Two.Two Years

2.2 Years

• Grandma and Papa Price came to visit us this month. You were shy at first but after Grandma offer to read you a book, you only wanted Grandma and Papa for everything. We went to Hammer Creek with them, visited Creme Cafe and the library, had an epic art morning with Grandma, had a movie night with Papa, and read so many books. You loved holding Grandma's hand and wanted to sit with just her during church.
• Easter was also this month. We tried focusing on Christ the week before, but lets be honest, you are all over the place when we try to read the scriptures so the chances that you got anything out of that spiritual week is slim to nothing. 
• Being pregnant has been so fun with you. You really love babies, but you do not believe me when I say that there is a baby in my tummy. Every time I mention it, you tell me "no, baby is in my tummy." Lately, you have been into changing babies diapers, and I mean babies in a very loose term. I will find that you put a diaper on your doll and hop hop bunny. I will also find clean diapers with a clean wipe folded up in the trash but you tell me that the diaper is poopy. It is sweet how you will tuck these babies into your crib and then turning on the noise and turning off the light. You will shut the door and tell me "shhh baby is sleeping." 
• You are a candy monster. Twice I have found you in Maggie's room eating her candy. You were being so quiet downstairs, I just thought you were looking through books. When I came down there to check on you, you walk out of Maggie's room with chocolate all over your face, with a big smile, and tell me "eat Maggie's candy!" No remorse. What a stinker.

Two.One Years

2.1 Years

• We were able to go to Arizona this month. It was the first time you flew in a plane. On the way there, there was another little girl sitting behind us that you played peek-a-boo with and shared your toys with her. You loved staying at Brooke and Steve's because they had so many girl toys. We went to a fun train park where we rode on a train and carousal, ate at chic-fil-a (though you wondered off three times and it was the same lady who had to keep telling us that you took off-how embarrassing), hiked "Hole in the Rock (you loved climbing the rocks all by yourself), visited the zoo, and went to tons of parks. It felt so good be outside for the weekend.
• We had lots of birthdays this month, including yours. We kept yours low key, served mac-n-cheese with hot dogs for dinner and had a Minnie Mouse cake. Dad and I gave you a Little Tike slide which was a big hit. Sam and Maggie gave you the Princess cupcake game. Grandma Price gave you a doodle pad for church, and Grandma Matthews gave you a matching dress with Maggie and a book with a stuff animal that talks. Sam's birthday was next. He had a party at home that you tagged along with and we ended with Maggie's party at Jungle Gym, which you loved! 
• Uncle Dusty's family came to visit us. You loved having Sonora around. You two were really cute together. We played at Hammer Creek (probably your favorite place to visit because it is a giant sandbox), went sledding down at fish creek, visited he library and Creme cafe, played at the park, and went ice fishing at Winchester lake. I am excited to see you and Sonora grow up together.
• The next family that came to visit was Uncle Joey's family. We did a lot of the same things but instead of going fishing, we went hiking with them to Lucille caves and the fish hatchery trail. They don't have any kids your age but you love being around the big kids, plus Auntie Emily loves babies so she would cuddle with you a lot and read you books.
• Your favorite song right now is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Not only do we have to sing it every nap and every bedtime, but you beg Maggie to sing it every time we are in the car. Those siblings sure love you because they must have sang that song over 100 times.
• Whenever I have you climb in the van by yourself, you immediately run to the back seat to be like one of the big kids. It has turned into this game, seeing how long you can be back there before I notice and grab you. 
• Favorites-food: milk, mac-n-cheese, blueberries; color: pink; song: Twinkle Twinkle; show: PJ Mask or Mickey Mouse; book: Curious George lift the flap book; indoor activity: play princesses or babies; outdoor activity: pulling out the sand toys and playing in the rocks

Two Years Old

2 Years Old

Dear Millie,

Instead of making a list of all your new accomplishments or funny moments, I like to take the time at your birthday and express to you how much I love you. This year has been so fun to see you grow and develop who you are. You have learned how to walk, how to talk, how to sit on your brother's face, how to push out a toot to be funny, how to give a squeeze hug, how to tell a knock knock joke, and how to be the cutest daddy's little girl. You are strong, independent, and full of happiness. You truly love making others laugh.

One of my favorite things about you is your drive to figure things out. In the mornings, you are the one that gets yourself dress. Some of your clothes can be a challenge to put on, but that doesn't stop you. It is you that has to put on your shoes, spoon your cereal, help chop up the lettuce, and put the soap in the dishwasher. At times, this can get out of balance and can be frustrating to me (especially when we are in a hurry), but in all reality, it is your greatest strengths. I hope that as you go through life, you do not let who you are, where you are from, and what you know limit what it is that you want to achieve. I know you are only two years old, but great things are destined for you Millie because of your determination and hard work.

