Three Teeth

That's right...Aurelle has THREE TEETH now... and she is not afraid to use them!

Two today!

Today is the day that our little Princess Minnette turns two years old! It is hard to believe that this day: was two whole years ago!

Here she is on her 2nd birthday:

Doesn't she just look so much older and wiser? Well, I can see it!

Here she is showing off a "car" that she constructed completely by herself:

Since we are going to be back in Phoenix next week for Kyle's sister's wedding, we decided to wait and have Minnette's birthday party then so that we could have both of our families there to celebrate with us. Since we didn't do a party for Minnette today, we decided to go out for a treat for our Family Home Evening activity!

Some of Minnette's favorite things... french fries!... and ketchup!

... and icecream! Don't worry, she didn't actually eat that whole thing, although I'm sure she easily could have and definitely wanted to... she shared with Daddy. :)

Some facts about Minnette at two years old:

•She has found her opinion... and loves to share it! She usually only likes to do something if it was her idea. I will often ask her, for example, if she would like some more water. She will almost always say "no", wait about two seconds, and then ask me for some more water. It is so funny!

•She says lots and lots of words and is becoming more conversational with every passing day. She has her own way of saying many of the words she uses most, and this leads to my "Minnette translations":

Wadee= water, fladee=flower, my=more, teet-teet=bird, Row=Aurelle, see=sitting or a stroller or chair- and sometimes kiss, mit=milk, Met=Minnette, beet=Aurelle's binky, buppa=grampa, tow=cow, ca-ca=duck, dee-tee=her Dr' Seuss's ABC book, Gar=lion/tiger/bear, Toe=Raquel, tee=brush her teeth, tees=cheese or the camera, bot=blocks, do-do=her Go Dog, Go book

I think my favorite thing about her little words is how all of her c's and k's (except for in the case of "quack quack") come out as t's and how almost all of the time she will not call any animal by it's name, but call it by the sound it makes. She has a sheep stuffed animal, which she at first thought was a frog (since it bears a resemblance to that of Mr. Froggy) and when I told her what it was, she immediately decided to call it "baa" from that time on.

•She LOVES books! She will spend large amounts of time sitting on the floor or the couch flipping through the pages of her books and pointing out things that she remembers.

•She knows at least 50% of her letters.Well... depending on the day.

•She loves her little sister and wants Aurelle to do absolutely everything with her. When she is done eating she will tell me she is all done and then say "Row ah dun?" which translates to "Aurelle all done?" because she wants Aurelle to stop eating and play with her. Everytime she gets out the blocks she will ask me for help to open the bucket of blocks and say "Row bot?" which means she wants Aurelle to stop whatever she is doing and play blocks with her. It is so sweet that she already wants to spend so much time and play with Aurelle. She will even often randomly walk over to Aurelle and give her a big hug and give her a kiss on the head!

•She loves baths, but only with Aurelle, and encourages large amounts of splashing which Aurelle is quickly learning how to join in... but she DOES NOT like taking showers.

•She is a people watcher. Any time we are in public- at the store or at church- she will stare at people around us... and sometimes I feel bad. She will sit on our porch and watch kids playing in the quad, and even when we take her down to play she loves watching the older kids playing.

We are just so thankful to our Heavenly Father for blessing and entrusting us with such a beautiful and sweet little girl. She has so much love and enthusiasm for everything in life, and she is definitely going to do some amazing and wonderful things in her life, I just know it!

Minnette, we love you!

Well Checks

The stats are in...

We had Aurelle's 9 month well check (over 3 weeks late) and Minnette's 2 year well check (one week early) this morning... and here are the numbers:

Minnette:

Height: 35.5 in. - 93.67%

Weight: 28 lbs. 7 oz. - 77.66%

Head: 19 in. - 74.94%

Aurelle:

Height: 28.5 in. - 74.34%

Weight: 17 lbs. 6.5 oz - 19.9%

Head: 17.52 in. - 60.58%

As you can see, they are both healthy and still growing like crazy! I am amazed by how much Minnette has thinned out... she used to weigh in over the 95th percentile! I think all that running around has been burning a lot of extra calories. :) Aurelle's weight percentile has been going down slightly, as well, but the doctor says that since she is eating well, and that her height percentile is still high that it is probably just due to her crawling. I am so thankful to have such beautiful, healthy and happy girls! We love you, Minnette and Aurelle!