Happy Birthday, Sweet Kaitlyn!

As hard as it is to believe, my baby girl is turning two today! It seems like only a few short months ago that we were celebrating her first birthday! I'm sure the years will seem to get shorter and shorter as she gets older. We're having her birthday party on Saturday so that most of the grandparents can be here. So today, our "celebration" consisted of going to Chick-fil-A for lunch, playing on the indoor playground (since it's monsoon season here!) and eating ice cream. I'm even going to let her watch a little extra TV today :)

So in honor of her 2nd birthday, here are some updates about Kaitlyn's activities and interests lately.

• She's really loves Dora the Explorer, so she's going to be in for a treat when she sees the Dora plates, napkins, cake and party hats at her birthday party :)
• She still treasures her beloved Doggie. Every day, she feeds Doggie a bottle, lets him nap in the Pack-n-Play, puts him in Ethan's swing and bouncy seat and generally carts him around everywhere she goes. If he's out of sight for a while, she walks around the house calling for him. I shudder to think what would happen if we ever lost Doggie.
  
• Her vocabulary has exploded in the past month or so. She picks up new words everyday! And she's getting more complex in her language by stringing together sentences and using all kinds of adjectives. "Mommy get Baby Ethan in the Pack-n-Play." "Mommy's big blue towel." "Kaitlyn go home and Mommy go home too!" Her enunciation isn't the best yet, but Jeff and I can usually translate for her.
  
• She talks up a storm and is a very outgoing child at home, but in public, she's very quiet and wary of people she doesn't know well. In fact, if a stranger tries to talk to her, she starts crying loudly and clings to me. A very good thing if a stranger is trying to kidnap her, but not so good when the "stranger" is one of my friends and we're in the middle of Target! I won't even go into the trauma of the church nursery lately!!
  
• She can identify and say almost all of her letters and colors.
• Her favorite color is yellow. Yellow shirts, yellow Play-Doh, yellow cars. I usually have to allow for extra time when we're getting in the car because she loves to pick all the yellow dandelions in our yard...and sadly, we have a lot.
  

Happy Birthday, Kaitlyn!