Happy birthday, sweet girl!  Today marks your 2nd full year here and while it seems like you were born just yesterday, we also can’t imagine life without you.  You’re such a wonderful, individual personality.  What you are today will blend in with what you become in the future, so here’s a few things I’d like you to know about who you are today:

You are independent about so many things.  *You* need to do everything.  Put your clothes on, climb in your carseat, flip the pages, pick out your spoon, brush your teeth.  But oh, so understanding when we explain why we need to do something or how something needs to be done.  You can listen and understand like someone so much older than 2.

You don’t say many words and the ones you do say most people don’t understand.  But boy, do you get your point across! 

We went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s today, you, Henry and I and since it was a Monday afternoon, I let you have your own tiny cart (as Henry calls them).  Your head barely comes to the handle bars, but you carefully steer it around the store helping us pick out what we need; helping bag the friut or putting your favorite foods into the cart.

You love riding your bike, carrying around Macy (your doll), going down the slide at the park, hiking (the last time we went for a hike, you walked at least a mile over roots, bridges and hills).  You also love to draw.  Most of the house is covered in your drawings; walls and doors have your works of art that you quietly did with a pen/marker/crayon that you found only god-knows-where.  You use the iPad to draw and Grama gave you a Magna Doodle for your birthday that you have spent a lot of time using.

These photos aren’t my best work or my favorite images of you, but I shot them today, on your birthday, so I felt I should use them.  Those sunglasses are your ‘bright glasses’ and you wear them whenever you’re outside.  And that’s Macy, who had to slide with you and eat dinner with you.