Ta-ta-ta-TWO!

Well, it's official. We have a two year old!
On June 9th, our little lady turned into a two year old. Her birthday was a busy day filled with Crossing Kids and a birthday party with the grandparents that afternoon. Her birthday party with her little buddies is coming up this weekend.

Adelyn is the only grandchild on both sides of the family so you can imagine that she was not short of any gifts or attention.

Adelyn's current fascination is with animals. She talks about animals all day long. She wants to carry her animals everywhere with her. We use them as bribery to get her to eat, get in her car seat, go outside, take a bath, you name it. If her animals are doing it, she will too. So as you can imagine, she got lots of animal toys for her birthday.

 She also got her own little vacuum to play with. She likes how it makes a similar noise to the real thing but not as loud and scary.

She also got a playhouse, slide, and tricycle from her grandparents. 

Her birthday lunch consisted of ribs made by great-grandpa, garden salad, Panera bread, baked beans, pineapple, watermelon, and chips. YUM!

Of course we had some cake to celebrate as well!

 She didn't quite get the concept of blowing out the candles. Daddy had to help out with that part a bit.

When we told her to take a bite of her cake, she went face first into it. I wasn't too surprised but the scene delighted the grandparents and great-grandparents. 

One of the first things she did with some of her new animals was line them up to look out the window.  This is pretty much a daily routine around our house. 

 Little Ty-Guy snoozed through most of the birthday party but Adelyn didn't mind. More attention for her! He found a cozy home in the arms of grandma.

Two year old Adelyn has been pretty fun. Here are a few things I probably won't remember about my two year old in a few years:

• She loves to watch "Dona" (Dora) in the afternoon. Occasionally accompanied by an Elmo's World. 
• She goes to bed at 7:30 and gets up between 6 and 6:30 usually. She typically takes an 1.5 nap in the afternoon around 1. 
• She has recently learned the phrase and how to use the word "Mine!"
• She loves to give Tyler his pacifier and talks to him in her baby voice.
• She also loves to say "Mommy." She probably said it over 75 times before I came and got her out of her crib this morning. 
• She wants to do everything by herself. "No help," is often the phrase we hear. 
• Her favorite foods: blueberries, noodles, pizza, cheese, peas, pretzels, and of course cookies. 
• Her favorite playmate is Eleanor. They have such a sweet little friendship. She also loves to play with Brooks. 
• She loves to dance. She has a few particular songs that she requests and she sways side to side as it plays. 
• She loves the song, If You're Happy and You Know It as well as Old McDonald.
• She loves to have daddy throw her around on the bed. I don't like to watch because he throws her so dang high!
• Her names for family members are as follows:
• Nana (my mom, Janny)
• Gare (Gary)
• Grandpa P (Paul)
• Grandpa Wiz (Liz)
• Aunt Nice (Leslie)
• Pete (Peter)
• Whoa (Will)
• Her grumpy times usually fall around either lunch time, post nap, or around 5-6 at night. 
• She loves to play outside. Particularly in water. Especially in her animals are involved. 
• She knows she can test the boundaries when I'm nursing Tyler (SO frustrating for me!)
• She knows her alphabet already! I really don't think we can take much credit for this. She latched on to an alphabet puzzle and just learned her letters one by one. Now she can recognize them everywhere. It's crazy!

The past two years have brought some long days but short years. We are seeing a beautiful, confident, independent, young lady emerging from the fussy little baby we had in our arms two years ago. I'm thankful for her bursting personality, sociability, expressiveness, and lovable spirit. 

Happy Birthday sweet girl. We love you.