Totally Two

I know they claim it's the "Terrible Two's", but so far we are loving the twos (okay, we've only technically been here for less than 2 weeks, but still!). I think part of what makes it so enjoyable is that our 2 year old is the best one EVER (what, you think we are bias?!)! Kendall is hilarious and she certainly makes life fun, even when we are having a battle of the wills. Not a ton has changed since the post I wrote about her at 21 months, except for about a million more words! For a while I was trying to write down new words she said but I can't keep up with her. Lately she's been making meaningful sentences with 5 or more words. And it just doesn't seem right coming from her little mouth! Sometimes we have to infer what she says exactly, but for the most part we can really understand her. She is very patient with us by repeating herself a dozen times as we try to decode it. She says things like "that's silly" after we tell her something, or "it's okay", or "I got it!" Recently we've been working with her on saying things in a polite way (and not just by yelling PEAS at the end!), because she can sound extremely bossy. She loves to ask where certain things or people are even if they/we are right next to her. But my favorite thing she has been doing lately is when we tell her something, she'll repeat it enthusiastically to someone else in the room. For example tonight I said "Kendall we get to go to Twigs for dinner." And she turns to Keith with big eyes and dramatic hand movements and yells "Daddy, we go to Twigs a dinner!!!!!!". She is also great at giving compliments and saying thank you (even if the context doesn't elicit it---we won't squash her kindness!). Does any of this seem terrible? NOPE! And even her most "terrible" qualities aren't so bad. Like her squeals of delight are REALLY high pitch and LOUD, but she doesn't have a clue what outside/inside voices are. If it's an echo-y place there is no stopping her (sorry Rosauers patrons). Another "terrible" thing she recently picked up is getting fearful of us leaving her at bed time and no longer sleeping through the night---ugh. Although things are getting much better lately---and we can't complain because overall she's been an excellent sleeper for the last 2 years. We started telling her we'd just be right outside her door doing stretching and now before we even put her down she is confirming with us that we'll be doing our "dretches." She picks up on things so quickly we really have to be careful what we start with her. Like dessert---oh my! This girl has a sweet tooth like her Mama. We went out for ice cream after dinner two nights one week and now she regularly asked for  treats and snacks and I can't seem to convince her anymore that raisins count! Especially right after dinner (I really can't blame her though!). Oh, we did successfully quit the bottle habit! However, she really doesn't drink much milk now. She only likes water in her sippy cups. But the Dr. said she'll be okay---what a relief! And speaking of the doctor her official 2 year stats...how could I forget? She is 23lbs and 31.5 inches. I think that puts her at about my height when she's all done growing, that's not too bad! She is wearing 18 & 24 month size clothes and size 4 shoes. Her favorite foods (besides dessert) are eggs, cheese, most fruits, hot dogs, and mac n' cheese (which she called "doodles"). Boy, that really sounds like a kid menu and not a baby one anymore! She still loves reading books and on some of her favorites can sorta read along with us (I usually tear up from the sweetness of her little voice "reading"). She continues to love singing, dancing, coloring, counting, and all things baby. Kitty (the gray one---don't try to switch this on her) is still the preferred bedtime pal and he often travels places with us too. She also can't sleep without her GG blanket (a knit blanket from her Great Grandma). Last but not least she is basically potty training herself! She started showing interest a while ago but once summer hit we put her in big girl panties and have really gone for it. Now when we put her in dipes for bedtime she protests and cries for her Dora panties. Now, really we've just had to get in the habit of reminding her to go about every hour or less. But she really got the hang of it and is initiating a lot of it, we have even had a few accident free days this week. Here are some pictures capturing her these days and her zest for life!

coloring

golfing

long hair (at least in the back!)

"spingk-a-la" (sprinklers)

birthday invite picture

wearing her potty seat (did I mention she is a total ham?)

independent!

Favorite park activity---she'd swing all day!

Birthday morning

squeals of delight

pretty successful 

big girl panties! 

we love summer!

My baby is 2!

To celebrate Kendall's 2 years in our life we threw a party! We hosted a family breakfast this year, allowing us to indulge in maple bars, fruit, iced coffee and oj (instead of cake--good call!). It was a fun way to do a party...plus we still had the whole day left to play with new toys! I tried to tone it down a bit from last year, but between pinterest and summer break it was difficult for me to do that. After the party we invited everyone to church, where Kendall's Papa John did a lovely "baby" dedication for us. Here are the pictures of the fun events and the sweet and sassy birthday girl. Stats and stories to follow in my next post after her well child visit.

 pretty amazing to see how much she's changed since birth!

The ice coffee might have been my biggest undertaking for this party---and Kendall doesn't even drink coffee!

Oh my! What a spoiled little girl! Everyone chose the perfect gifts for her interests right now! Doll house, music, cell phones, coloring supplies, bubbles...etc. THANK YOU!

These cousins really love each other! We missed you Jeter!

Thanks for coming everyone and making K's 2nd birthday party so special!

Kendall's cute dress was made by her Gramma Denise!

a taste of summer

my sticky sweet summer baby

a one mo tine?

one of the many new phrases we've been hearing a lot around our house these days! more food, more times down the slide, more books at bedtime. but it's never just one more!

