Summer's Birthday

Summer turned two! I can't believe it. For her birthday we took a trip to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point the day before. She loved all the animals, especially the goats, and she really liked the wagon ride. We then celebrated at a family get together on Sunday down at Melissa's house. She had a cake in the shape of a cat, which she calls a "meow," because she loves cats.  She was spoiled and had a great day!

A few developments at the age of two:

-Her language has exploded the last 2 months. I can now understand most things she says and she remembers new words after hearing them only once or twice.
-She can name several body parts and point to their location-eye, ear, hair, nose, mouth, hand, foot
-She can name several animals and their sounds-horse, cow, dog, cat, sheep, bunny (she wiggles her nose for this sound), duck
-She can identify several other animals-snake, frog, mouse, bugs, pig
-She can also identify a lot of different things in her books or around the house. Once we go through them once, she will typically remember the names of the different objects.
-She knows names of several family members and will ask if we are going to go see them.
-Summer currently is terrified of flying insects. She has been stung twice by wasps and now any flying bug nearby becomes a traumatic event-which includes crying, screaming, and hands over her face. I guess I don't totally blame her. Whenever we have a fly in the house it is drama.
-She likes to color, especially with markers and chalk.
-Summer likes to help in the kitchen. Whenever I pull out anything that remotely looks like cooking, she brings a chair over to the counter to stand on and says "help, help." Her favorite is making cookies because she gets to help with a lot of dumping of ingredients and she likes to cookie dough.
-She still likes to control the radio in the car. I think she often likes to go for rides in the car because it is a chance to listen to music, so we probably ought to listen to more at home.
-She likes to go on walks-and we often bring home a few rocks from our outing.
-She is beginning to really want to do things on her own. She has always done this a little bit, but now she likes to be more independent. Lately, it has been putting her shoes on by herself.
-She also likes to pick out her PJ's at night. We've had several incidences on and off throughout the last two months of a diaper-less child at night. We have started duck taping her diaper closed at night based on the type of PJ's she is wearing.
-She likes to play outside and likes to play with other kids. For being an oldest child, she does really well with other kids. She also really likes nursery.
-Summer has started to ask for specific foods for snacks and meals-particularly breakfast. This week she has been asking for toast, eggs, and bananas.
-Summer will often start pointing to things that she knows the names of and tell us their names. One of her favorites is us. She'll point at Anders and say "it's a Dad," then she'll point to me and say "it's a mom" and then she points at herself and says "it's a you!" She is quite proud of knowing those three and we're working on the "it's a you" thing.
-Summer is usually happy and is a very obedient child. She is a keen observer, remembers things well,  and is very friendly to most anyone who spends a few minutes trying to be her friend.

We love her and can't believe she made us parents two years ago! Happy Birthday Summer!