Our Baby is 2!!!

Wow, we can not believe our baby is 2!!! Happy Birthday to our sweet, sweet girl! I guess we can't really call her a baby anymore since she is our tenacious toddler! I was trying to find another word for active that would describe her and boy is tenacious perfect! Well obviously it starts with a t just like toddler so I was like "heck yeah", but look what it means:

tenacious  [tuh-ney-shuhs]
Definition:
strong, unyielding
Synonyms:
adamant, bound, clinging, coherent, cohesive, determined, dogged, fast, firm, forceful, inflexible, intransigent, iron, meaning business, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, persevering, persistent, persisting, pertinacious, possessive, purposeful, relentless, resolute, retentive, set, solid, spunky, stalwart, staunch, steadfast, stout, strong-willed, stubborn, sturdy, sure, tight, tough, true, unforgetful, unshakable, unswerving

Well, she's not all these things, but the ones that stand out to me are; determined, fast, persistent, spunky, strong-willed, tough, and strong.

Kaitlyn is our tenacious little girl alright! These past two years have been a roller coaster, but definitely one I never want to get off of! The first year, was challenging and went by slowly. But the second year was a little easier and flew by! And I know the years to come will too. It is more than incredible to see her grow and learn. I thrive on watching her do something new for the first time. It really is true when people say "seeing the world through a child's eyes". It is the coolest thing. She has the cutest, funniest personality. She make us laugh, keep us on our toes, and is very independent! Let's not forget active and fast! In October Kaitlyn fractured her fibula and we had no idea. That's how tough she is:-) Kaitlyn's Granny noticed her limping one morning right after I dropped her off. The next day my mother and I took her to the doctor, which led to us ultimately finding out what was wrong and Kaitlyn getting a cast. But it didn't bother our tenacious toddler one bit! She had trouble walking the first day, but was practically running the next. She has this this unshakable quality about her that I love! She also has a very sweet, soft side. She is good about sharing, loves feeding mommy & daddy, gives lots of hugs and kisses, and has genuine concern for others.

Kaitlyn had her 2 year check-up right before her birthday. She weighed 26lbs. and was 2' 11.5" tall. She was right under the 50th percentile for her weight and in the 90th percentile for her height! Tall, lean girl! We need to get her to eat more, haha!

Kaitlyn's 2nd Birthday!

We celebrated Kaitlyn's 2nd birthday on her actual birthday!! Which is a big deal because, well, it falls on Christmas Eve (Mom & Dad's poor planning)! We thought since it fell on a Saturday this time and we had a big party for her last year, it would be neat to do something smaller on the actual day. The party went great! My favorite part was when everyone sang happy birthday to her...I almost cried and so did she!! It was too sweet to see her reaction...she looked a little scared at first, then really shy, and then like she liked it! Precious. My Dad got some great pics and my father-in-law got an awesome video of all of us singing to her!!








Kaitlyn had a great time at her birthday party - thanks to all who came and celebrated with us!
Check out my other blog here, to see the crafty side of her birthday party!

Christmas!



Christmas was even more fun this year! Kaitlyn was more into opening presents (instead of just playing with the wrapping), she knows who Santa is and recognizes him, and she loved the Christmas tree and all the "balls".

I mean, look how happy this kid is:



She loved opening her presents and even helping pass some out!


Princess ball!

I had to include this picture for you. Look how ridiculous all of our faces are (ok really just mine)...I was ecstatic to get my Britney cd, Mark was appalled at my excitement and Kaitlyn seems to be planning her getaway, lol!

Kaitlyn's birthday and Christmas were great. I haven't updated the blog since last summer, so I thought you might like to know what we've been up to the last 6 months!

In August, we took a nice little trip to this beautiful spot...



We went to Niagara Falls with Granny & Grand-daddy! It was Kaitlyn's first plane and boat ride! She did pretty well on the plane once we got settled and had taken off and she did great on the boat. Maid of the Mist was beyond awesome - everyone should do it at least once! We got soaked and rocked back and forth, but it was such a cool experience to see the falls up close!



