Guess Who is 2?

Weight: 32 lbs
Height: 33 inches
Tooth Count: Unknown (He bit Joseph so we gave up. He loves us looking in his ears, but he hates us to look into his mouth. He doesn't usually bite.)
Belly Circumference: 22 inches

Favorite Foods: Applesauce, M&Ms, Pizza, Pasta, Meat, Cheese sticks, Juice, Milk, Chocolate Pudding, and Fruit

Favorite Shows/Clips: Toy Story 3, Sleeping Beauty, Leapfrog Letters Factory, Puss in Boots Old Spice Commercial (aka Kitty in Shower), Old Disney Cartoons, and Veggietales: David and the Giant Pickle

Favorite Phrases:
• "Saurs spit."-- There were two dinosaurs that spit water at the Hogle Zoo when we visited UT. Nicholas was kind of scared and simultaneously fascinated by them. Even a month afterwards though, he will say at random intervals, "Saurs spit."
• "Broke. I fix."--He is convinced that he can fix anything. When something is really broke, then he will say, "Mama fix." If I tell him Mama can't fix it, then he will say, "Papa fix."
• "No touch. I look."--He then will assume his looking position. However, looking almost always leads to touching.
• "Baby sister like binkie, like blankets, like puppy. No marbles, no markers, and no scissors."--We are preparing him to be a big brother.
• "Fire hot."/"Hot like mower."--Nicholas has a healthy respect for things that are hot.
• "Buzz and Jessie dancing."--He loves the part of Toy Story 3 when Spanish Buzz does a little dance.:
• "Self."--He likes doing things on his own. He hates riding in a shopping cart. He will keep repeating in the saddest voice, "Walk self! Walk self!"
• "Cars street. Mama helps. Look both ways."--You can tell we have had a lot of discussions about car safety.
• "Trunk."--Nicholas has decided that hanging out in the trunk of the Acura is even cooler than driving the Acura. If I don't watch him closely, he will find money and small objects and find various holes in the car to drop them down.
• "Carries."--He still LOVES to be carried.
• "Leaves fall."--He is fascinated by the changing season. He is going to have a lot of fun raking with Mom in a couple of weeks.
• "Mama back." "Mama seat." Mama's lap."--He likes me close.

Sleeping:
• He goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 and wakes up 11-12 hours later from when he went to sleep.
• Instead of telling Nicholas it is time to go to bed, we just ask him, "What do you want to go to sleep with?" He starts collecting his special items. Lately he has been insisting that he needs "two binkies" to go to bed. He has also been sleeping with his special monkey blanket, frog blanket, and choo-choo blanket. He will also sleep with his little puppy, big puppy, Ozzie (another puppy), and a couple of balls. It is a little party in there.
• When he wakes up, he has to go through and tell me about everything in his crib before he will agree to get out.
• He is still a great napper. We usually do our big outings in the morning, so that usually wears us both out. He usually will nap for an hour and a half around 1.


Favorite Book: He still isn't much of a book lover. He likes to look at his pop-up monster machines book and flipping through Harry Potter while he wears his Harry Potter hat.

Favorite Activities:
• Helping me cook. I think he just loves all the dumping and stirring involved.
• Animals. He loves feeding the ducks and playing with dogs.
• "Driving" our cars.
• Coloring, especially with markers.
• Looking at letters and numbers.
• Lining things up and making a choo-choo.
• Stacking things and making castles.
• Playing with various kitchen utensils and measuring cups.
• Playing in the bathtub with lots of bouncy balls.
• Dancing in his "dancing shoes." They are are some super girly tap shoes that I got at a yard sale. I'll have to get Joseph's permission before I post pictures of this activity.

Overall, I am LOVING two a lot more than 1. He is fun to have a conversation with and he has an actual attention span. All our work about using your words instead of just crying is really paying off. He will tell me what is wrong and we can usually make a deal that makes us both happy. (Unless he is tired.) He is a good little buddy. He loves living on the edge, but he hates be in actual trouble. He is still extremely destructive and messy, but he will now help me clean up one activity before we begin another one. He keeps me busy coming up with new ideas to keep him entertained. We have made marble race tracks, experimented with magnets, and used the fan to blow balloons up to the ceiling. It is surprising what will catch his interest. I love this sweet little man!!

I made Nicholas an M&M cake for his birthday. He liked the frosting and the M&Ms.

In our ward, there are five other kids born within weeks of Nicholas. One of the mothers suggested we do a joint birthday party for all the kids. Nicholas loved the party. He got to finger paint for the first time and there was all the juice he could drink. He also loved bowling. The destructive nature of bowling just appeals to him. They picked to do the party on Nicholas' actual birthday.

Nicholas wanted pizza for his birthday dinner, so we took him to CiCi's. He ate an impressive amount of pizza, ranch dressing, lemonade. We then took him to his favorite park. Surprisingly, his favorite park doesn't have a playground. He loves to go to Irving's War Memorial Park because it has lots of statues and fountains. He got a remote control car for his birthday and enjoyed driving it around the park super fast. After dark, we settled down and watched How to Train Your Dragon. We tried to keep our birthday plans really simple and just mainly spent time doing whatever Nicholas wanted to do. Nicholas LOVED his birthday.