Can I just say how beautiful you are. Your hair is still in that awkward stage of growing out after Sam's hair cut on you, and majority of the time you have a messy face and literal dirt on your clothes, but the moment you smile, all the evidence of your fun and crazy life fade away and you just shine. Your dimples and bright eyes get me every time. You can be smearing spaghetti across your chair, but the moment you smile, I think, "oh my, she is so adorable". As you grow, remember that cloths make your cute, but your heart and smile make you beautiful.

I love you so much Millie, and I am excited to see what this next year entails for you.

Love, Mom

Twenty Three Months

23 Months

• We got a swim pass this month to the pool. The water to the big pool is too cold for you, so you end up running back to the hot tub the whole time. Your favorite was sitting on the top step and playing with the bubbles. Towards the end of the month, you got brave enough with the cold water to start jumping in all by yourself like the big kids. 
• I love watching your language increase. You finally can say Sam. Before, you would always say "Hams", but I have been working with you on the "s" sound. For some reason, it is easier for you to say Sammy than Sam. 
• Your favorite song right now is Twinkle Twinkle. You make your siblings sing it to you over and over again whenever we get in the car. Your favorite is when we sing it in a deep voice with our lips in a tight circle. That always gets you laughing.
• You are very determined to do things by yourself. The most common thing you say is, "No. ME ME ME!" This includes getting dressed and buckling up in the car. I have to plan extra time with clothes because you insist on getting dress by yourself, get frustrated when you can't do your shirt, ask me for help, I just touch your shirt and you think that is enough help, so then you try to do it yourself again, then you come back to me, and this cycle continues on for a while. Sometimes you figure you, other times I have to force the shirt on you and you throw a big fit afterwards that you didn't get to do it by yourself.
• You love babies. I often find lean diapers in your trash because you will "change" the diaper on your baby and throw away the diaper when there is "poo poo" in it. It is common to find dried up wipes on your floor because you changed the baby or gave the baby a bath.
• You are so fine just playing by yourself. I often find you reading books in your rocking chair and cooking up something in your kitchen.
• You are one of the best snuggle buddies. I love on slow mornings having you crawl into my bed and snuggle up and read books. There are these baby book from the library (Baby Eat, Baby Cuddle, Baby Move) that are your absolute favorites to read.

Twenty Two Months

22 Months

• It was a fun month celebrating Christmas. I often found you by the Christmas tree playing with an ornament, even though the tree was really prickly. A few times I had to stop you from opening up the presents. But your favorite part of the decorations was the musical snow globe that Grandma Price gave you. You would climb up the piano and turn on the music of both snow globes. The music was loud and a bit annoying when played together, but thankfully they both survived.
• The snow keeps coming and you are really starting to love sledding. We go down the hill off our driveway, and it is the perfect hill for you. You also pull out all the snow toys and truck and plop down in the snow and play for a while. We have a tradition that after playing outside, we will come in for hot chocolate. You get so excited about hot cocoa, but will only drink maybe half your cup.
• We took you to see Santa twice this month and both times you were weary of him. You didn’t mind him if there was a distance between you and him, but the moment that he got close, you were clamp onto one of us. The cutest thing is that you never said Santa, you always called him “Ho Ho Ho”.
• It was so good this year to have Dad home for all of the Christmas season. Christmas Eve morning came and we went to the nursing home to visit the residents. You found the box of toys and made yourself at home. The residents loved just watching you play, they don’t get many babies around. It was good to say hello to other people’s grandmas since we can’t see our own. We ended the night with our Christ meal (fish, bread, olives, and grape juice), reenacted the nativity (you were Mary), and opened up our Christmas pajamas. We set out our cookies for Santa, though you may have snuck one, and was about to go to bed when we heard something. We went outside and heard “Ho Ho Ho” along with jingle bells. It was so fun to see you three excited about Santa.
• Christmas was wonderful and relaxing. You could care less about the presents in your stocking, you were just excited about the candy and had most of it eaten by 11am. You received a drawing pad from Santa and Dad and I gave you books, a cute outfit (which you were so excited to put on right then), and dad made you a darling baby bed. Maggie gave you a Minnie Mouse dress up puzzle and Sam gave you a little baby doll.
• We stayed home the next day, playing with new toys, watched a movie, and got ready for our trip to Utah. The drive to Utah went well. We were able to see all our cousins, go sledding in Mantua, have the big Matthews family Christmas party, and even visit our friends in Ogden. You really loved asking Papa for Jelly beans and eating all the yummy foods that Grandma baked.

