Elliana Lately

2 year doctor's appointment:
Weight: 28 pounds
Height: 35.5 inches
Head: 50cm
Basically 75% throughout. Our growing happy, healthy, baby girl.

Clothes: 24 months-2T
Diaper: 4
Shoe: 6

You love to carry around your Caillou doll. And recently your Teddy Bear, which was papa's bear as a baby. And then you will make them sit at your little baby table at the opposite chair across from you and "talk" to them while you draw. This has got to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Lots of talking as usual, what else is new. We are beyond the 300+ words mark and I have long time stopped counting the words. You say so many cute things. So many sayings. Ask questions. Make statements. You have put together 5-6 words together now without any problem. It's amazing how much your vocabulary has grown. Logically starting to "think."

This past month we have also been working on you recognizing what each letter is {lowercase and uppercase} and I have to say that you are doing exceptionally well with this. You get them right about 90% of the time. We will continue to work on this so you can be a speedy little thing. As far as numbers? You recognize about 75% of the time. You can count without any assistance up to about 17, and do so pretty fast.

You love to sing. You love songs. Period. You have mastered singing the ABC's without any sort of help. And it is so fun to watch you just burst out singing them without us even prompting. You even sing the "Now I know my ABC's...." and so forth.  You ADORE Christmas music {proud mama over here}. Some of your favorite songs include: you are my sunshine, jingle bells, rudolph, twinkle twinkle little star, wheels on the bus, christmas tree.

Bath time is STILL an ultimate favorite in our house. You will ask for a bath. If mama goes in for a bath after a late night at work, you INSIST on getting in with me. You would like 3-4 baths a day if we let you.

In the bath? We, you included, love to do the ABC's and 123 in there. You have these foam alphabet and number blocks and you just LOVE to call out what is what and place them on the wall of the tub. Papa and I love doing them with you as well. Watching you learn is one of the biggest blessings in life.

You LOVE to do crafts. Are great with the glue. And get so excited when you finish a project.

You love to brush your teeth, and even ask for it every morning and night.

You are so funny when it comes to food. You have just been one picky eater. Very weird with textures. Still to this day despise chicken, and would live off snacks if we let you. Which we don't. And won't.

Your favorite food is still: carrots, yogurt and granola, cereal, PB&J, mac n cheese, bananas, annie's  snacks, cottage cheese and preserve, waffles, water, milk, apples. Pretty much on a 95% organic diet!

You are all of a sudden into stuffed animals. Only took 2 years. Before? No interest what-so-ever. Now? You want to carry around teddy bear number #1 and #2 {your first teddy and papa's teddy as a baby}, monkey, and caillou. All at once.

Something cute that you do that I don't want to forget is you say : "Elli princess, mama queen, papa king." It makes us giggle each and every time.

Also? Blankets. You love them. You will grab any blanket you will find to cover yourself up with. In the chair? Blanket. Couch? Blanket. Lay on the stares? With blanket.

A lot of rumbling and tumbling you have been. Very active child lately. And you just want to TOUCH EVERYTHING in sight. I mean really child, it's like you are marking your terrority and at the same time trying to test mama. You giggle and giggle and giggle when you know you aren't supposed to be touching things.

You would live outside if we let you. I'm really bummed that it has been cold out because I do miss our hourly adventures outside. We still go out and take walks... but nothing like it used to be. Can I already tell you how excited I am for summer time? {i know... you are rolling your eyes... mom... it's not even Christmas yet!}

Which results in lots of time outs. Your two's are definitely shining through. We, your papa and I, are learning the best way to deal with your behavior. Our goal is for you to be strong, confident, and most of all respectful and we hope we are always doing the right thing to lead you to that direction.

You LOVE to do your education apps on the phone and ipad. They have been truly a great learning tool for us!

You had a sucker for the first time {don't laugh} when we went to the bank the other day. The lady gave that to me for you and I just couldn't say no. So I handed it to you. You were curious. But it definitely didn't take long for you to get the hang of it. And the whole drive home it was "ohhh, yummy mama." We even made a video and sent it to papa. Needless to say, I think I might put a little sucker in your stocking this year :)

You are going to be an AMAZING big sister. No doubt about it. You talk about baby brother ALL day. Kiss the belly. Rub the belly. Talk to him. It's really just the most absolutely amazing thing to watch you do.