Annie turns 2!

On Monday Annie turned 2, but we celebrated a couple of days early on Saturday, and for all she knew, that was her birthday. That morning Rachel and Annie "helped" me bake the chocolate cake. Once it was in the oven they were happy to take over the dish clean-up duty. Since we just had one spatula in use, they each got one side to lick.

Their help with the chocolate cake made them feel fulfilled enough to leave the rest of the baking to me. In peace. :)

For Annie's birthday we were just doing a family party with Grandma and Grandpa Knight, and the cousins coming over, so we didn't do much by way of party planning. But since Annie has been into Minnie Mouse lately, and since that was her Halloween costume, too, I decided to make a Minnie Mouse cake and have the party theme be Minnie Mouse, as far as we took the theme (which was basically just the cake and a few homemade decorations). Rachel took it one step further and dressed up in what she calls her Minnie Mouse dress, then spent a good part of the day telling me about how she escaped from Disneyland just to come visit my daughter and help her have a happy birthday.

After the girls helped me with the chocolate cake, I made a yellow cake for the ears and cupcakes. It was fun to decorate, though the ears could have been a little bigger for the actual cake. Oh well. Turned out good enough for Annie.

We grilled shishkabobs and hot dogs for dinner. We love the fall not-so-hot weather!

Present time!

Apparently we should have had Annie open Grandma and Grandpa's present last. After she saw the play food we had a hard time convincing her to open anything else.

Then it was cake time. Before:

After: (love the look of excitement on Annie's face)

And of course after cake, the messy-faced girls headed back to play with the loot Annie had raked in.

Rachel had a hard time letting Annie be the birthday girl some of the time. It's hard when someone else gets all the attention and all the presents. Lucky for Rachel, Annie is easily distracted so she hardly noticed when Rachel would take over her birthday balloon or one of her presents.

As for Annie at age 2... She is talking in complete-ish sentences most of the time. But since she's started speaking more clearly and in complete sentences, she's also started doing a lot of nonsensical jibber jabber. It's kind of funny. She has a few favorite stuffed animals, her teddy bear, her new moose that she got for her b-day from the grandparents in Alaska, and her rabbit. When she can find her rabbit she'll say "Mine yabbit go?" And frogs say "yibbit! yibbit!" Love it.

Annie loves making Ryan cry by 1. stealing whatever toy he is playing with, 2. hitting him with whatever toy she is playing with, or 3. kicking him if there is not a toy around to take from him or hit him with.  After he's crying she'll tell me "Make her happy!" (She doesn't have her/him straight all the time yet.) I'm not sure if she's telling me she knows she's supposed to make him happy and what she just did was wrong, or if she means that now that he is crying she'll try to make him happy. Maybe it's easier to make a crying kid happy. One day I may be able to leave the two of them alone together in a room. But not yet.

Annie likes copying Rachel and playing with her more and more. She also knows how to push Rachel's buttons really well. And I thought the middle child was supposed to be the peacemaker. Hmmm. Maybe she'll grow in to that role.

Annie LOVES Rachel's bed. She begs to sleep in her bed every nap time and bedtime. At nap time she stays in the bed and sleeps really well, partly because she really loves her binky and blanket, which she is only allowed to have when she's sleeping. At bedtime, when we've let her try sleeping in Rachel's bed she's lasted about 10 minutes, then she's up walking around telling me "All done now! I'm awake!" So she sleeps in her crib at night. She has figured out how to climb in to her crib, using Rachel's bed as a stool, but luckily she has yet to figure out how to climb out of her crib.

At her check up this week Annie weighed in at almost 26 lbs. (40%) and 35 inches (80%) which puts her at a BMI at the 11th percentile. Tall and skinny. And her head circumference is the 97th percentile. I'm glad I don't have to try to birth this 2-year-old.

All in all, we're happy to have Annie in our home. She's a full blown 2-year-old now, both officially, and in temperament (though she's been one in temperament for a while now). Thankfully 2-year-olds were made extra cute to balance the extra moodiness that comes at that age. Though I think Annie, in general, throws less tantrums than Rachel did at this age. I'm not sure if that's part of her personality, or some of the parenting skillz we've picked up along the way that we didn't have yet with Rachel. Sometimes not being the experimental kid pays off. Sorry, Rachel. :) And happy birthday, Annie!!!!