Miss Personality

I wish I could capture Kendall in a bottle right now---to save some of this silly sweetness for the upcoming "terrible two's" or to just take in a breath of who she is RIGHT NOW somewhere down the road, when this particular stage is out grown. Obviously we have loved each stage for various reasons, and I know all that lies ahead will be special in it's own way, too. But there is something so magical about all the language development going on right now. Even when she is using her wonderful language skills to be a little twit (we hear "I do it" A LOT! and sometimes "stop it!" ugh!)! To us, she understands insane amounts of information and spits out much of it with alarming accuracy. And her sense of humor is a blast! I sometimes find myself missing her and wanting to wake her up after I put her down to sleep, just because she is so much fun to be around. Now, we know that this is all really typical for most 2 year olds. In fact, I just read that at this age they understand about 10 new words a day, CRAZY! But it's still pretty darn amazing to us every single day! Our developing human minds are ridiculous. I wish I could teach her a second language right now. Keith and I often say to each other "did she really just say what I think she said?"  Maybe it's because we still think of her as our baby (because it really feels like I just had her!) and it just doesn't seem possible that she can be interacting with us and communicating like this. Or maybe it's because we aren't with her all day, every day, so we can look past the more difficult parts of her personality and just see all the fun parts. Whatever it is, Kendall, you delight us! 

Here are some pictures and info for us to remember who Kendall is at 21months old!

She loves to read 

occasionally gets some "tinkle" in the potty

asks to get "I cozy" and watch a Calliou after bath time (Calliou likes Kendall to sit still and get her nails cut, and she is happy to please him)

adores her cousins (ask her about about Quincy and she won't stop talking! and she continues to get better at hide and seek thanks to them.)

happens to enjoy hanging out in just her boots (sorry Kendall, I had to post this too cute buns pic!)

actually plays at play dates now ("chase you" is a favorite)

snuggles, hugs and kisses everyone and everything (all sorts of strangers are getting kisses blown to them at the store these days!---of course, that is if she isn't screaming "I WALK!!!!" while arching her back making it seem like I'm torturing her by buckling her into the cart! But she saves the long lingering hugs for her loved ones.)

is getting pretty adventurous, and incidentally getting lots of interesting injuries (we have a climber folks! and she calls owies "howies")

can feed herself using utensils (but sometimes picks up food with her hands, sets it on the fork, then puts the fork in her mouth!)

teaches Baby everything she knows (sliding is a new love, she even made her own version of a slide out of the ottoman and her rocking chair)

is a "super" helper and is great at identifying garbage and putting it in the garbage can for us (but sometimes gets it back out to play with or eat---oops, guess we better work on that one!), and we've been trying to allow enough time in the night time routine to have her do all her own picking up---it takes quite a while and I know that is totally a quality she inherited from me---sorry Kendall for being easily distracted. The best part is when she starts to sing the clean up song!

and is just OH. SO. SWEET!

• In the past few months Kendall has finally outgrown all her 12 month clothes and is even starting to fit in some 18-24 mo things. She is wearing a size 3 or 4 in shoes. And is a shoe lover---frequently trying to put them on and is pretty opinionated about which ones she wants to wear.
• We were successful at dropping the binky habit, cold turkey in fact! One day she went without it at daycare so we decided it was time. That night when she asked for it (at this point she was requesting to have about 5 in the crib with her at all times) Keith matter of fact-ly said "you are a big girl now, and you don't need the binky" and that was that. I was thankful he put her to bed that night because I know I would have caved. 
• She is still hanging on to the bottle though, she occasionally will take milk from a sippy cut but sipping is about all we can get and I worry she isn't getting enough fat. I promise she won't go to Kindergarten still drinking a bottle!!!
• Her favorite food these days seems to be cheese and she is getting more picky about her veggies. She has developed a sweet tooth and often requests cupcakes (and I never have cupcakes just laying around the house!). 
• She still loves singing and coloring (even did some "art" on our white bench---thank goodness for the Magic Eraser). 
• She sometimes gets shy around new people but as soon as we are away from them she will tell me all sorts of stories (I might understand about every 5th word). 
• I mentioned this in the Easter post, but she really has a fondness for rocks. It's pretty cute. 
• She is slightly obsessed with chap-stick "ship-shap on Mommy, peas?"
• She can walk up and down stairs without much help!
• Has a few phrases that we just can't get enough of: "Daddy, Where are you?"(in a sing-song voice), "here ya go", "Yay, I did it!", and "Spicy Chicken!" (once she got a kiss from Daddy and could smell something spicy, he told her it was chicken and now almost every Daddy kiss is a "spicy chicken").
• And counts like this "One, tree (3), one tree, ONE!"

"Bunny hop"

This Easter was a little more active than last year! Last year Kendall just sat in one spot. This year she was all over the place! Although her understanding of what do to for an egg hunt didn't really change. She did figure out that the plastic eggs usually have something inside them and after "finding" an egg she usually spent some time investigating it and opening it, meanwhile the other kids found ALL the rest of the eggs. But that was okay with her because she was just as happy to collect rocks, in fact, she might have been more excited about the rocks. She did some practicing with Grandma while we were in California and even without competition she averaged about 3 eggs before she was off doing something else. 

 Like last year, we made it to the Evans big egg hunt/community outreach. We met up with Liam there and took what will hopefully be an annual picture. I think Kendall likes her bunny friend :)

Kendall refers to anything bunny as "Bunny hop." Here she is trying to make Aslan "Bunny hop!"

 The picture that proves her love of rocks over eggs.

 Our attempt at a posed picture...she was so irritated that I wasn't letting her play in the dirt.

On Easter Sunday we had breakfast with Marissa and Luke and went to Bernie's after church for her community egg hunt and a family dinner.  By the way, why on Earth do we do egg hunts on Easter??? I can't seem to make the connection. Spring=eggs=new life=Jesus??? I did attempt telling Kendall what Easter is really about, but all she said when I was done was "Jesus died." Hmmm...we'll try explaining it all again when she's a bit older :). I digress... we had a great day spending time with family (even though Kendall decided to fore go her nap!).

 Mimi and her grand kids