Two Years Old!

Your prayer today (you can say full prayers by yourself):

"Heavenly Father, Thank you for my birthday. In name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Today is your birthday and it blows my mind with how smart and big you've gotten.

You're extremely independent and like to do things by yourself. If given the choice "should Paige do it, or should mommy do it?" your answers is (almost) always "Paige do it!" You insist on walking most place (instead of being carried), putting your shoes on, climbing into your car seat, climbing up on the potty, eating, drinking, and putting your coats on by yourself (you do many many other things by yourself too).

Even with all your independence, you're incredibly obedient. You'll (almost) always do what we ask you to do (even though it sometimes takes us asking you a few times to do it). You put away your toys when we ask you to, you give up objects when we ask for them, and you stop doing something naughty when we ask you to. You respond very quickly when we telling you you're doing something naughty (and usually give us a little grin too). You do, of course, throw tantrums sometimes when you aren't getting what you want, but for the most part you're a sweet little girl.

You say "please" and "thank you" almost all the time. You're so polite! You love to eat good foods (including most fruits and vegetables), but you are not at all interested in eating sandwiches or bread (unless it's toast). You've discovered that you love candies (frequently asking "more candies please!"), cookies, and ice cream but you are not at all interested in cake.

You are incredibly smart, love to learn, and love to know the answers. You know all of your capital letters and most of the lower case letters (you still mix up a few of them like "q" and "g" and "b" and "d"). You know all of the letter's sounds (D say duh). You can count to 12 with no mistakes, and can count to 20 with only a few mistakes. You know most of the shapes (circle, square, triangle, octagon, pentagon, hexagon, rectangle, diamond, heart, oval, start, arrow) and love to identify shapes everywhere.

You LOVE books still. You've learned several of your books, so if we don't read them right you'll correct us and if we leave our lines you'll say them. One of the funniest you do is in a Winnie the Pooh book:
Mommy: "Pooh woke one morning with a rumbly in his tumbly"
Paige: "Oh bother!"

Mommy: "Pooh said"

We read a lot of stories every day because you love them so much. You've started taking books to bed with you at night and during naps. You look through the books as you're in bed falling asleep.

You also love songs. You frequently insist that we sing specific songs you. You've also recently started singing the songs yourself. I've heard you sing (all the way through and by yourself):
Baa Baa Black Sheep

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Happy Birthday

The ABC Song

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

You can also fill in words on a lot of other songs (I sing them, stopping at certain words that you fill in) including:

Give Said the Little Stream

The Cannibal King

Mary Had a Little Lamb

You love going to church and nursery. We have a book of pictures of Jesus that you look through during the sacrament, and sometimes I tell you the stories that go along with the pictures. The first picture in the book is of Jesus at the last supper preparing the sacrament. Now you open the book and say "Jesus sacrament."

You are an absolutely delight and we love having you around.

Happy 2nd Birthday little Paige!