My two-year-old love.

Oh, Norah. We love you so much. Norah is really and truly two- it's sinking in. She's growing more independent and wants to do things by herself, like climb into her carseat, take off her coat, put her pants on, etc. And don't you dare push the automatic door button on the van- that's her job. Ha.

As with most two-year-olds, the intensity is rising, on both ends. She is usually a pretty good listener, but can of course have her moments. The other day she threw a fit through the parking lot and almost all the way home because I wouldn't let her ride the horse (that you put a quarter in) at the front of Wal-Mart. She kept crying, "Ride horse!" and even started yelling, "Turn van around!" which surprised me and I thought was funny (though not funny enough to actually laugh). By the time we got home, she had finally stopped, but then had to re-cry about it when she saw Kley and tell him all about it.

But, thankfully, the intensity swings both ways, and way more often than not, she is the sweetest girl ever. She will kiss all of Kley and I's "owies" whenever something happens, loves to give hugs, and sometimes tells me I'm pretty or just says, "Hi Mama" to me for no reason and just lovingly looks at me. She has also recently started kissing my belly, saying hi to the babies, and loves to tell them to, "Come out and rock-a-bye" because she wants to hold them. I love it so much. She loves to play with her baby doll and she will walk around shushing her and telling her, "Don't cry, mama's here." Those are my two favorite things she says right now. She's also very sweet to her friends, and loves to tell them it's okay when they seem sad and give them hugs and kisses. (Sometimes she's more loving to her friends than they want to receive and then she looks confused like she can't understand why someone wouldn't want a hug right now.)

She's started using more positional words and longer sentences, like the other day she said, "Daddy play guitar at church." It was the first time hearing her include "at" in a sentence. She is a very good communicator and very rarely is there a time where I can't figure out what she's saying. Many people have commented how good her language skills are, which makes me happy! She spells her name NORH and loves to try to write it. She can draw circles, and identifies more shapes, like circles, diamonds, stars, triangles, and squares. She loves to have "group time" with Ainsley where we learn letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. She can count to 13. She loves to sing and can sing almost all the ABCs. Her current favorite songs to sing are "Old McDonald" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." She loves to go to Kindermusik class and talks about it often, and the last time pointed out all by herself that the ceiling tiles were shaped like squares. Kley says she's taking after me in the cleanliness department, because she loves to help clean, whether that's wipe counters, dust things, sweep the floor, etc. She is pretty good at cleaning up her toys and even sorts them into the right buckets. That's my girl! We started putting a blanket and pillow in her crib a couple months ago to help prepare her for the transition to a big girl bed, and she's recently become attached to her blanket. Not a specific one, but just the one that's currently in her crib. She sometimes asks for it and likes to carry it around. When she gets iPad time, she requests to sit on the couch with the blanket covering her legs. It's pretty cute!

Here is a picture of Norah at the park with her best pals! It's so much fun to watch her make friends. She talks about them often and enjoys seeing them!