The Big 2!

I can't believe she's two. Saying that the last two years have flown by seems like a huge understatement. She brings so much happiness into our lives each day. :)

For her two-year birthday (I know that was a month ago) we decided to go to her favorite restaurant to have a hotdog for dinner. She loves going to Smashburger even though I think she ends up eating more ketchup than anything else. :) Then since the time she woke up that morning, she was telling us that she wanted to go swimming. How can you resist letting her do what she wants on her own birthday? So even though we knew it was going to make it a long night, we decided to go swimming anyway. She just loves swimming. Her favorite thing lately is to jump off the ledge to Ryan. You have to be ready at all times because she doesn't necessarily give any warning before she decides to go ahead and jump.

Then we went home and still needed to frost the cake. So Shari later gave me some pointers that will help the next time around (like freezing the cake so it's easier to frost). I had crumbs everywhere since I decided to cut it and make a square, two-layer cake. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger are some of her favorites right now so we decided they should be on the cake. By the time the cake was ready, we have pictures of her looking quite tired again this year. I see a trend... She was so exhausted last year as well. I'm going to have to do better planning next year. :) And when you see her hair and outfit in these pictures, remember we just got home from swimming....






The candies on top were her favorite part.


Then it was time to open presents and she loved that. It's funny because now whenever she sees a box, she says, "Nyah, present?" She gets so excited.

Here are some of the fun things she's doing at 2 years and 1 month old:

- Nyah is saying short sentences like "I want cake" or "Daddy, I eat bubbles".
- She loves bubble baths.
- She loves the park (especially playing in the water).
- Nyah wants to be outside as much as possible.
- She loves to read books. I can't believe how many parts of the books she has memorized these days. I can stop reading and she fills in words. The memory of a two-year can be amazing.
- We can negotiate with her (unless she's super tired). For example, she wouldn't sit in her high chair at the restaurant tonight so her and I went out to the car to have a talk and she decided she wanted to go back inside and sit in the high chair. I love when it actually works. :)
- However, she is learning the art of negotiating as well because everything these days is "one". She only wants "one".
- She is a very determined little girl and knows just what she wants.
- Nyah has a ton of energy and spends a lot of time running.
- She still loves to sleep. She is sleeping about 11-12 hours at night with a 2-3 hour nap. We're lucky, what can we say?
- She tells us "I love you" (my favorite thing in the world right now)!
- She loves to laugh and play with her daddy.
- She thinks anything elevated off the floor is meant to be jumped off of.
- The other morning she told me, "I cute". Maybe I tell her that too much but can you really be told that too much when you are two?
- She is generally a very happy little girl.
- She is 31 pounds (90th percentile) and 34 3/4 inches tall (80th percentile). She's not taking after me so far.
- She prefers not to be wearing clothes. We were in church the other day and she was telling us, "clothes off" as she tried to take off her dress. :)
- When we ask her to pick up her toys or do something else she doesn't want to do, she tells us "I'm busy". What a kid.

Well we love her so much and are so grateful she's been part of our lives for the last two years - what a blessing. She shows me each day how to find happiness in the small things in life. She is so sweet and we can't imagine our lives without her. Thank you Nyah for all of your smiles and laughter.