Arden: 25 months

Arden's overdue for a little blog update, so here's one to start the new year. The picture below is from a sweet princess party I took Arden to this weekend. She wore a "Belle" costume that our neighbors gave us and the party favor was the little pink princess cape that the mom sewed for all the girls at the party. (Pretty sure this will be her Halloween costume since we already have it and it was free!)

I have to say that after all of Huston's drama about birthday parties over the years, it was so fun to take Arden by herself to a party. It was always so difficult to get Huston to just be normal at a party (forget about participating in anything) but Arden wanted to put on her princess dress, wear her cape, decorate her picture frame, listen to stories, play with the other girls, and basically do everything! She had so much fun.

Okay, so on to the actual Arden update. When I took her for her two year check up at the beginning of December, she was in the 90th percentile for height at 36 and 1/4 inches. You can get a rough estimate of full grown height by doubling their height at two years, which would put Arden at 6 feet! Obviously this is just an estimate, but it seems she'll be tall!

She still loves her Lambie and her "lil blankie" as she calls it. She can often be heard saying, "I want my lil blankie." She sleeps with both of those, as well as her "big blankie," but the little one really seems to be key to helping her fall asleep. She likes to rub it between her fingers and just kind of play with it until she drifts off.

Her favorite activity by far is reading or being read to. I don't know that I can accurately convey how much she loves to read (and always has). One of her favorite things at Christmas was reading the Lego instruction manual from one of Huston's toys. She will read anything, but her current favorite is an anthology of Curious George stories she got for Christmas. She'll ask, "Where my Keeeris George?" and then she'll plop down with it and read for a good 15 to 20 minutes.

Arden is such an early little riser lately, waking up between 6:15 and 6:45. She has also been extremely cling and attached to mommy. So attached that if I'm out of her sight for a second, she's crying, "Moooommmy, where are you? I tan't find youuu." Or crying if I suggest that Daddy give her a bath or change her diaper. She insists upon accompanying me to the bathroom or to check the mail or anywhere else where I might be out of sight. She's also within the past two weeks or so started crying when she goes down for a nap or bedtime. She used to go down so easily but now there's always weeping and wailing. One day she even cried so hard that she made herself throw up. This little throw up trick (that she's pulled a handful of times now) really works in her favor, as it makes me nervous to let her cry for too long.

She is so expressive and talkative. I wish I could accurately capture everything she says, because it's so adorable and distinct. Here's a small sampling:

The other day she was looking for Huston and said, "Huston....where are ya pal?"

She has such a southern twang. She says, "I need hey-elp" and "It's mines" pretty frequently.

One morning we were reading a Bible story (about Moses) and she asked, "What eeees that?"

I said, "That's the Red Sea."

After thinking a moment, she said, "Noooo, that not red sea! It's blue sea."

I love to ask her, "Are you my princess?" because she always responds, "No, I just my baby!"

I'll leave you with this snippet of Arden and Huston on the way home from church yesterday.

Arden said, "I want that fingy have da light." (That "thingy" was our Magna Doodle.)

Huston said, "Why did she say that?" and I said that I guessed it was because she didn't know it was called a Magna Doodle.

He proceeded to look at her, and tell her in a bossy voice, "Arden, it's called a Magna-doo-nel."

She said, "No! That fingy have da light!"

And Huston said, "NO! It's a Magna-nooool."

Then they both just started screaming at each other. It was pretty much the funniest fight ever.