These last couple of months we have hit some big milestones!  It is so much fun to see Lara doing and saying new things everyday.  She is becoming quite the character and definitely starting to show what her little personality is going to be like... :-)

* Our most exciting milestone is that Lara has been completely potty trained during the day now for the last month! She still has an accident every now and then, but very rarely!  We still use diapers at nap time and at bed time, but I hope we can get rid of that soon too!  The first thing she wants to do when she wakes up is, "diaper off!  panties on!"  She takes great pride in picking out her panties for the day.  It's so cute! :-)  A side note to this... it seems that no matter how I try, when she wets her diaper she proceeds to take it off, take it to the trash, gets a wipe, and then either picks up a new diaper or panties, THEN says "Moooommy, poootty" during nap time.  I keep telling her that she has to say potty BEFORE she does all of this... Ha!

* If you hadn't guessed it from the previous bullet, our other big thing this month is that we took the front off of her crib!  I was a little worried about her being all over the house, but actually she has been great about it.  I told her that she could play in and out of her bed all she wanted when we were awake, but when it was nap or bedtime, she couldn't get out of her bed.  I figured this would go in one ear and out the other, but she has done great (minus the diaper exchange listed previously...)  One morning I heard her calling for me and since she is in the room next to ours, I said, "Lara you can come in here with Mommy."  She then proceeded to say, "No out Mommy.  Mommy get me!" :-)  At least she was obeying my request!!

* She has fallen out of the bed a few times... I think she sleeps a bit like I did when I was her age... ;-)  The first time she fell out was the second day without the front.  I heard her crying and went to check on her.  Once I got her calmed down and back in bed, I kept hearing her say, "No like big bed Mommy... Big bed scary..."  It broke my heart a little,  but now it doesn't seem to phase her too much... we might have to invest in a bed rail at some point, especially when we move her to the twin bed, which is significantly higher off the ground!

* She has been hilarious lately with her animal sounds.  Her favorite animal is a Monkey (which after much pleading against from me, she decided to be for Halloween... I am still trying to figure out how to "girl it up" a little...).  So most of the time in the car or at the table, we have a monkey joining us.  She likes to let us know that she is being a "loud monkey" - as if we didn't realize that already... She thinks it's funny to be a quiet monkey too, but the loud one is usually the one that joins us :-)  She also likes to make sounds and have us "guess" what she is being.  Too cute!

* She surprised me the other day and sang almost her whole ABC's.  ABCDEFGHIJK "Elmo" PQ  ST   V WX Z :-)

* She was doing great at counting from 1-11, but lately, she has a fascination with the #9, so we usually skip to 9 pretty quick.  123456 9 8  10  9! :-)

* Lara is LOVING to color right now.  She is getting much better at coloring an object (when she wants to) rather than the whole page.  Her favorite color to color with is white, which makes her very frustrated because she can't see it... I keep trying to explain that you can't see white on white paper... it's not sinking in! ;-)

* She is becoming very bossy with Hailey lately... "Hailey, outside now!"  "Eat Hailey!"  "My cookie Hailey!" "My [everything] Hailey!" "No lick Hailey!"  But, she will NEVER let Hailey's food plate be empty.  She loves to go open the pantry, drag the food across the kitchen, take of the lid, "help" daddy pour the food, then put it back up.  Such a big helper!

* Also on that note she has learned to unlock the deadbolt to the back door now... Yay that she can let Hailey in and out all by herself now, but boo that she can go outside whenever she wants now... although she hasn't figured that out... yet...!

* In Lara's mind, everything is Lara's now... "MY mommy" "MY milk" "MY baby" "MY cookie" MY, MY, MY!  We're working on sharing :-)

* Lara is very excited that the weather is getting cooler because she LOVES her boots!  She just couldn't understand why I wouldn't let her wear them when it was 90 degrees outside...

* She gets really excited when she has more than one of something and loves the word "both." Although she really thinks that this means anything more than 1.  She might be holding 10 blocks saying "booooooth!" :-)

*We were rolling a ball back and forth one afternoon, and she kept getting distracted, so I said, "Keep your eye on the ball Lara." She looked at me like I was crazy, then bent down and put her eye on the ball... and then kept trying to "catch" the ball with her eye!  Silly girl... I forget how literal kids are sometimes!

* When I ask her where Granna and Granpa live, she always says "TARGET! Haha no Lara, TEXas!"  I find it hilarious that she says it wrong and then corrects herself :-)

* When we ask her where Vovo and Vovo live, she always says, "Airplane!" then after further prompting, she'll usually say "sil" :-)

* We've been telling her that we're going to make a trip to Brazil soon on an airplane.  And she always says, "No go mommy.  Airplane scary..."  So lately when we've been talking about it we say we're going to go by car...  that would be a LONG trip!

* Anytime she sees a football player on TV she yells, "AGGIE!"  :-) Some day we'll teach her that not all teams are the same!

* She knows that Mommy's name is "Jen" and Daddy's name is "Lucas." And that her last name is "FOLEGATTI!" It cracks me up when she says it though...

* We're working on several portuguese words.  She has several words down.  But almost anytime we ask her what a new word is in portuguese, she will almost always say "leite (milk)!!!" with this silly little grin, because she knows she's wrong... so cute!

* Her favorite book right now is her picture Bible.  She LOVES it, but mostly for the animals :-)  I ask her what the Bible is about, and she answers about 50% of the time, "animals, rainbow!"  The other 50% we usually get God or Jesus, so hey that's something. :-)

* Lucas was having a talk with Lara the other day about Daddy being Mommy's husband.  So he asked her if she had a husband.  She shook her head yes and answered, "Luke (her friend at school)" and "Jesus" :-) Ha!

* Lara is becoming much more independent lately,  we hear the words, "Lara self" or "Lara do it!" often! 

* I think we are starting to get a glimpse of the "terrible two's"... Our normally happy-go-lucky, compliant child is starting to throw inconsolable tantrums for (in our eyes) absolutely no reason at all... I think she is just frustrated because she can't communicate what she wants... but I'm hoping this is just a phase and that it will end SOON! :-) 

* One of my favorite things she says right now is "right HERE!"  - Where is your blanket? Lara: "right HERE!" :-)  So cute.

* Lara's favorite time of the day is Crazy Time!  We have decided that it's a good thing to do to get her extra energy out before bed.  If we say anything about bed time, she'll look at us so cute, with this little grin and say "CAAAZY TIIIIME!" :-)  She can do a forward roll by herself, when she wants to, and loves to spin (although we have made it a rule that she can only spin on the rug... she is hilarious when she's dizzy, but not so graceful! ;-)

Since I love recording these memories for my own remembering, I'm sure I've lost most of you by now, but if you're still reading?  Isn't she just so cute?! :-)