26 Months

So Lily has definitely hit her 2’s. Almost everything she comes in contact with is claimed by a loud “MINE!”. We were sitting in church today and there was a little boy sitting behind us. Every time he would look at her she would remind everyone that whatever she was holding was hers and would start scowling at him. She even reached over the back of our bench, grabbed the hymn book from the bench behind us and proclaimed that the book was hers. When we are at home she likes to claim things as well. Whenever we get up from a seat she’ll go to it and say it’s “Lily’s chair.” Some days when I dress her she’ll cry that it’s “Lily’s shirt” and I have to remind her that I’m just helping her put it on. I can’t really get upset with her because I know it’s completely normal. I try over and over to remind her that certain things belong to all of us or that we can share, but I know it mostly falls on deaf ears. Lily also likes to throw tiny tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. Luckily a big hug and some loving words usually calm her down. I also have a surefire defense for the tantrums if a hug doesn’t work. Once Lily stops truly freaking out I tell her that I don’t want her to smile- that whatever she does she can’t smile- and I go back and forth between scowling and smiling at her and soon enough she is giggling along with me. I know that whining and crying are almost all toddlers know about communicating their displeasure so I am trying my best to help her learn how to communicate more effectively as she grows older. I know that she’ll get it someday and I just need to be patient and loving. She is so sweet and I can see a little angel smiling back at me when I look at her.
She is such a little songbird! She is always singing her ABC’s and many other songs. We love to sing together and have little dance parties. Lily is very interested in copying me in all that I do. She wants to put on makeup and nail polish like me. She wants to help me sweep the floors and do laundry. Sometimes it’s more detrimental than helpful but I love that she has the interest. I want to encourage her to do all that she can and explore her abilities. I think we tend to underestimate what little ones can do but I try to let her try new things. I love to see her joy in her little accomplishments.
Lily is definitely expanding her memory every day. She found a santa hat and calls it “Christmas,” 4 months after the holiday. She talks about many different family members and things she’s done with them. She’s always talking about her grandparents and her experiences with them, like her trip to see her grandpa and grandma Aragon and their cat. The use of Skype with our families has been a big help. She loves talking to relatives and being on camera. I am so grateful for video chats because of the familiarity with family members  we visit infrequently. It is just amazing to see how she learns and how she is growing every day. I see her little mind expanding and I just love it! I can’t see where her future takes us.
 

25 months

Lily is so cute these days! though I guess that’s been the story all along. Her language skills continue to develop and improve. We are hearing more and more sentences and they are actually understandable :). We are still working on getting her to say the correct terms but at least we understand her. For example, when she tells me she’s hungry she’ll say “What you like?” or “You want some?” instead of saying she’s hungry. She is usually such a little angel and isn’t very whiny, which I am very grateful for. We are definitely at a point where I am happy with how much I’ve paid attention to how we talk to her since she is repeating more and more. And not repeating what we just said, but repeating phrases in reaction to different situations. She’ll randomly say “ I love you so much”, or when I go to the bathroom she’ll say “yay mommy. I‘m so proud of you!”. When she climbs on things she’ll say “don’t fall off” or “Get down please”. When she has an accident in her undies she’ll say “Yilly- you need to go potty in da toilet, not da undies!”, which cracks me up and helps me relax about the clean up. She is such a precious little girl. I' am so happy to have her in my family. She also LOVES nursery! She looks forward to it all week and gets very excited Sunday mornings. After every prayer in sacrament meeting she says “Amen. Nursery time???” and after church she has started to stay in there and keep singing even after she sees me at the door. I am happy that she is so social and is confident enough on her own.  I just love her to bits and can’t wait to see what she does next!

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…

Almost 2

Lately you have been an extra fun little person to be around.  With so many expressions and words it is so much fun to interact with you. You seem to understand almost everything I am saying, which is just amazing to me. You definitely have a will of your own and know what you want.  I have to make sure the pantry doors stay closed so you can’t get into the food and so you don’t see all of the food I don’t want you to have- because once you see it, there’s no changing your mind. You have figured out little tricks that just melt our heart when you want to do something you know we will say no to. For example when you want to play with our phones you’ll turn them on and say “ta-da!!!” at the top of your lungs with the biggest smile on your face and hope that we’ll unlock the screen for you. You have gotten the concept of saying please when you want something, though you haven’t quite figured out why we still sometimes say no.  Every once in a while you’ll try to change our mind by pouting, throwing yourself on the ground (or just dropping your head to your chest) and instead of making a “hrumph” sound or letting out a sigh of frustration, you’ll blow a raspberry. Unfortunately for you that only succeeds in making us laugh :). And when that doesn’t work you sometimes try to throw a little tantrum but usually I can look you in the eye and explain that I can’t understand you when you’re whining and you’ll perk right up and ask for what you want- or we’ll just ignore the crying and you stop after about a minute. I can tell that we’re going to have a lot of fun as you get older! Poor dad won’t know what hit him ;).

Today in church you did the cutest thing! After our choir number finished and I was walking back down to our seat, everything was quiet and you said (at the top of your lungs) “Yay, mommy song! Yay mommy singing!” It was the funniest thing and I was so happy that you enjoyed it. You are such a little musical person. You dance and sing whenever you have the chance. Your favorite song is the ABC’s and you  sing that all day. I get a kick out of the fact that you make up your own words  to that tune sometimes. One day it was “auntie, auntie, auntie Jen”, and today it was “ goodbye mommy, goodbye mommy.” I hope you’ll share our love of music as you grow older. You also LOVE the movie Tangled and you ask to watch it every day, usually 2 or 3 times a day. Fortunately for you I have given in and we have watched it almost every day for the past 3 weeks. The best part is the fact that you sing along with the song at the end- and that I actually like the movie, so it doesn’t bother me to listen to it all the time :).

You are getting more independent by the hour. You LOVE to go up and down stairs and refuse to do so unless you’re NOT holding our hand. You want to run free and to be able to do things by yourself. I try to let you “off the leash” as much as possible. We have been spending a lot of time at the park with your friends Atlas and Parker and you love to go all over the place. I have stopped worrying when you take off across the lawn, since you usually come back :). I just love you so much and can’t wait to see what you do next!

Vocabulary

As we approach Lil’s 2nd birthday I’ve been trying to capture not only the words she’s using but, more importantly, how it sounds when she says them. At this point she’s a little parrot.  Most everything we say gets repeated back to us in some form, which is often quite amusing. Here’s a little list of the latest, most used, and cutest sounding words she’s using right now.

There you are= dah du ahh

When asking for help= I hep you?

Banana= ganana

Monsters= monkahs

Juice= duce

Strawberry= dah-do-we

Atlas and Parker (her little friends)= Ashy and Pocket

Binky/Plug= beeky or pwug

Please= peas

Goldfish= guhfish

Hello= hewwo

Piano= peeno

1-10= ohn, too, free, fohr, fi, sick, seben, eigh, ni, ten!

Bath=baf

Peanut Butter= buda buda

Eye brow= eye eye

I love you= I wuv you

Grandma/Grandpa= gwah-gwah

Hug= huggie or “Oh hug”

Porcupine= capu-kine

Football= foofall

Lap= yap

Basketball=ga-ke-bahl

When asking to watch her Elmo movie= DDD?

The letter W = dudda-boo, dah-boo-boo, or doo-doo-doo

 

I’ll add to the list if I hear/remember anything else in the near future.