Lydia at 2!!

Lydia turned 2 on March 14th! I can't believe that it's been 2 years since she was born! In a way, it seems like she's always been with us ... hard to remember what life was like without her! But in other ways, it seems like it was just yesterday when she surprised us with coming 6 weeks early! She's been full of surprises since she was born ... and there's never a dull moment when she's around! =)

We had her 2 year check-up last week and she's right on target! Dr. Stanford said she is growing just like she should. He said that it's awesome that she doesn't seem to have any lasting effects of being early. God has been SO good and blessed us with such a happy and healthy little girl.

Here are her stats at 2:

Length: 37 inches (99%)

Weight: 28.2 ounces (70%)

Head: 19 inches (71%)

This post is going to be full of "stuff" that I want to remember about Lydia @ 2 ... Just a warning!!

** She loves to "eat" with her play food! Her favorite person to do this with is her Daddy! That is the FIRST thing that she says to him when he gets home from work. It's so sweet. If only she liked to eat for real!

**Speaking of eating, her diet mainly consists of cheese (quesadillas and grilled cheese) and chicken. She still loves most fruit, her favorites being grapes, bananas (bibas), oranges (orges), and apples. She loves to eat most veggies, especially if Grandmother makes them! Loves bread, chips, and salsa. She's not a big sweet eater, but loves a chocolate chip cookie or ice cream every once in a while.

**She is sleeping about 13-14 hours a day ... which is awesome! This just started recently and she's SO much happier! She's always been a good napper, but nights were a different story. Thankfully, it's gotten so much better. She loves for Jeff to put her down at night ... her routine is read a book, brush teeth, rock, pray, then bed. It's their special time together! =)

**Lydia is such a little "mommy". She plays with her babies all the time. Loves to feed, rock, and take care of them. My favorite thing she does is lays the baby (or stuffed animal) on their tummy and says "Shh". Not sure where she got that from ... but it's SO sweet!!

**Lydia still LOVES to be outside. She's loved the outdoors since she was a little baby. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were having to take nightly walks to keep her from crying for hours straight. She still loves to go for walks, but also love to ride her tricycle (trica) and her 4-wheeler. She loves feeling the grass under her feet and watching everything that goes on around her. She's VERY observant!!

**She still spends a lot of time every day reading ... and I love it! I'm a big reader, so I hope that she will continue to love reading. I have so many memories of Mom reading books to us when we were little ... and even when we got older she would read "chapter" books to us before bed. Can't wait to be able to do that with Lydia! Some of her favorites right now are "There's a Wocket In My Pocket", "If You Give A Pig A Party", "The Ear Book", "Olivia", "Dora's 'When I Grow Up'", and her Elmo book.

**We are working Lydia about saying "please" and "thank you" and she's doing so well with it! I love when we are out and she tells people "thank you" when they give us a receipt, our food, change, and just about anything else! It's so sweet!

**She loves to dance, sing, and basically go non-stop! If she's awake, she's moving!! Guess that's why she sleeps so well ... and for the most part goes right to sleep when we put her in bed!

**Lydia's vocabulary has blossomed over the past few weeks. It's AMAZING how fast she is learning. She is repeating everything that we are saying and is telling us what she see's all the time. When we are driving down the road is she constantly telling us "car", "truck", "tree", "puppy", etc. Sometimes it takes a few tries for us to figure out what she is saying, but for the most part we can figure it out the first time. She's not really putting words together, but I'm sure it won't be long. She's just started saying stuff like "I jump", "I book", etc.

**She is a very happy little girl. She's always been this way and I'm so glad that her personality hasn't changed. She is always giggling and just being silly! She is pretty shy when she is around people that she doesn't know, but once she warms up ... she warms up!

**Lydia got a LeapFrog DVD for Christmas from Shawn & Bethany and she has learned so much from it! She knows every letter sound! It's amazing! We are trying to work on her saying the name of the letter when she sees it, but she is satisfied with just telling us the sound! =) She has started seeing letters different places (one of her sippy cups, menus, books, etc.) and will say the sound. Blows my mind how fast she is learning!

**She LOVES to help clean! She got a vacuum for her birthday and uses it all the time! If only it picked up stuff for real! ;) I love watching her clean. Shows me just how much she pays attention to what I do!!

We love you SO much, Lydia and so thankful that God blessed our life with you. We had no idea how much you would change our world! From the second we first laid our eyes on you until now ... our love has daily grown more and more! We pray that we are raising you in a way that God would be pleased and pray for His guidance and direction daily. It's such a HUGE responsibility! We can not wait to see the little girl that God is molding you into.