her favorites.  Sometimes I feel like I'm going to die after reading her the same books a million times a day!  But she's pretty good about reading on her own too.  The books go on that bottom shelf she's sitting by in this picture.  She likes to pull EVERY ONE of them out and read each one, one by one.  She loves her books!

 Another of Melia's loves is talking on the phone.  I apologize if you've gotten random phone calls from me with no response, or with little girl babble.  It's Melia!  Here she is talking on Dad's phone.  When she manages to actually get ahold of someone (even if it's the operator saying you've dialed a wrong number) she gets so excited and laughs!  She especially loves calling Daddy and Ma'aMa (Grandma). 

Here she is letting her doggy "Scout" talk on the phone.  :)

 This kid seriously cracks me up.  She hates it when I try to use the booger sucker on her, but she likes to do it herself.  Lol.

Crazy kid!

 Melia loves her bottle.  Lately we've been trying to wean her from it and get to just a sippy.  It works sortof well during the day, but at night, she really "needs" a bottle.  And she drinks WAY more when I give her bottles--which I want her to do because she's healthier that way and she is happier too.  (Just LOOK at that happy face with her bottle!)  Ugh it's such a struggle.

Anyway, she's such a silly goose and when she's not drinking her bottle she just walks around with it hanging out of her mouth.  It doesn't stop her from doing anything.  She just lets it hang here in her teeth.  Probably not the best for her teeth, but still pretty funny.

 She's such a ham--totally being silly for the camera.

 She really is a rascal.  The other day I'd brought these chips to a get together and when we went home we brought the leftovers.  I saw her little hands reaching up on to the table to pull the bag down and heard her keep reaching in the bag but I assumed she was just eating them.  When I finally checked on her I found her taking handfuls of chips, licking all the salt and cheese off and then laying them beside her on the floor!  What a little stink pot!

 Melia started this silly "scary face" while she was staying with Grandma while we were in Florida.  She was teething and biting her fingers a lot and then just started pulling her mouth out.  Once she realized people thought it was funny, she started doing it even more.

She really is so silly.

I absolutely love those three little bottom front teeth.  They make me laugh.  She's had three teeth in the front on the bottom for quite a while.  They're my favorite, but sadly she is finally getting that fourth front tooth.  :(  I am glad it came in (I was slightly worried) but I just thought those three teeth were so cute, and they make her "Scary Face" even funnier.

 It's been a tough few weeks around here with this pregnancy and a lot of other stuff going on.  I've cried a lot.  The first time I was uncontrollably crying while rocking Melia she just kept reaching up and putting her hands on either side of my face.  It was sooo sweet.  A few days later I was crying and holding her and she looked at me for a minute and I could tell the wheels were really turning in her head.  Then all of the sudden she sticks her fingers in her mouth and gives me this face:   

She hadn't done it for WEEKS!  I started laughing.  And she smiled at me.  Then did it again and again.  It was obvious she'd thought really hard about what to do to make Mommy happy and she knew her "scary face" would make me laugh.

She might be a rascal, but she sure is sweet.
I love this girl more than words could ever express.