Twenty One Months

21 Months

• You really like going into your room and playing with the Little People Princess set that you have. You have most of the phrases memorized in your little 1 1/2 year old way of saying them. My favorite is hearing you say, "best day ever!" from Rapunzel. When the song part comes up, you will stand up and start dancing along with it.
• You are turning more into a girly girl each day. Dress up is becoming a regular event. You will sneak into Maggie's room, take off your pants and slip into one of her skirts. The big kids will also help you with the dress up box putting on tutus and high heels. You really like princesses and Minnie Mouse in general. Funny moment: we were walking into the school and there was a post of a black girl. You pointed at her and said, "Tiana? Tiana?" 
• Your language is really increasing. Two and three word phrases are common. You brought me a library book and said, "Peek-a-boo Baby". After your bath, you asked "Naked run?" and tried to run away. We have been working with you to say prayers and ask to be excused from the table. Both the "Ahem" and "excuse" is your favorite part and you say it so loud at the end.
• Maggie left out a sharpie out in the playroom. You were down there playing by yourself while I was making dinner. I could hear you play with something that made music so I knew you were fine. But then it got quiet for a long time. I went down there to check on you and you had colored over both the cabbage patch doll and Clara the Red headed doll. There is no way that is coming off. Thank goodness it wasn't the couch at least.
• Clothing has been a struggle with you lately. It is 20 degrees outside and I am lucky enough to get a shirt on you, but a coat throws you over the edge. 
• We went to Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. It was a quick trip but we tried to do as much as we could. We had breakfast at Auntie Annie's, went on a photo scavenger hunt at the mall, and decorated Gingerbread houses at Uncle Dusty's. You and Sunny played well together. Grandma had a big Nativity Snow Globe that played music that you fell in love. She gave it to you and every day you climb up on the piano bench to twist the knob to play the music.
• We have started the Christmas season. We drove up the mountain to cut down a tree. It wasn't your favorite thing to stand in three feet of snow with no gloves on (I had them for you but you didn't want to keep them on). You do like to play in the snow with the tonka trucks, though again you get frustrated with the gloves so they end up off our hands and then within a few minutes you start whining about your hands.

Twenty Months

20 Months

• Can I just say that you make the cutest little cat ever? Halloween was so fun with you. You definitely understood the concept that if you go up to someone and say "treat", they will give you a treat. I wasn't so sure if you would keep your ears on during the different parties, but with the distraction of all the candy, you kept it on. We first went to the Church's Trunk-o-Treat. It was dark and there was a bunch of people of the sidewalk. I forgot to pack a stroller, though lets be honest you wouldn't have stayed in it. Having you dress in all black became really hard to keep track of you. Thankfully I never lost you, just a lot of turning around, finding where you went next. We then hosted a Soup night with friends. I didn't have time to get you guys all dressed up before friends came over, so I put Maggie in charge of getting you ready. She put on the pink tutu outfit and attempted to put your hair in a bun. You loved it. For actually Halloween, we started the night off at the Nursing Home where all the residents passed out candy. You were a real hit there. Afterwards, we went to the city's party and then ended the night on Park Street. Since it gets dark here early, we started at 4:30 and were already finished by 6pm. We were able to go home and watch Toy Story: Terror Stories and be in bed on time.
• We measured you on the 18 month mark but just for fun the other day, I wanted to see how tall you were and you had already grown 1 1/2 inches in the two months. Holy moly, stop growing! You are wearing clothes that Maggie did wear until she was 2 1/2 years old. 
• On mornings where you wake up extra early, I will bring you into my bed and cuddle with you as you drink your milk (yes I still let you have the bottle). After you're finished, you will slide off the bed, run into your room and bring me back a book. I love this one on one time with you. You are getting to be quite the little cuddlier, which I love.
• Favorite things: Minnie mouse, the color pink, getting your fingers painted, pulling out all the cups and water bottles from the drawer, smoothies (you call them juice), babies, books about babies, and the baby show (little Einstein)
• This month you have gone pee twice in the potty and poop once. You are so proud of yourself when it happens. For the most part, you associate sitting on the potty with tooting. I am fine with that. I don't think you are ready though you want to be potty trained. When I am folding clothes, you snag Maggie's underwear and try to put it on. It is really funny.