2 Years Old

As I look at my little sweetheart I cannot believe we’re already at 2 years old. I remember those first few months with her wondering how we were going to make it through the sleepless nights and crying spells. Somehow we made it through and before we knew it we have a little person who is beyond cute and is such a joy to have around.

It is amazing how much and how fast she changes. Her vocabulary and sentence forming skills have been exploding this past month. She is constantly talking – usually saying “Look at that, mommy!” She is so curious and eager to learn. She loves to explore and be free and play.

She is such a funny little girl. During choir practice or during the songs in church she'll wave her arm back and forth and try to conduct the music- quite a sight indeed! She loves when we play Mario bros because she wants to dance to the music and asks us to play almost every day.

Lately she is becoming more opinionated and sometimes defiant, as any 2 year old does. She’ll say “I said NO!” or give us a (very cute) little scowl, but a little time out or tickle attack can usually clear that up. Or we’ll just ignore her when she falls to the ground in frustration and she’ll come back around when she realizes that won’t work. It’s just your typical toddler stuff, but I appreciate that she turns it around when we tell her to. Overall she is such a happy little girl. I just spent 2+ hours in the hair salon and she was so quiet and calm (while playing with my phone) that a few of my former coworkers said they’d want a child that was as well mannered and nice as Lily.

We had a little birthday party with some of her favorite friends and it was a blast. Bubbles, balloons, and jumping on the bed provided all of the entertainment they could ever want. I know she felt so special and that made me so happy! She is now going around singing happy birthday to anything she sees. Yesterday she sang Happy Birthday Cream of Wheat :). For her birthday she got a bunch of “Tangled” merchandise
and she’ll sing songs from the movie while playing with her Rapunzel doll. 

I love this little girl so much and I’m so grateful she is in our care.

Sorry…Here comes a lot of pictures :)

Birthday party fun

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23 months and 3 weeks…

I can’t believe how incredibly fast Lillian is changing and learning. In the past week she has grown by leaps and bounds in her vocabulary and in how she puts together sentences. She is constantly asking “wha’s dis?” or saying “yook at dat, mommy!” whether we are at home or out and about. She is so curious and inquisitive and hungry to learn about everything she comes in contact with. It is quite funny sometimes to hear her try to repeat new words and not come even close. She also gets hooked on saying certain things for a while. For example, this past week she’ll look up at the ceiling and say “Yook at dat sky, mommy!” No matter how much we try to get her to say “ceiling” she won’t budge.  She is on this kick where she’ll clap and jump around non stop and sing a song, usually the ABC’s. She’s also started to say small lines from the movie “Tangled”- this probably is a bad sign but it’s so cute!

Here are some shots of her playing this past week

 

She wanted me to put the whole pack of clips in her hair

She was playing on the couch

She managed to get the whole 6 pack of undies on

                                 

What was I thinking…?

For some reason I was inspired to start potty training Lillian this last week. I don’t really know how it happened, but here I am rushing to the potty with her every time she signals and most of the time successfully helping her keep her little “Tangled” or Elmo undies dry. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready yet, because at first I felt like all I did was make her afraid to go to the bathroom either in the toilet or in her diaper. This being the case, I figured I might as well just keep up the training since she was proving that she is VERY good at holding it in and very aware of her little body’s signals. We get a lot of false alarms, mainly due to the fact that she enjoys putting toilet paper in the toilet and then watching as it is flushed away. I had started on Monday in the hope that by church on Sunday she would be a pro and I wouldn’t have to worry about her, but I followed her in nursery and kept her in pull ups just incase. Good idea, because I don’t think she had a clue when she had to go while she was running around with all of her little friends. I caught the “oh no” look from her from across the gym and rushed her to the bathroom at church that has only ONE stall (another discussion all together) and waited for it to be empty before realizing that it was already too late. So I think we’ll stick with pull ups while we’re playing away from home for now. There were a few tears shed ( from both Lily and I) this week, but I’m just so proud of my little girl. I can’t believe that we’re here already and that she will be 2 in a few weeks. Where have those years gone?

I’ll probably be killed for having this picture someday…