They even had ponchos in Kaitlyn's size:)



We had an awesome view of the falls from our room (and restaurant here)...



And it was too cute to see Kaitlyn pulling her Elmo rolling bag through the airport (I wish I had a picture)!!!



Kaitlyn got her cast on in early October. I thought this was a good shot to show you since she is sporting her jean diaper and you can see how much of her leg it covered!!



Halloween kind of snuck up on us this year. Mainly because things were a little hectic with Kaitlyn's cast; bath time for instance! But I found her a cute ladybug costume on sale at Babies R Us. And Kaitlyn was not feeling so great on Halloween so I don't think we got any pictures of her smiling:-( But she was still stinkin' cute in her costume. And she did have fun trick-or-treating! She got around just fine, it was hard to tell she even had a cast!



In November, we took Kaitlyn on her first trip to the zoo! She didn't have a huge reaction...we think she was just taking it all in. She loved the monkeys, komodo dragon, and of course, the elephants!

~Some random fun facts from the last several months~

Sometimes we stay at Nana & Pops' and Kaitlyn loves the doggies (she wakes up barking - guess they are the first thing on her mind)! And lately (after the holidays) she says cookie when we talk about going over there because they let her decorate cookies a couple times:)

One day when Kaitlyn was watching a baby Einstein video, I noticed her doing the sign language along with them!! And when I asked her to do it after the movie was over, she did!! It was too cool, guess those baby Einstein videos really work!

Kaitlyn's favorite songs are "Itsy bitsy spider", "If you're happy and you know it", and "The wheels on the bus". She does all the motions to them as well - it is so cute!!

Kaitlyn loved when we would do the "bumble bee". Basically we would hold her sideways (like she's flying) and zoom her all around the house while making a buzzing noise:) And she even started saying "stop" and "go" while we played. She's not as into it lately.

Kaitlyn says "yes" and "no" so clearly and assuredly.

She is talking more and more and saying new words everyday! For instance, today she started saying "See" and "Vegetable".

When Kaitlyn first started holding our hands, she would close up her hand with all her finger tips touching and put it in the palm of our hands, lol - too cute!

She loves jumping (we think this had something to do with her fracture)!

She is so funny and will clap and say "yay" when the car slows down or gets off the highway because she knows we are close to our destination.

She is starting to count by pointing at each object and can count to 3!

Kaitlyn is very polite and says please, thank you, and excuse me:)

She was doing this funny thing for a while where she would make the same group of high-pitched sounds for something when it was the same. For example, she saw a picture of me and then pointed at me and said her little group of sounds, that basically meant "that's mommy too!" So cute! She hasn't been doing it as much lately.

Kaitlyn loves to tickle us!!! She "get us" with her hands and says "tickle tickle tickle" in her own cute way!

When Kaitlyn would get hurt by an object, Granny would say "bad table (or whatever hurt her)" to help distract her. So one day she bumped into the table at home, cried for a second and then hit the table and said her jibber jabber for "bad table"! Lol, it is so funny and she does it all the time!

She can recognize and say some colors!! She says green and purple pretty well!

We love Kaitlyn's "excited face". We say "Are you excited?" and she makes this face:



I think her daddy taught her that;-)

She has been saying "bye bye" so clearly lately and it is the cuuutest sounding thing ever!:) And I think she understands more on tv because she'll interact and answer them if they ask questions and she says "bye bye" after they say it.

It is so funny when Kaitlyn pretends to sleep and snore!

She recently started calling people/pets/things, for example; Chi-tah (Chiquita - chihuahua at Nana & Pops), Maw-mee & Daa-dee, and Pa-pee (paci - we only give it to at night - I know we need to get rid of it!!!).

Kaitlyn started singing not too long ago and we love it!! She'll sing from the back seat of the car sometimes:)

Some cute things she's been saying are: "What's that?", "Mmm...that tastes good!", "I spilt that". Too funny!

That's it for now...I know that was long and I'm sure I left a lot out!?!! I'll try not to wait so long before updating again!:)