Kate @ 23 Months

There are few things that Kate gets excited about, but brinner is one of them!

Her utensil skills are increasing daily.

Kate's speech abilities have also improved exponentially in the past few weeks.

"More sit down?"
"More dah??" (more of that)
 Ohhhh, pa-pa all gone! (when dinner is all gone. In this case, pasta.)

She babbles in a very serious way and loves to get increasingly louder and louder if she feels like you're not paying attention to her.

angry "I'm-not-getting-my-way" face

Kate is getting really good at vocalizing what she wants.
more joos! (juice)
more bishy-car (fishy crackers)
more sip sip sip! (when she wants a drink of whatever you have)
cee-al (cereal)
gup (grapes)
hup (help)
outside!
open
peety (hair pretties)
ahhhhhhhhhh (when she wants a bite of what you're eating)
mmmmmmm chassick (chapstick)
glassy (sunglasses)

She always insists on having "more binkit" (blankets) wrapped around her. She will walk around the house, a big puff ball of comfort and thinks she is just fantastic!

When she is excited to do something (or you finally figure out what she's been trying to say and point at for the last 15 minutes) she says, "ehh??!!" with a big smile on her face. Not sure when it will change to "yes." She definitely has "NO, NO, NO!" down just fine.

Her favorite things to do:
luh-low (color)
ow-side! (play outside/especially in water)
mah! mah! (sit on my lap)
daddy/mommy shoe (wear our shoes... or ANYONE'S shoes)

Kate wearing her cousin's shoes

 

Kate wearing Michelle O'Keefe's heels

more Margo! (pet Margo forcefully)
more Sha-sha! (attack Shasta in the rear end)
den-cee (dancing)

She also likes listening to music and wants us to have it playing constantly. Depending on the day it is either "miss-ik" or "mickey" but at least she points at the computer so we kind of get the idea.

Her favorite things to eat:
goldfish crackers, juice, mel (milk), pa-pa (pasta), goo-kee (cookies), any type of breakfast food.

Kate loves nursery at church, and we have such amazing leaders! I can already tell that she admires them so much. Just yesterday we were getting ready to brush her teeth, and I noticed that it sounded like she was trying to sing the words to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". It sounded more like "dinkle-dar, dinkle dar, how I to are"... so I started singing it to her, and she LIT UP! After that she started asking for "more giggle dar" and it has become her favorite and most requested song :)
 
Lately Kate has been walking around making up her own songs and singing to her toys. It is the best!

She is getting much better at imitating what we do and say, even without us asking. Today Jon was signing to her, and she repeated every sign back with the vocal word too and she didn't need any coaching at all.

Kate loves to give hugs and be snuggled (as long as it is her idea.) She loves snuggling her baby dolls, holds them in the car while shushing them, and even did this all by herself the other day:

She really enjoys looking at my jewelry, putting on bracelets, and wants to wear my necklaces. The glow stick bracelets on the 4th of July were a big hit! Kate's nursery leader brought back necklaces for the kids from a recent trip to Hawaii, and Kate carried it around all morning yesterday to put it on us :)

She usually insists on things being her way, but she wouldn't be almost 2 if that wasn't the case! I am so grateful for this little girl. She is my buddy, and I'm grateful to be her best friend.