two years old

L turned two! She had a nice birthday. That day she played with her sister and celebrated with us at home. After dinner we hung out for a couple of hours at her Nana and Uncle's house and sang Happy Birthday. {We chose not to throw a party for her this year because it would have had be big, and we weren't up for all of the work and everything that goes into that. We're still organizing stuff in our apartment (I will write a post about that later). My husband also is catching up on his university classes because he was out of town for 15 days this month for AT -- annual training -- with his Army Reserve unit.} All of these pictures are from the day she turned two.

I've been potty training L (no diapers, just regular big girl underwear, but she's had lots of accidents) since June 6.

Loving Netflix.

L is a fearless climber, but she does need help getting over the wall into our patio.

Her favorite color is purple, so a few days earlier I bought this cheap tablecloth, etc. L enjoyed playing with the balloons (and watching me blow them up)!

Daddy got her to laugh. Hooray!

The girls had gotten onto Nana's table; that's where L opened her present.

Opening and closing the card that plays music, from Papa and Grandma.

Some time before L was 23 months old -- I didn't mention this on the blog before -- her four canine teeth came in, so she has 16 teeth.

Near L's 24th monthday she started to put two words together (other than "wuh woo," which means "love you" -- she's been saying that for a long time). She can say "Bye, Josh" instead of just "bye." She doesn't do it very often, though.  She added a few words to her vocabulary, including "backpack" (thanks, Dora the Explorer).

She recognizes most colors, and if you ask her "what color is this?" she tells you the right answer. She points out and correctly names some letters, too (mostly thanks to her big sister's teaching).

Some of my favorite things that L does: 

1. She can't give a real kiss with a smack sound, so just before her lips touch whatever she is "kissing" she clicks her tongue. 
2. She puts a doll to bed and then whispers, with her index finger in front of her mouth, "baby!" to tell me I should be quiet for her sleeping baby.
3. If she notices that a shoe or other object is missing or a DVD case has no DVD in it, she says, "Miss!" [missing].
4. When we ask her, "How old are you?" she responds with a quiet "two" that sounds more like "doo."

videos: our families learn about our baby #3

Because I'm a little paranoid, I'm only posting the videos (4 out of 8) that do not contain either of our daughters' names. {I'm not the only one who does this sort of thing.} 

My mom, who you don't see in this post, had the best reaction: 

"It must mean Manda's pregnant again." 

"Yep." 

"No. . . " 

"Yep." 

"Really?!" :-O  

My dad and my husband's step-mom (and the 8-year-old) seemed to take a while to figure it out. Our older girl never wore the "big sister" shirt because I made it for the toddler (in fact, I finished it after noon, right before we went over to my parents' houses.) But let's get to the videos, shall we? 

My true love -- the day I had the positive pregnancy test (skip the first 27 seconds)

My younger sister

 

My mother-in-law (I don't know why this one got cut short)

 

My father-in-law (we told him to go look at the shirt)