Happy Birthday, Sweet Naomi Grace

To our sweet, sweet Naomi,

I can hardly believe that you are TWO years old already! You are such a delight to our family and keep us smiling and laughing every day! You are still a little peanut, but have recently hit a growth spurt, and are getting SO big!!

You weigh just under 22 lbs and are 32.75 inches tall! That puts you right around the 25th percentile for height and just above the 2nd percentile for weight. :) You are still wearing your 12 month clothes, but we've started buying 18 months as well, even though some of those are a little big on you. Now if we can just get your hair to grow on the top of your precious little head! Hehe. You have lots of hair in the back, just not a lot in the front. It looks ADORABLE in pigtails, but you prefer to wear it down. In fact, you'll tear the rubberbands out of your hair, and pat your head as you say, "No, I want THIS hair, Mommy!"

Much to my chagrin, you have more or less given up napping over the past few weeks. You are a clever little lady, too. When you don't want to nap, you reason with us, telling us, "I be quiet. I go downstairs, and I will be quiet." If I'm lucky, you'll actually fall asleep one day a week. You stay in your crib for an hour or more, typically talking and playing, but sometimes you are prone to take your pull-up off and poop or pee in your bed. Not too pleasant.

But you don't like getting messy, so that works to my advantage. You haven't decided to use your poop like artwork, as your brother did a few times. :) If your hands even get dirty while playing outside, you'll hold them out as you walk to me saying, "I'm all dirty, Mommy...can you clean dem off peez?"

You spend most of your time playing with Isaac. You two are best friends...and at times can seem like worst enemies. I LOVE it when you laugh and play well together, which happens every day. But you both instigate arguments with each other every day as well. He likes to do things to make you scream, which you do often. We have been encouraging you to use your words a lot lately. :) You have also began tattling on him, saying things like, "Isaac said 'poopy', Mommy!"

You also have a little bit of a sassy side to you. And given your small, delicate nature, it is SO stinking cute! You are, by nature, very sweet and polite. But when something happens that you don't like, you are not afraid to let it show! We have caught you several times yelling at your brother, arms back and chin out with as much attitude you can muster up. And it sounds something like: "Don't do dat any MORE!" and it is immediately and forcefully followed by spitting! Cracks us up every time, though we are quick to correct the spitting. :)

Though you are not very ticklish, I can definitely find spots that get you laughing pretty hard. But you don't enjoy being tickled and will promptly tell me, "I don't like that, Mommy." I always respect your words when you say that and I stop immediately, even though I love to make you laugh. :)

You have definitely been showing your age more and more lately. Your newest tactic is completely ignoring us when we ask or tell you to do something. You literally act as if you cannot even hear us and just go on about your business without even acknowledging what we've said. I have considered having your ears checked, but I am quite confident that this is just a pretty clever means of disobedience and we have started correcting you for it. As we grow in our consistency in correcting this behavior, your hearing has magically improved ten fold! Hehe.

Let's see...what else? You are still infatuated with babies...both your dolls and real-life ones. :) You are just so precious with them and I just LOVE seeing how nurturing you are! I bet you are going to be a WONDERFUL mommy some day. You have never seen anything with a princess in it, but you are IN LOVE with all things princess. You enjoy playing dress-up (with Isaac too), and LOVE your princess shoes. Even when we drive past a Wendy's restaurant, you point out the window at the picture of Wendy, and yell, "I see a PRINCESS! LOOK MOMMY! A PRINCESS!!!" Haha. We need to get you to Disney World sometime!

We still can't figure out whether you are going to be right or left handed. You probably use your left hand 75% of the time, but still use your right 25%. You seem to be equally skilled at using both, depending on which is more convenient for you. Perhaps you will be ambidextrous? I guess time will tell. One of my favorite things about you is that you never took a pacifier or sucked any fingers. When you're tired or trying to soothe yourself, you twirl your hair. It's SO stinking cute!! :)

You LOVE reading books (and being read to). Your favorite TV show is SuperWhy. You enjoy singing, and one of your favorite songs is on a kids CD in the van. I LOVE it when you yell, "HAL-LE-LOO-LAH!" over and over again! Such a beautiful sound coming out of your sweet little mouth. Some of your other favorite songs include Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Jesus Loves Me.

You know almost all of your colors, but still get them all mixed up from time to time. You can count to ten and know MOST of your alphabet...recognizing both the letters AND their sounds. I have a feeling that you're going to give your older brother a run for his money when it comes to learning things. You seem to catch on SO quickly...and are a really good self-learner. :)

You are super sweet and SUCH a delight to us. You are SO stinkin adorable and get LOTS of looks and comments when we go anywhere. But when strangers try to talk to you, you just bat your eyes and act really shy. Well, I think that just about wraps things up. We love you more than words can say and praise God for you every day!! :)

We love you SO much, sweet Naomi Grace!!