Cinco de Ruthie-2 Years Old

I'm so behind on everything lately.  Especially getting a certain two year old's post up!  I started this post at the end of April, if that tells you anything.  I have no excuse.The past two years have been the fastest and best of my life.  It blows my mind that Ruthie is now two years old.  I don't remember life before her and love every second of being her Mom.  Ruthie seems to be changing daily, but the last few months have just been incredible.

Over the past few months Ruthie Loves:
-Lainie.  She is so sweet to her and loves her.  I know I've said it many times, but it is one of my favorite things in life to see them together.

-Mickey Mouse, although Doc McStuffins is making a move towards the top spot.  She is going to love Disney world (in many years).
-Elmo-the Elmo show is still one of the highlights of my life

-She loves the swingset!  She has gotten so good at doing everything by herself and now can swing in the big girl swing.
-She loves to help water the garden.  She is very proud of it and takes it seriously.  She's actually pretty good at it.

-The beach.  I don't think thats going to change!

-Balloons.  Thank goodness for the free Harris Teeter balloons.
-Chloe.  She's a big help with Chloe, especially walking her and making sure she has food and water. Chloe can almost always make her laugh.

-People she knows.  She's so much more outgoing now and warms up quicker to people.  She is still leery of strangers (which I'm thankful for), but she remembers people now and is so happy when she sees people she knows.

She loves all the baby toys we have out now. She gets in the saucey, jumperoo, bouncey seat, and Lainies carseat pretty regularly.

Eating:

Ruthie is still a fantastic eater.  She'll try about anything, and her current favorites are: brown rice, cheese, strawberries, edamame, sushi, noodles, clementines, grapes, blueberries, fruit snacks, chips, jelly beans.  Whoa Jelly beans.  She loves jelly beans.  The most of anything right now.  Its hilarious and cute.  She currently calls them jeybeens and she gets extra cute when she asks for them.

She doesn't love: bananas, kale, and she isn't a huge meat eater but she'll eat a few pieces.
She still drinks whole milk and water, but on her birthday she saw her cousins drinking juice boxes so she got one.  She likes the idea of the juice box way more than the juice but she gets really excited to be like the big kids!  She loves to say eewwhhbahx for a juice box. I love the way she says things.

Size:
She weighs 27 pounds (55%), is 34 1/2" tall (68%)  is in size 4 diapers, and wears 24 months-3T clothes, depending on the brand.  She wears a 5-6.5 shoe and loves her crocs the best (wonder where she got that from?).  I got her the cutest stride rite sandles off ebay and she won't wear them, its always the crocs (which are really cute, lime green mary janes).

Mobility:
I guess I should eliminate this category.  She's still super fast and runs hilariously.  I love it.  She loves to do her "handstands" and then forward roll.  She also will bust out a split in one second.  its awesome.  I think she's going to love gymnastics.

Words:
I feel like over the past month, the bottle cap came off and out came the sentences!  She says about everything now and is so cute.  She communicates so well now and is very effective at letting you know what she wants.  There are a few phrases she says I'm unsure of, but they're minimal.  She says please and thank you at the correct times (still working on the consistency).  I've been working on Ma'am and sir, but so far she'll only repeat back to me "no ma'am" after I've told her no ma'am for doing something.  Its cute too.

She still says Okay (not otay anymore) for yes and we love it.  Its something I think we'll always remember.
Please started our as puh, and now is peas.  Does everyone thing everything their kid says is as cute as I do?  Probably so.

Signs:
We're not doing any more signs now since she's talking so much.

Paci:
Still at night and naptime.  We've talked about when to get rid of it and have heard from the dentist as long as its gone by 4 years old, we're good.  We've had some pretty big changes over the past 6 months, so we're not rushing that one. 

Teeth:
Her bottom two year molars popped through about a month ago. I had no idea they were coming and then I looked and there were two huge new teeth.  Ruthie has always done a great job with teeth.  I'm learning what a blessing that is since her sister seems to be having a tougher time.  Her top molars are coming in now and occassionally I can tell they're bothering her. She seems to ask for her paci more when they're bothering her.

Hair:
Ruthie's hair now blows in the wind!  I can't believe how much hair she has now.  She has piggy piggy's (as she calls them) and loves to see them

and we're still waiting for the front sides to come in, but she now has full blown little girl hair.  It has lightened up a lot over the past few weeks and I think over the summer its really going to get light from the sun.

Tantrums:
We're definitely still having them, but they're getting better.  I think we've had more opportunities over the past few months to work on situations that turn into tantrums which has helped.  We're really working on sharing, I'm hoping we get there soon.  I've tried to change my thinking lately about tantrums and see them more as a learning opportunity since she really hasn't learned how to act in most situations yet.  There are times I definitely forget to change my thinking and we each get much more frustrated.

Other:
Ruthie is a joy.  She's funny, happy, sweet, loving, energetic, hilarious and my sisters call her a little chicken.  Really because she does act like a little chicken, running all over, funny to watch and super cute. 

She's really into reading books now.  Its awesome.  She totally isn't into puzzles.
She isn't interested in being the center of attention.
She's gotten really good at giving hugs (when you remind her to put her arms around your neck), sometimes she'll squeeze you and it totally turns us to mush.  She gives kisses sparingly.

She is really fast. really fast.
She loves ring around the rosie, teddy bear teddy bear, patty cake and other things like that.
She loves to sing but won't do it in front of many people.  It has to be on her terms, she doesn't like the performance part.
She loves to pretend.  She loves to feed babies, wrap babies, rock babies, fly them over her head and say Wheeeeeeee!
She really likes money :-). She likes to pretend to pay for things and get change back.
She loves to run in the backyard and yell gleefully as she runs.  Its so much fun to watch.

She runs, falls and trips a good amount.  Usually when she wipes out she immediately yells "okay!" to let us know she's fine.  If she's hurt, she'll cry.  She's really physically tough, so we hear a lot more okay than crying (with regards to being hurt). She stands up, brushes her hands off and takes off running again.



She loves her little friends, and really loves to ride in the shopping cart with her friend Callie.  They hug and giggle, its so cute!!

She's starting to like coloring and painting.

She much prefers painting and fingerpainting but will color for about 1/2 a second (which is a lot longer than a few months ago!). She really would rather get all the crayons out and put them back over and over again than color.

I can't begin to put into words how much we love this girl and what joy she has brought to our lives.

She is sweet, loving and kind.  I can't believe how fast the past two years have gone by and know this will continue to be the case.  She had a great birthday and birthday party that will be hopefully up on the blog soon!  Happy two years sweet girl!