We had out 15 month Doctor visit yesterday and Cristiana did great. She loved walking around the entire office smiling and saying "hey" to people and was a great patient as usual, as the doctor commented. She got 1 shot and didn't even flinch (what a trooper). She is cruising along the 40-50% in weight (21lbs & 12 oz) and is up in the 50-60% in height (30.5 in), so she is no longer a shortie! I can't believe that just a few months ago her weight was hovering in the low 5% and now she's up with the majority of the population (as per the charts of course) and she even has a belly (as you've probably noticed in some of the pictures). Since the last doctor visit Cristiana has started to walk, sing, dances more than ever, says the following words: baby, bird, this, hey, baba or something of that sort (for banana), papa, mama, oh..and caca (which means poop in Spanish...which I say to her every time she touches something nasty like the garbage) She's also signing things, she signs: food, water, more, and she's starting to sign bird as well. She likes to "read" her books on her own and use a spoon on her own as well. She's sleeping so much better now (yes, you heard it right, I said the word sleep with a positive tone), still not through the night, but a HUGE improvement. She loves to run out in the backyard and run on our trampoline and do so many more fun things. Like always she's our clown and of course our crazy little monkey.
Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the page before playing the video.
Cristiana and I celebrated Earth day @ Animal Kingdom. The conservation education team (the department I've been part of since I moved up here) @ Animal Kingdom always has special activities planned during Earth Day. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed our day looking at animals and introducing Cristiana to fellow past and present co-workers. The highlight of our day was towards the end as we were leaving the Oasis (the front area of the park with animals and plants), a duck flew so close to Cristiana that I thought he was going to run right into her (I was a little nervous). I don't think it phased her at all, but it literally grazed her. We'll be back for International Migratory Bird Day in May.
Some cute pics of us at the park last weekend. This was the park we had Cristiana's 1st birthday party at. We LOVE this park!
Since Tuesday was so rainy and we had to stay indoors all day, Cristiana and I headed to the flower and garden festival @ EPCOT for a few hrs yesterday to get out and enjoy the sun and great weather. Cristiana loved looking at the butterflies in the butterfly garden (she loves looking at them all the time at home) and of course enjoyed the playgrounds that were set up around the park. All the colors of the flowers fascinated her and loved looking at the fish in the Living Seas. We'll have to go a few more times before the festival is over. Please forgive me on the pictures, my camera is either dirty or broken, hence the blurred middles.
The Crespo family had a lovely Easter this year. Cristiana looked absolutely beautiful in her yellow and white dress, but unfortunately did not want to keep her spring hat on. I had to trick her every time to put it on, so I could at least take a picture, but she would only keep it on for like 3 seconds each time. We went to church which has become quite a struggle w/Cristiana, now that she does NOT want to sit still. She wants to walk around everywhere so mommy and daddy have to take turns walking with her to the back of the church so she can release some energy. After lunch, we had a yummy Carvel bunny ice cream cake for desert which I plan to make a tradition every year (good reason to buy ice cream cake) and after Cristiana's afternoon nap we headed over to her Godparents apartment. Cristiana loves playing with pets and chasing them around and of course Orko, their cat, was chased by Cristiana the entire visit. Cristiana obviously loves Orko's toys as well, especially the shiny ones that look like fairy wands. Cristiana carried one of Orko's toys around the whole time we were there (hence all the pi
ctures with her holding it). Here's a picture of Easter last year when Cristiana was only 2.5 months old. She's changed soooooo much but if feels like it was just yesterday that she was still that tiny. They do grow up so quickly!
Here are 2 pics of the cupcakes I made this Easter. I got the idea from a website and I think they turned out pretty good. I decided to go w/creme cheese frosting and I'm happy I did. I have to say that I definitely like the taste better than the regular 4 cups of confectioners sugar frosting. The egg's nest are made with coconut and everything else is yummy candy.
