Adaline turned 2

Adaline's birthday was even more fun than I thought it would be. We had been singing the birthday song and talking about birthdays quite a bit leading up to it, and I think it really helped her understand that it was a special day. She maintained a pretty high level of excitement the entire day.

I went into Adaline's room singing her happy birthday and couldn't find her anywhere. When she wasn't in her bed, on the floor, or in the chair, I started to panic. Then she started moving around and I realized that she was in Matthew's swing. I find her in her quite often now and she sometimes even naps in here.

The balloons were almost too exciting for her. She played with them all day.

playing dress up and hanging out by the presents on the piano

Watching videos while her toenails dried

She loves playing at the park and asks to go every time we're outside near the gate.

Adaline is obsessed with headbands right now. She isn't very good at wearing them the way I want her to, or keeping them in all day, but I think she likes them so much because she can put them on by herself.

Having a goldfish snack after the park

Both kids are looking at the camera and sort of smiling! 

Pizza for dinner!

When we came home from Matthew's Dr. appointment, that balloon was tied to the doorknob. Adaline freaked out. She LOVED it. Our sweet neighbor had gone out and gotten it for her. She carried it around all day, every day and slept with it clipped to her bed until mom accidentally hit it loose outside. She was an impressively big girl about mom losing it, but I felt terrible!

She loved blowing out her candles and kept asking to do it "more times"

I LOVE this picture. From the excitement over a new book, to the backwards hat which she put on by herself-it's perfection.

Her face when she opened the birthday card from Grandma and it started singing "Let it go." That was another birthday favorite that got carried around with her for days. She would open the card, spin around in circles, and sing along at the top of her lungs.

This girl loves her books. (She loved her new Minnie Mouse jammies too). Andrew read her Corduroy 3 times that night. And when we were in Utah last week, she started talking about Corduroy every time we rode on as escalator.

I sure love my spunky little two-year-old

Adaline is very polite. When she asks for things, she typically says, "mom, I please have some more milk?" It's adorable and I'm so impressed by her ability to learn. She is great at saying thank you, and is constantly saying, " 'cue me" when she needs to get past us. She is very talkative, and I love that I can ask her something like, "what did you do in nursery today?" and I'll get an answer like, "have goldfish, water" or "child God". Adaline gets herself dressed most of the time and just needs help with snaps and buttons, she also loves to put on her own socks and shoes, but needs help with her tennis shoes. She absolutely loves that Matthew sleeps in her room now. She seems comforted knowing that he's there, and doesn't like it as much when it's time for her to have a nap but not Matthew.

Adaline is much better at drawing and coloring than she used to be and one of her favorite things is to draw snowflakes, Anna, Kristoff, Elsa, Olaf, hearts, flowers,...on her magnetic drawing board. She is also getting lots better at the alphabet and counting. When counting to 10, she usually leaves out 4, 6, and 7 but has the rest of the numbers in order. Her version of the alphabet goes, "q, s, w, x, y, z next time sing me!" although sometimes it changes.

Adaline loves races! She gets on her hands in a starting position and says, "mark, set, go!" She absolutely loves racing dad, riding on his bike with him, helping him put away his helmet, playing soccer with him, playing catch with him...really, anything with dad is the best

One more story about Adaline: A couple weeks ago, we borrowed our friend's van to go get a shelf from IKEA. Adaline was getting bored and so she was playing around in the stroller/not sitting in it the right way. Well, of course, she fell onto the concrete floor, landed on her face, and brought the stroller down on top of her. Her nose and lip were bleeding everywhere, and the handle bar had pulled out some of her hair. Andrew took her to the bathroom to clean her up (they both had blood all over them by the time this was over) and Matthew and I waited around for them to get back. After the bleeding had mostly stopped, it took no time at all for her to zonk out on Andrew's shoulder, which was adorable and super sad. We returned the van and bought yogurt, popsicles, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and pudding to help her and her lip feel better. When we got home, she got to eat a popsicle while taking a bubble bath and then have mac&cheese for dinner. She kept trying to suck her fingers to make herself feel better, but it hurt too much and she couldn't. After about a day, her finger sucking habit was broken. The following Monday, I saw her start to suck her fingers and I told her she couldn't do that anymore because of her lip. She immediately took her fingers away from her mouth, but I really didn't want to have to break this habit again, and so I bought some "no-bite" nail polish (you know, the stuff that tastes bad). We used it for a couple days just in case she tried to suck her fingers before a nap or bedtime when I wasn't around, but I never even saw her try. I think it's safe to say that she no longer sucks her fingers! The only bummer is that nose picking seems to have replaced the habit. Ha! Anyway, it looks like I'll be planning a fall out of the stroller for Matthew in a couple years so he can stop sucking his thumb. tee hee, just joking :D