Well, I meant to do this post when Lara turned 2, but here we are almost 2 months after the fact... Time is just flying by, as always....

Anyways, I am absolutely loving this age (most of the time...) I think I say that about every age though... It is so fun to watch her little mind learn and her speech and vocabulary is exploding!

Here is a short (well, maybe long) list of what Lara is up to these days!

* We have been done with potty training for a while now (She was officially potty trained around 21-22 months!  Yay!)  We have continued to put a diaper/pull up on her for nap/nighttime.  She has been completely diaper free at school now for the last month (even at naptime!) I'm still not brave enough to try it at home... but she's been waking up dry from her naps on the weekends most of the time.  We still have a ways to go with the night time, but I'm not too worried about that yet... I can take 1 diaper a day! ;-)

* Lara is officially moved into her new big girl room.  We moved her right around the beginning of the year.  I was worried that she would have a tough transition, but it has been SUPER easy!  She loves her room and wants nothing to do with her old room.  Anytime we go get something out of her old room she says, "This Boo2's room Mommy!"  I've had to get used to using a monitor every night (we didn't use one when she was in the other room because she was so close).  But she has yet to wake up in the middle of the night since we moved her, and when she wakes up in the morning she comes straight to our room.  So cute to see her sling open our door and come say good morning!

* Lara says EVERYTHING now.  And, repeats everything that we say.  I am daily amazed at the new words/sentences that she is saying.  

* She is becoming a champ at singing.  She knows all of the Lyrics to ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves Me, Old McDonald (Oh  my Donald) and her favorite - Baa, Baa Black Sheep.  She is really starting to pick up the Lyrics when we're listening and loves to sing ALL.THE.TIME! :-)

* She has her numbers mastered now and is really starting to understand how to actually count items.  She always knows if there is 1 or 2 of something, but she is learning that she can count each item to figure out how many there are.  So cute!  Today she told me there were 1,2,3,4,5 pieces of bananas!  And she was right! ;-)

* Her favorite toy right now is her Talking State Puzzle that her Aunt Kim and Uncle Mike got for her!  When we got it, I thought for sure we would have to put it up for a year or so because there are so many pieces and there are no outlines for the pieces.  But, she knows where every piece goes now and can do the puzzle all by herself when she wants to, and even knows the name of many of the states!  She knows which state is Texas and that's where Granna, Granpa, Grammy and Papa live.  She knows California (because that's where her teacher Mrs. H went for vacation) - she always says "CALIFORNIA!  Where 'H' went on 'cation!".  She always leaves Alabama for last and gets so excited and says "My Alabama piece!!!" Love it!  I am still amazed that she can do this whole puzzle!  Thanks Mike and Kim!

* She has a great affection for Hailey these days, although Hailey is still not thrilled with her, but tolerates her pretty well.  She is sweet to Hailey and is actually pretty gentle most of the time with her.  She loves to pet her and makes sure that she ALWAYS has food on her plate.  When we leave in the morning Lara always makes sure that Hailey gets a Scooby treat and that she has a toy to play with.  So cute.  Lara says "Hailey MY dog!"  Even with all of the love, Lara is often concerned that Hailey is going to "get" her things... She'll say "No hailey get it..." anytime she leaves anything.  So funny!

* Lara's vocabulary has exploded and she talks all the time, about everything!  I love that I can have a "real" conversation with her now.  So much fun!  Her sentences are getting longer and longer and she is using correct sentence structure and grammar more every day.  I enjoy all of the "mistakes" that she makes when she's talking and think it's so cute.  Right now she almost always says My instead of I.  Her favorite phrase is "My do it, my self!":-)  I realized that I wasn't being the best example to her, since I usually narrate what I'm doing in the third person... i.e "Mommy's washing the dishes" instead of "I am washing the dishes"  It's funny the things you never realize that you do!

* She says the funniest things all the time.  She keeps Lucas and I laughing (she knows she's funny too...)  I really need to get better about writing down the things she says that crack us up so I can remember later!

* She is really fascinated by letters now and knows them all (when she wants to of course!) Her favorite thing to do now is tell me what words start with that letter.  "L for Lara... Lydia, Lila, no Amos (she always throws that in there)  Amos start 'A'!"  "G for Granna and Granpa!" "M for Mommy" "B or D for Daddy" (she almost always says B first), "H for Hailey",  She has several others that she's saying now too because of her talking alphabet puzzle.  So cute!  She also really likes to count how many of each type of letter is in a word and will point out an 'L' any and everywhere we are!

* She can spell her name and recognize it when she sees it!  "L-A-R-A, TWO A's Mommy!"  :-)

* She has started putting her animals in time out... It really makes you realize that they are really taking in everything that is going on around them... I will see an animal in time out and ask her what happened.  She always says "Bad girl/boy Mommy... no listening... in trouble!"  Haha - at least she knows what she is getting in trouble for.  She will almost always go get them out of time out though and say "Good girl now... hug!"  Today in one of her many time out sessions, it was time for her to come out and she said "Sorry Mommy, Love you, Jesus happy now!"  Melted my heart...  we always tell her that Jesus says she has to listen to Mommy and Daddy and that it makes him sad when she doesn't obey.  I guess she's catching on ;-)

* Lara has become a pro at getting herself dressed/undressed.  She still has trouble getting the arms of jackets off and get SO frustrated when she can't, but even though it takes her a million times longer to do these tasks than it takes me to do them, I love seeing her independence!  She mostly loves putting on her own shoes and gets them on the right feet about 90% of the time!

* We are definitely in the middle of the "terrible-two's".  But we are just trying to be consistent with "punishments" and choosing our battles on what she gets in trouble for.  Most days she is a great girl, but there are those few days when for whatever reason she spends more time in trouble than not... that's when I want to pull my hair out just a little ;-)

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?! :-)