Don't Most 16 month old children NAP?

Cupcake has endless amounts of energy. My energy is finite, however. Regardless, she is still such a joy to have in our home. Her newest tricks include climbing onto the couch (we had one pretty nasty fall in which I called 911... in hindsight, 911 probably wasn't necessary, but that whole couldn't breathe, gasping for air thing sent me into a tizzy. Paramedics are nice people... I'm thankful for them. She also loves to bolt up the stairs as quickly as she can, but isn't too sure about getting back down them (and while I've tried to show her how to slide down, she still wants us to be right there with her, and I'm just fine with that.) She will now make the 'monkey noise' in addition to an awesome piggy noise. She still prefers to sign things instead of verbalizing, but there are still lots of 'da-da's' and a few 'momma's' when I ask (if she is in the mood), or when she is upset about something... 

Cupcake sleeps great at night (knock on wood), but naptime has been a bit of a mystery for the last 6 weeks. She was had kind of naturally weaned her way down from 2 naps/day to 1, but she was sleeping 3 hours pretty consistently. These days, naps last 45 minutes to an hour and half at most. I cannot seem to accomplish anything! I would say that it is fine if she only requires that long of a nap, but she gets pretty cranky in the evening which seems to signal her naps aren't long enough. If you have any ideas for me, I'm all ears!

The carseat used to be a pretty ugly battle, but she has made her peace for the most part in this department. I can now run errands safely because I'm not tending to a full-scale meltdown taking place in the backseat. Forward-facing made a huge difference, but it has just taken her a long time to understand she won't be stuck in there forever, and an adventure of some sort is awaiting at our next destination.

Light switches are like the coolest thing ever in this house. We cannot pass one while holding her without letting her try it out. I try really hard to distract her from them when we are in a hurry, but it rarely works...

We are just awaiting our 6 month post-placement report and we will be onto finalization in our courts! Think of this as the 6 month home update even though it is has been 6 months and 2 weeks. Just pretend, mmmmk?

Here are some photos of a few recent adventures where the camera was handy:

Checking out the snow fall...

I think I like snow!

Nevermind, the snow touched me... time to go in.

Trying our hand at "making pizza"

Checking out the Children's Museum Airplane

I hit this and it make s cool, loud noise. That baby over there is jealous of my skills...

I love banging on stuff. These drums are neat!

Mostly, I just like carrying this stool around in circles.

A little indoor gardening.

Not a fan of the carousel...