We have a 2 year old!

Harmony turned 2 on August 15 and we are so excited for this coming year and all of the development it will bring.  Each and every stage has been so fun and offered plenty of new challenges to go with it.  Just thought I'd record some things about her for my own memory's sake.

1.  For months she has pronounced "yummy"as "money".  If you were to sit through a meal with us you would leave thinking our daughter has an abnormal obsession with wealth.  "Mmmm, money!"

2.  Currently, her favorite numbers are 9 and 10.  She has learned that there are more numbers than just 1,2,3 and loves to try and count.  She has the 8,9,10 sequence down.

3.  We have train tracks practically in our backyard, just on the other side of the fence. Between 10 and 20 trains go by a day.  Harmony likes to tell us who is scared of the train, she spends a lot of time each day going through the list (and she pronounces "Scared" as "duh") "Eli duh" (pronounced "Eye-lee duh"... she can be a bit dyslexic in speaking...), "Papa duh", "Mama duh", "Teddy duh",  "Grapes duh"...

4.  She pronounces "Drives" as "Die".  That one took me FOREVER to figure out!  I just couldn't get it when she would start chatting about who dies, "Die Papa, Die Papa", "Daddy die, Daddy die".  I was very happy when I finally connected the dots, and she was thrilled that I finally got it too!

5.  I get a self esteem boost every time she is talking about something that is hot, "Hot mom, hot mom, hot mom".  Whether she's talking about the sidewalk or the oven, it doesn't matter, it makes me smile every time.

6.  She still hates to get messy.  She routinely asks for a paper towel during dinner to clean her hands and if she spills food on her shirt, her "Uh-oh, Uh-oh, Uh-oh" will get increasingly hysterical so it's vital that I grab a towel quick before she hits melt down volume.

7.  Favorite toys:  her blocks, her books (she loves her new bookshelves!  She sees them and says "Whoa!" ), baby, teddy, puppy, blanky, and most recently kitty.  She is role playing more and more, feeding her stuffed animals, putting them "night night" multiple times a day, zooming her bus around the house... She also still loves the swing.  It is normal to go to the park and to swing for 30 minutes straight and then go home.  She talks about the swing all the time.

8: Favorite books:  The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton, Harmony calls it the "night night book".  Also loves the Harmony book, a board book her Aunt Lacey had made for her using personal pictures that I've taken.  Any book with trains, trucks, and tractors in it.

9: Favorite TV Show: Barney.  I have tried to get her to watch something else, but every day we watch Barney and Wheels on the Bus.  Occasionally we watch "All about Trucks", a cheesy episode made in 1995.

10.  She knows her name!  She has started referring to herself in 3rd person and pronounces her name "He-Knee".  She has also started using pronouns - mine, you, me.

11.  She loves playing with daddy at the end of the day!  Our evenings are filled with so much giggling and squealing as they wrestle and tickle and chase each other.  It warms my heart to watch.

12:  Favorite conversations - Who is scared of the train, talking about swinging, talking about grandma and grandpa Bennit's house and naming off all of their pets (3 dogs, 1 cat, fish, and a rabbit), and talking about Uncle Andy riding horses and seeing the chickens and cows at his house.

13.  She LOVES shoes!  Most mornings I am awakened by the clicking of my heels on the bathroom floor as that is the first place she goes when she wakes up.  She wears shoes all day long and is into picking out her own so she is often out running errands with me wearing tap shoes that are 2 sizes too big.

14.  She also loves to get dressed!  I think she wears about 5 different outfits a day, if not more.  She is often wearing 3 pairs of pants at once and 2 shirts.  Her determination to pick out her own clothes has meant that she has gone to bed wearing a dress over her pajamas or 2 shirts at once, among other toddler trendy outfits she has created.

Harmony is still our little ray of sunshine and we are so happy that we have been so blessed to have her as part of our family!