Two!

Maren turned two years old! I don't really know where to start. Two years has flown by. We still call her our baby all the time, but she is absolutely a toddler now. Of course you can say something like "she'll always be our little baby," but really, truly, I often have a hard time thinking of her as being as old as she is.

At the same time, I sometimes forget how little she is. She is so verbal, talking in full sentences, that it can be hard to remember that there is an awful lot she doesn't understand because she is only two.
She knows whole songs, can recite whole poems/rhymes, and knows when we have misread something in a book, even if it is a library book that she has only heard us read a handful of times. She corrects us when we say something like "playing tag at school" when the book actually says "playing tag at the park" and the next page says "jumping rope at school." Her memory is sometimes scary.
Sometimes she rewrites song lyrics in her mind though, maybe because she prefers her version (Amy Grant, Baby, Baby):

She knows many dinosaurs, the names of just about everyone she has ever met, a few facts about space and planets, and countless other things that amaze me. I may be biased, but I really do think this kid is amazing :-)

Fall

It's possible that this past week was the last week of summer here. The past couple of days have been cold - high temperatures that require jackets. The semester started after Labour Day, and Jeff has a class that goes until 5:15 PM. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays I pick Maren up from daycare and we get a little bit of mommy-Maren time. This past Tuesday we spent some time digging in the dirt in the backyard.

The awesome hairdo is courtesy of daycare – she won't sit long enough for me to do a braid or anything like that. Looking at these photos I can see lots of leaves have already fallen off of our trees. So I guess it is getting to be fall!

I really...Lo-ove! You!

Maren and Jeff spent some time this week rehearsing their rendition of K-Ci & JoJo All My Life:

Just that part :)

End of summer

 The end of summer has been quite busy for us.  I feel like I always say something like that.  Last weekend we went to Grasslands National Park.  We stayed in a structure that is a cross between a tent and a cabin, and didn't have to bring a whole lot in the way of camping supplies – we had  beds with mattresses, and a propane barbeque to cook on.  We saw bison, prairie dogs, open prairie, and more stars than I have seen in a very long time.  It was unfortunately quite hot, so we didn't enjoy our afternoons as much as we otherwise would have, since open prairie means no trees and no shade.  But we otherwise had a very good time. The prairie dog colonies are  pretty amazing – I tried to take a video, but it doesn't do the actual experience justice.  The video makes it look like we are really far away, but actually we were able to get very close to some of the prairie dogs.

 Maren is doing a lot with language these days.  She has been using the wrong pronouns as long as she has been talking,  but yesterday she had a bit of a breakthrough with the phrase "I want."  She has been trying it out ever since, and I captured one of the more hilarious uses of the phrase on video: 

 Last night Jeff and I went on our first date where we had a babysitter put Maren to bed. It went totally fine last night – as smooth as we could have hoped. But unfortunately she woke up around 4 AM and stayed up for the day.  We are all a bit tired and at least Maren is cranky today. Unsure whether the early wake up is related to going to bed with a babysitter, but maybe. I don't think it will deter us from having future dates though, as it was pretty amazing to  have dinner and a movie alone with Jeff :-) 

Summer fun

Today Maren got a new hat and new socks. We had a little meltdown after dinner, and the only thing that saved us was letting her wear her new clothes and only her new clothes for a little while. I wanted to capture how silly and cute she looked, but as soon as I started taking pictures she wanted to see. So this is my action shot as Maren was running to look at the pictures I was taking: 

Last weekend we had a visit from Jeff's brother and his family, and Jeff's dad. 

We had an awesome time with them, visiting the museum and the science center, going to the park, and going out for ice cream. Everything is more fun with kids around – even when a meltdown ends the fun a bit early, or when you have to drag them kicking and screaming from the swings. Life with a toddler can be trying, but I also think it's a lot more fun :-)