On Saturday, the Crespo Family went to an Easter Egg hunt sponsored by the City of Winter Garden. The hunt took place at a park called Nestor Park, which was a big open area (with a really neat playground) next to a huge lake. Unfortunately no pictures of the actual egg hunt are available because we missed it by a few min., not mentioning who's fault that was :), but we still did get to enjoy the time there. They had food, balloons for the kids, a puppet show, a firetruck with firefighters (see the picture of mommy and Cristiana in the firetruck), and tons of cute little giveaways for the kids. Cristiana had a great time and of course spent most of her time in the playground going down the slides. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to next year's early enough to actually see Cristiana find some eggs.
Cristiana was outside with me today while I was sweeping the car port and she insisted on taking the broom away from me. Here are some cute shots of her trying to help 
mommy sweep up.
Everyone knows I love to wear Cristiana rather than put her in the stroller, but ever since she's gotten heavier, it has been hard to put her in the sling I have sworn by since she was a few weeks old. So I decided to break down and buy a carrier that would be easier for me to carry her on my back and even her weight off rather than all of it on my one shoulder as per my sling. I LOVE this Mei Tai carrier. I can wear her in the front or back or even hip (as I was carrying her with the sling) but I prefer the back now that she's older and I think she enjoys it as well, for the most part (she prefers to be down and walking of course).
The carrier got its first REAL use on Sunday @ the Spring Fling @ Lake Eola (I've been using it to walk the dog and @ stores) . We had a great time walking around with daddy, Cristiana's Godparents (Justin and Chantelle), and Joe and Sadhanna. It was quite warm and sunny, hence Cristiana's glasses and her sweaty and wet hair (she didn't want to keep her hat on) but we all kept hydrated and of course brought home some of mommy's favorite, kettle corn, to pig out on.
On Friday, Kristin and I took the gals to Monkey Joe's which is a really cool indoor inflatable "playground." It has tons of inflatable slides, things to climb on, bounce houses, and the best thing is that it's indoors so on rainy days (like Friday) or really hot summer days the kids can run around and stay dry and cool. The girls had a great time and Kristin and I got ourselves a workout running after them and climbing on things like the huge slide we took the girls on. Cristiana was fascinated by the little arcade they had there (I think it was all the lights), I guess I should have known that she's usually more into the things that are not the main focus of the place we are in. She does know where the important stuff is (the money) because she went to a few of the machines and pressed the change slot on them. She did have fun on the inflatable things. Her favorite thing to do was just sit in everything and bounce up and down; she got a kick out of that. She also really enjoyed the smaller slides, she seemed a bit "deer in the headlights" before, during, and after the big one. And of course she walked around everywhere like crazy, I think she actually spent more time walking around than actually on any of the bouncy things. Ava of course had a blast, she was so funny because she would fall into things face first and crack up about it. She's a silly one! We'll definitely be going back to Monkey Joe's, especially since we bought a frequent visitors pass. Woohoo...more inflatable fun!
On Monday we payed an unintentional visit to the Easter Bunny at the Altamonte Mall (hence why Cristiana is wearing everyday clothes rather than picture type clothing). Cristiana LOVED the Easter bunny. She was petting him, hugging him and laughing with him, it was so cute. We did have a little incident which from another friend's blog seems to be common, Cristiana decided to go AWOL after me snapping only 1 picture. She turned around to climb off the chair but she didn't realize how much higher she was than the chairs or steps at home. She fell on her butt, which slowed her fall, but still ended up falling backwards from her butt and hitting her head. Thank God for her big kadunk-a-dunk which caught 90% of the fall so her head only tapped the carpet. The second picture was done with more safety measures (bunny holding Cristiana on his lap) to prevent her from trying to go AWOL 
again.
I've had to be more careful with her lately because she's very brave but doesn't notice the dangers around her (we had our 1st fall with blood this weekend, looked worse than what it actually was (Thank God)). I not only need skates now, but I also need extra eyes and time freezing power to prevent falls.
