June is two!!

We are having a little party tomorrow, but I just had to post quickly to commemorate today. When June woke up this morning, I carried her downstairs and she laid her head on my shoulder and snuggled a little. I felt the Spirit and strong emotion. June made us a family of four. She is such a joy and delight in our family. Ryan, Willa, and I tend to be a little in the serious side and June balances us out with zaniness, high-jinks, and vocal determination. A month or two ago I went to get her up from her nap and she was just jumping up and down and being silly and I just thought, "Who is this little spirit that was sent to us?" Honestly, it was the first impression I have had with my children that they were individual spirits sent here with their own personalities. I mean, I believed it before, but this felt more like a spiritual confirmation of it (I'm a little dense sometimes).

June talks, talks, talks, talks, TALKS! She repeats the last word of everything you say to her. The last two months she has been working hard to string two and three words together. She surprises me always with what she has observed and picked up. For example, in preschool two days ago we talked about whales. Today, there was a whale on Sesame Street and she immediately called out to me its name. Yesterday Willa was riding bikes out front with some neighborhood boys. One of the boys got called home and June came up to me and said, "Where Naphan (Nathan) go?" I barely remembered his name, but she knew it!

June has become quite the couch potato and loves television now that her attention span is a little longer. Her favorites are Elmo, Bo on the Go, and Daniel Tiger. When I'm searching for the shows on Netflix she will call out, "Tiger, 'ere are you?" She will call out this phrase at the grocery store for whatever food we are looking for. "Yogurt, 'ere a you?"

June loves her big teddy and also demands to be spoon fed her breakfast/lunch/dinner from teddy while watching a show. She's the Queen of Sheba. I've put up with it because it was the only way, but now she is getting incrementally better with food so hopefully we can be back at the table soon. I should add that I don't mind her not eating, I'm not trying to force food into a child who isn't hungry. She is actually extremely hungry in these situations and just stubborn enough to have a major tantrum and go to bed hungry (and then wake me up in the middle of the night) rather than to eat what and where she doesn't want to. For my own sanity, I've just had to give in. Now that she is more vocal, it's a little amusing. I sat her down with us at the table for dinner, she looked down at what I had put on her plate and said, "No."

Here is a little photo from our trip to Utah last week. She's a joy to be around and a terror too. She's also still the prettiest little girl and her hair is halfway down her back.