Two Roads Diverged in a Wood...: Adaline Mabel is 2!!

Our baby girl is growing up, but she will ALWAYS be our baby girl!! What a delight she is to us and her brother. She is often smiling, laughing, finding ways to make others laugh, and exploring new things. She LOVES to be outside and unfortunately mommy doesn't like the hot or cold....so she thrives off of any time she gets. However, she doesn't like being contained, but instead allowed to roam free as she pleases.

For her birthday, mommy made a banner that said, "Happy 2nd B-Day Addie". I put up stars around it. It took me quite a long time, but I wanted it to be special!! She LOVES stars, so I had cut up stars and put them up. I also made her a cake and decorated it myself. It was my first cake, and though making the frosting was very frustrating, it was fun when it finally came together!! I used a bunch of colors to make it fun and bright. She really liked it and couldn't wait to touch it. And when she did, she was pretty good!! Not too messy, but she had fun. I made her spaghetti and meatballs, one of her favorite meals.

Her gifts from us were: Little People Zoo with animals, baby Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Sleeping Beauty book, Dr Seuss's "Oh the places you will go" (hindsight, it's probably more appropriate for her when she gets older, oh well). She got money from the Bares and from her Grandma and Grandpa Hebdon. We decided to put the money into her piggy bank so she can save up for something when she gets bigger.

We were going to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights but Daddy was oncall at the hospital and got called in. So we decided to wait for another night to see the lights, which we did Sunday night. Her baby brother was very excited for her as well and enjoyed playing with her toys and paper. It's going to be interesting when Christmas comes!!

Milestones:

She is learning her shapes. Her favorite and first seems to be star. She LOVES stars!! and loves to sing "Twinkle Little Star". She has also learned circle, square, triangle (pronounces kicangle), heart, and is learning rectangles (which is confusing because they look like squares, but sound like triangles....not the best job done by the English language! But serving a mission teaching Mongolians the language, I have to say not a lot of English makes sense!!).
She is learning colors. Her favorite and first is blue, purple then white. She is picking up on black, red and green. And is trying to understand orange and pink.
The other day there was a penguin on the TV. She got excited because there was a penguin on her pj's, and then she grabbed her pet penguin. She said black!! It's fun to see her understand what everything means!! I always worry that I don't teach enough, but somehow they just pick things up. It's pretty amazing.
She loves to dance (her dancing is bouncing as she rocks back and forth. We think she is pretty adorable!).
She loves animals and calls them by what noise she makes. Her favorite animals are a cow (moo) and cat (meow, with her face scrunched up).
She loves riding Great Grandpa Belnap's rocking horse he made for my mom. We get to borrow it, and it's probably her favorite toy.
She does not enjoy coloring! She asks for "color" but lasts for 2 minutes, then she is done. However, the other day she got into mommy's colored sharpies and went to town on her pj's and high chair (she now pushes the high chair to the counter, climbs up the highchair with the tray still on, gets what she wants, and squeezes into the seat). Once again, I think all parents have to believe in angels and miracles that children survive childhood!!
She really likes going to Nursery. The first few months (June to October) she really had a hard time going into the class. The first month she would have to be held by the teacher. The next few months it would take 10 minutes, and then she would gradually warm up. Now she hesitantly walks in, but they say she does really well. And when I go in to get her, she is running around playing. I am so grateful that we have people who are willing to fulfill their callings. It's a tremendous blessings for those kids to interact and learn from others. And it allows us parents a break, yah!!

Stats:

Height: 35.5 in 75%
Weight: 30 lbs 75%

Joe took her to the doctor appointment on Dec 18th. He explained to her what the doctor would do, so when the doctor checked her tummy, ears, back she was fine. She didn't cry until he checked her mouth. She hates brushing her teeth, I don't know why. She got her vaccinations, cried, but that's understandable. She interacted with the doctor and he was happy with where she was on her milestones. He said she was a happy, healthy little girl. She kind of does this skipping run at times, but I guess that's her trying to jump, so that's exciting too.