In oh so many ways, this one photo captures so much of my little bit’s personality! She is full of mischief and fun and sweetness. And she is growing so fast! Currently, she is 26 lbs.; I am not sure how tall she is. I only know her weight because we had to take her to the doctor right before Christmas – a mild case of pneumonia. 
But she bounced back in plenty of time to have a great Christmas and to turn 23 months in style.
She is talking up a storm, and has converted much of her two-three word phrases to complete sentences (where is daddy, mommy where are you, BB move out of the way, why egg is hot, etc.). She says more and more every day, and we are understanding more and more every day. Now, if we could just get her to say “yes” when she really means yes, and to say “no”, when she really means no…
She is also really into “I do” right now, from putting on her shoes, to putting on her pants, brushing her teeth, carrying her stuff, getting her crayons out of the box, putting the crayons back in the box, stacking her Legos, etc.
She LOVES shoes – her current favs are some black “ballet slippers,” but she is also big on her squeaky shoes and B’s red sparkly shoes. And her new Pooh towel is a definite hit. She has been coveting her sister’s Pooh towel for months now, and it tickled to death to get one of her own.
She seems to know many colors, but doesn’t consistently identify them on cue. The one color she gets right every single time is purple. She is a huge fan of pretty much anything purple (hence the purple pony from Build-a-Bear in the last post). While I have not really heard her say her shapes, she definitely knows how to match up the right shape with the right opening, and often grabs the correct shape when I ask her to hand me the square/circle/triangle/etc. She is very, very good at correctly identifying animals and animal sounds (hippo, sheep, kitty, puppy, horse, duck, goose, pig, gator, monkey, cow, etc.). She is following in her sister’s footsteps, as currently her favorite animal is the hippo. I can’t tell you how many times I read “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”… She is also getting quite good at counting. She counts from 1 to 12 correctly quite regularly, and can generally get up to 16 (tho she often misses 13 and/or 14).
This child loves to sort things, put things away (in their correct spot), and stack things. She seems to be very much the “engineer” type. I am looking forward to watching her play with her Christmas toys (blocks, interlocking shapes, Legos, etc.) and seeing what she does with them all. Other favorite toys include her dolls, toy cars, and anything to do with Ariel. Oh, and anything that B is playing with…
M is fairly outgoing, but she is quite very attached to me and Jason. So much so that she regularly says “my mommy!” whenever B gets close to me. This, of course, starts a little feud between the two of them. I need to record it so I can play it back when they are teenagers and remind them that they used to fight over me!
I know…I haven’t posted a thing since M turned 22 months. I do apologize, but this Christmas season has just flown by! We baked cookies.
And decorated our tree.
And read Christmas stories wearing new Christmas jammies.
And wearing other new Christmas jammies while driving around looking at Christmas lights.
I don’t have pictures of the rest, but we also did B’s advent calendar (a legos version), searched for our elf (“elfie”) every morning, picked out and wrapped presents, and generally had a marvelous (albeit crazy) time (even though, for the second December in a row, M developed a mild case of pneumonia).
Finally, the big day arrived! The girls must have been good for Santa to fill up their gigantic stockings!
Santa has a sense of humor (you can’t see it in the photo, but the nose blinks).
After breakfast, we got down to the business of opening presents. We had to do it in stages, and M had to take a nap in between stages. But the girls were well behaved and had tons of fun! B loved helping M open her presents.
But M got the hang of it fairly quickly (“I do!”).
One happy girl (everything on this child is new, even the underpants…)!
M was also fond of one of my gifts – Bert the farting hippo!
The day after Christmas, we headed to the mall so M could cash in on her gift from Tatie Kat – a Build-a-Bear…which turned out to be a pony…
And while M napped, B cashed in on her gift from Mimi – afternoon tea (or hot chocolate if you’re B)!
And then that night (it was a busy day), we headed out to the farm to see the lights! It was cold…
Mimi and Tatie Kat have left, but we had a great visit with them, and a great Christmas! Ready for New Years…almost…
