A photo of Emily and one of her new favorite foods. The popcorn bowl started off on Robby’s lap and Emily took it from him. Popcorn is yummy!

Emily went for her two year doctor checkup. We read our ‘Corduroy Goes to the Doctor’ book before we went to remind her of what was going to happen. She was weighed on the big girl standing scale! That was a fun change for her. Also, no more shots for her until she enters kindergarten—nobody in this household is complaining about that. The doctor spotted two more teeth coming in. And he had a willing assistant in positioning the stethoscope.

The doctor was very pleased with the growth spurt she has had. She has bounded from the 10th to the 50th percentile in weight and from the 50th to the 75th percentile in height. Which translates to about 5 lbs in 6 months and also 2 inches taller in 6 months. I have noticed that she is growing through clothing sizes a little faster. At 2 years, she is 26 lbs and 34-1/2 inches long. Her head measures 18-1/4 inches round. We are not scheduled for another well visit until she turns three years old.

Just a few brief words, and no pictures, about potty training for Emily. After putting it off as long as I could, we are starting Emily down the road of growing up. She has been showing signs of being ready for a while and with the arrival of her sister, the holidays, and her birthday it just didn’t seem like the time. Emily has her big girl potty now, we have talked about it, I have read suggestions, and tonight we had our first success. We celebrated with a cookie and a phone call to Daddy in which she announced that she ‘pee-pee in potty’. For her that is a pretty big sentence and it was the most clear her words are. I think she was excited.

I’m aware that tonight’s success is just the beginning of a new level of control and independence for Emily. I also know that she isn’t going to master this for a while, but I’m so pleased that we had such a great success tonight. I’m really proud of our big girl!

Our big girl has turned two. Wow, the time has flown! Two years ago we wondered who this little baby would be and what she would look like as she grew. Last year for her birthday, she was learning the freedom of mobility in pulling up and beginning to take steps on her own. Now she is running, talking in gibberish/words, and playing with her sister. Who knows where she will be next year?

To celebrate this year we went to dinner with Grammy and Granddaddy and then had cake and gifts. I think Emily only ate one bite of her cake because she was more excited about opening her gifts. Unlike Christmas when she opened each gift and wanted to play with it, for her birthday she opened one and then grabbed for the next gift. It worked out because it was already her bedtime and by opening them up in a speedy manner she got to get down and play with all the gifts and get on to bed pretty quickly.

As an extension to her birthday celebration Emily and Elena had a play date and lunch together earlier this week. Elena is just two days different than Emily in age and they have gotten to spend the last two years together growing and playing. Elena introduced Emily to bounce equipment and the freedom of exuberant bouncing. Emily was apprehensive to enter the equipment, but Mommy made her enter each one and then make a judgement about her likes and dislikes of each one. She was exhausted when we left lunch and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Then today she got to go to the Mommy & Me movie and eat popcorn. The movie didn’t hold her interest much today and when she was full of popcorn she asked to ‘play’. Most of the kids were playing today and she said “please,” so I let her go and play with the other kids. I was pleased to see that she was more interested in playing with the other kids and toys than exploring around the theater. At one point I hadn’t seen her head bouncing above the seats for a while so I stood up to look for her. She was sitting on the front row of seats with 3 other children. It was really cute.

I pray a blessing for Emily that God would grant in her life- the joy that makes dark days bright and sun-filled days overflow in gratefulness- a sweet heart for others including her sister- a willing spirit to listen to her heavenly father. I pray that God would grant us, her parents wisdom in how best to train and love her.

Emily, Julia, and I were playing on the floor yesterday morning. Emily was laying on the floor next to Julia and asked for ‘cheese’. This is her way of asking to have her photo taken, so that she can say ‘cheese’. I thought it was so sweet that she wanted to have her photo taken with Julia. By the time I got the camera, the moment was gone. Emily wanted to sit in my lap and help me take photos of her sister. I talked her into playing night-night with Julia and getting a photo of that. Julia doesn’t look like she was much in the mood to play.

Emily kissed Elmo – he was giving out kisses to her so she wanted to give one back. Emily does give out hugs and kisses to others, too. Today, she kissed the top of a baby boy’s head in the nursery. She loves to give them to Julia. I have seen her give them to our friend’s dog. Occasionally she gives them to her Mommy and Daddy and they are usually spontaneous and random. She doesn’t give out as many hugs as she does kisses. She has just started coming up to our legs and give them a hug. She gives me hugs to keep me from putting her in bed and she gives them to me at the grocery store from inside the buggy.

Christmas has come, but it hasn’t gone yet. The remains are still scattered over our living room floor. This is the first year we have celebrated Christmas with a child who is capable of interacting with it so much. Our celebration began on Christmas Eve at church being reminded of the story of Christmas. It continued on to Christmas Day where we opened gifts, ate good food, visited with Grammy and Granddaddy, and played with lots of toys.

I was so pleased to see the joy that Emily found in the day. She loved opening gifts and playing with what was inside. The word ‘play’ was added to her vocabulary on Christmas. I’m sure that she got the concept but today when she got up from her nap I told her that we would have lunch and then play. She then requested to skip lunch and go and ‘pay’ which I translated to play. She proceeded to use the word for the rest of the day.

I love to watch her explore things. How she is willing to do the same thing over and over again, how she is willing to try the same thing from different angles to see what happens, how she adds sound effects to actions, and how she imitates Mommy’s antics in her play. There was a lot of exploring because of Christmas! We so appreciate our family and friends their generosity with us and our daughters. Thanks so much – we love you all!