Kirsten Is Two and a Half!!!

Wow. . . today was November 13'th, and I realized about halfway through the day that it was Kirsten's half-birthday. She's two and a half!!! Halfway through those two's!

I haven't posted much about what Kirsten's up to lately, so here's a whole post dedicated to my adorable girl!

*Kirsten speaks in sentences some of the time now! It's really cute to hear her put a bunch of words together. Here are some sentences I've heard her say:
"Turn on the light please, Mommy"
"Need food now!"
"I want yummy cake"
"Ernie is funny" (to clarify. . . she means Ernie from Sesame Street. He cracks her up like no other)
"Want to go see Greema house. Poppy. . . apples. . . bounycine."
"Scary witch!"
"Hey! Baby Natalie touched my clothes!"
"Oh my goodness!"
"Triangles have equal sides"

*She has recently learned how to STALL bedtime. Oh, it's a dreadful thing! We used to read her a book or two and then she was happy to go right to sleep. Now she has four favorite books, and she wants ALL of them to be read to her before her nap and before bed. It's always the same. . . she wants "Mickey Mouse" first, then "Crickets", "Good Morning, Good Night", and "Itzy Bitzy Spider." We typically will only read three books to her, and then she'll cry and scream in her crib for the other book for a few minutes before she figures out she's not getting it. Not too fun! She also tries to turn back pages while we're reading to look at certain animals and pictures again. She's discovered how to stall. Lovely.

*One fun thing with her books now. . . she likes to say the last word or two of every line herself when we read to her. The funniest ones to hear her say are "Tickety-toot" and "Clickety-clock." She thinks it's hilarious too!

*She's starting to get a really good memory. After I took her to Chuckee Cheese for the first time, she saw a commercial and started shouting about going there. She adores that place. She also remembers the names of friends and family members she hasn't seen in a long time, and points them out in pictures.

*I think she really is starting to like Baby Natalie. . . she just doesn't want to admit it. There are lots of times when they'll just stare at each other and laugh and laugh together, and Kirsten loves doing things to make Natalie laugh. It's SO cute when they do that! Then other times she'll snatch a toy right out of Natalie's little hands or get really upset when Natalie touches her.

*One day Natalie rolled over to Kirsten's toy piano and actually made music with a few of the piano keys. Kirsten saw it, ran across the room, and dragged the piano away from Natalie. Sigh.

*She really doesn't like it when we read her favorite books to Natalie instead of her. One day I was reading Kirsten's story to her while Natalie was napping, and out of the blue Kirsten said, "My story. Not Baby Natalie's." I gotta admit it made me laugh. :)

*I hope they'll be great friends someday!

*Kirsten's new favorite movie (as of a few days ago) is Up. She says "Want to watch balloons!" every day now, and she gets such a kick out of the whole thing. It really is a cute movie!

*I still think Kirsten has such great taste in TV shows, especially for a 2 year-old!
She loves Sesame Street and Play With Me Sesame, I Love Lucy, So You Think You Can Dance, Glee, and Dancing With the Stars! All of those last three have the same name to her: "Dancing songs." She often asks for "dancing songs" and wants me to sit down on the couch with her so she can dance around and jump all over me. She even recognized Tom Bergeron when she saw him on America's Funniest Home Videos, and knew he was from "Dancing songs!" Too funny! I can't wait to get that little girl into dance lessons after she's three!

*She hates the mall play areas, because of all the crowds of kids running around and jumping on everything. She gets too scared. But she loves to walk around stores in the mall. She loves the Disney Store, Build-a-Bear, and Pottery Barn Kids. Her favorite thing is to push a miniature shopping cart and follow me around the store, which she can do at Target and Pottery Barn Kids. Future shopper. . . yep, I think so!

*She doesn't seem to like our kitties too much anymore, and mostly bosses them around. It's weird! They're such sweet cats, and she'll tell them "No!" when they're not doing anything wrong.

*Kirsten almost never throws a full-blown tantrum. She always had a quiet cry as a baby, and she still does. But she DOES cry and whine quite a bit, which can really grate on me if she does it a lot in one day. Sometimes I wonder who the baby really is in our house, because sometimes she cries more than Natalie does!

*Mr. Potato Head is a toy she really enjoys, and she calls him Mr. P-Head. It cracks me up every time I hear her say, "Where P-Head?"

*She's still obsessed with balls, bubbles, and riding on anything that resembles a car.

*Like most toddlers, she's a pretty picky eater. She usually won't eat meat, unless it's inside a soup or a casserole. She's famous for eating only a few bites of her actual meal, and then asking for snacks five minutes after her meal. It's so frustrating to take the time to fix her a nice meal and then have her refuse most of it!

Foods she always wants:
Marshmallows
French fries
Pancakes
Trail mix (well. . . picking out the M&M's and the raisins)
Fruit snacks
Crackers
Chips
Cheese
Apples
Pears
Strawberries
Grapes
Hot dogs
Chicken nuggets
Juice (seriously, kids get way too obsessed with juice!!!)

Foods she sometimes wants:
Sandwiches
Quesadillas
Soup
Green beans
Corn
Chicken
Pasta (this is a new one. . . she used to hate all pasta!)
Toast
Fish sticks

*Kirsten's becoming so grown-up in lots of ways! But in many ways she's still like a baby. Examples (yeah, I know. . . she's slow to move on):

-She hasn't shown the slightest interest in potty-training yet. She still wears diapers. Nope, it's not really fun to have two kids in diapers.
-She still prefers to eat her meals in the high chair.
-She still sleeps with a binky. She doesn't take them with her in the car anymore and never has them except for when she's sleeping. Pretty soon, the binky fairy will be making her appearance.
-She still sleeps in a crib. I'm in no rush to get her out of it. We have a bunk bed all set up in her room, but until she climbs out of her crib or wants to sleep in the big bed, I love putting her down in the crib every night and knowing she'll stay there. And she still loves it too!

*This picture was taken at the Issaquah Salmon Days Festival. It was very crowded, but a really fun event! Kirsten loved the train ride the most!

*The recent outing-gone-wrong:
Kirsten locked me and Natalie out of the house!
When we get out of the car, I usually take Kirsten inside first then go back out to the garage to get Natalie. About a week ago, I also left the keys inside with Kirsten and she locked the back door so I couldn't get in! All of our other doors were locked, and I tried to tell her to unlock the door but she was basically ignoring me. I had to call Stephen, and he had to come home early from work (at around 2 pm) to let us in the house. Pretty nuts! Kirsten didn't do it on purpose, and when Stephen asked her to unlock the door she told him it was stuck. And at least she didn't destroy anything in the house while we were outside! She was alone in there for about an hour, and she didn't cry or do anything she shouldn't.
Thank goodness Natalie was outside with me, and I could just sit in the van and hold her and play with her! If I had already taken Natalie inside, it would have been disastrous! Natalie would have been screaming to get out of the car seat, and then Kirsten would have been crying and it all would have been a massive mess! So it worked out okay. . . it was just annoying.

*I love Kirsten so much!!!
She's such a mommy's girl, and she loves to play with me and laugh with me. I think she has an awesome sense of humor. . . we really do laugh at the same things, and we think a lot of the same things are funny! I have so much fun with Kirsten every day!