Karis at 2 years

Better late than never, right? This post is the last of my monthly updates. I plan to put them all in a book like this for her. (We made a 12x12 one for our 2008 family scrapbook and I highly recommend it -- I used to do Creative Memories but this is so much easier and since I have horrible handwriting it looks so much better :) I'll probably do bi-yearly updates on Karis from now on and when she is 10 (hard to think of that now!!!!) make a book out of those.

Have I really been a Mama to this precious girl for 2 years now? I am NOT going to get all emotional about it but I will simply include a couple pics from her 1st birthday so you can see how much she has changed in a year :)

At 2 years, Karis is the most fun, sweet, hilarious, and cute little 2-year old I've ever met! (I know, I know, but a Mama's allowed to be a little biased :) She loves her sister and other "babies" more than anything and her days are pretty much filled with taking care of them all. She will literally spend a hours or more chatting to her babies, bringing them toys, swinging them, dancing with them, and showing me their new "tricks" (like soccer stretches, etc :)

Did I mention chattering? This girl talks ALL DAY LONG, non-stop. Its a hilarious speech, very fast, never ending, with lots of emotions, sqeals, tone changes, and hand motions. Its a hilarious combination of jibber-jabber and "real words." It is undoubtedly the funniest and longest monologue I've ever heard in my life. Its been so much fun to hear her jibber jabber slowly gain more and more "real words." Karis had what I call a "brain spurt" right when she turned 18 months where she was picking up a handful of words every day. It happened again at 2 years and suddenly she can say anything. And I mean anything. We've learned a lot about how we talk the past couple of weeks. I evidently say "thanks" instead of "thank you," our dog is often called "bad dog" (ha, ha:), and I must say our pets are "silly" a lot because right now everything, whether alive or not often gets the title "silly." Today she put a hat on my head, laughed, and said "silly Mama!"

Physically, she is such a big girl now! Karis only has one speed, and that is full speed ahead! She runs so fast, no matter what the footing or what is in her way, and therefore has had the "perpetual knee bandaid" ever since it became too hot to wear pants. She can swing by herself and climb the bars to the slide all by herself and pretty much thinks she can climb anywhere. It is absolutely hilarious to watch her get excited about "jumping." Karis loves her soccer class and although she refuses to actually kick the ball in the goal, she has fun kicking the ball everywhere else and doing all her soccer exercises (she does the "butterfly" in all kinds of random situations just to pass the time and just ask her to show you how to wave her foot at 'cha :). She is, however, timid to try things in new situations and it is fun to watch her slowly warm up to people and new places.

Believe it or not, I think discipline was actually a lot more difficult a few months ago. She still does her own thing sometimes, and will scream when she doesn't get her way, but she usually stops fairly quickly when reprimanded. Our biggest problem is probably just to get her to stop talking during church, ha, ha. The girl loves to talk! I'm sure in a couple of months she will go through another "testing phase" but I am really enjoying her bubbly cooperative self right now.

I think (pray) that we've finally passed the picky eater stage! Ok, not completely, but at least she is willing to try new foods if she is not tired or grumpy. And she even likes veggies, sometimes more than her main dish! Her current favorite foods include: crispy almonds, applesauce, cream cheese, pizza, currents, frozen mini-muffins (yep, she will eat them right out of the freezer :), broccoli, ice cream/ smoothies, coconut oil candy, and french toast.