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Adorable little girl! Her hair is getting so long :)
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Admiring her outfit in the mirror
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| Little miss sunshine |
Our baby girl is growing up so quickly! Since turning two, she is quickly becoming quite the little lady. One of the biggest changes we've seen over the past few months, is her fierce independence and desire to be a "big girl" and do nearly everything on her own. The phrase, "I do it myself" has become a mainstay around our household. Whether it be picking out her own outfit and putting it on, choosing what she wants for dinner, getting into the carseat herself, picking out her own books for us to read, Elise is adamant on making her own choices and decisions. We always have to make sure we give her options, otherwise she gets very vocal in declaring her independence.
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| Showing off her newly painted nails |
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| Pink toes! |
She is quickly transforming into the ultimate girly girl. As of late, she always wants to wear dresses and skirts and she has to have pretty "clippies" in her hair at all times. She recently wanted her toes and nails painted and asked to wear a necklace and lipgloss just like mommy. She also carries around her little Tinkerbell purse, and looks pretty darn cute doing so. It surprises me just how much she loves dressing herself and matching her outfits. Aside from just the girly things, it is really adorable seeing just how much she looks up to us and wants to emulate everything mom and dad do.
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| Clippy in the hair, bright baby blues |
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| Playing outdoors in the sunshine |
Now that the weather has finally warmed up, Elise loves being outdoors. We can barely keep her inside. Everyday after preschool, she wants to go out and play on her new playground and every weekend she wants to be in the pool swimming. She certainly is a 100% summer girl; she loves the warmth and sunshine!
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| Hide-and-seek in the backyard |
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| Her signature cheese face - so cute/funny! |
Elise has been at Montessori daycare for over four months now. She absolutely loves it there. She has lots of little friends and loves telling us about everything she did in school each day. She especially enjoys playing outdoors with all the other kids. Her vocabulary, which has always been ahead of the curve, has grown twice as expansive over the past few months. She sings her ABCs all the way through and has even started identifing letters. She counts to twenty perfectly and knows all her shapes and colors. She communicates very well and is extremely talkative and social. I'm happy that she enjoys preschool, and feel that the education and social skills she's gained there, will have her extremely well prepared for kindergarten.
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| In her Montessori uniform |
Since turning two, Elise's tantrums have become more mangeable and less frequent. She's become an expert communicator and is quickly learning that giving us a hug and saying sorry is much less effort than throwing a 10 minute tantrum. Don't get me wrong, she still has her little tyrant moments, but now understands that mommy and daddy won't tolerate tantrums anymore, so her outbursts are much shorter. The biggest change, has been in her ability to communicate her feelings to us. She's now at the age, where she understands the difference between good and bad behavior, so after she calms down we always make sure to explain to her why she was a given a time out, and then give her a chance to say sorry and then give us hugs. So far, this routine has worked fairly well, so we're sticking with it.
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| Watch out for that throwing arm! |
Now for a major update - Elise has shown a big interest in potty training and has spent the past few weeks using the big girl potty! She has the used the potty for multiple days in a row now, both for #1 and #2. Let me tell you, as much as this will one day embarass her to read, the first #2 is a huge celebratory moment for any parent. She still goes in her pull-ups more than the using the potty, but we've made huge progress in only a matter of a few weeks. Her incentive, aka - our tools for bribery, are Hershey's kisses and M&Ms. She loves getting a reward each time she uses the potty and we love the fact she's getting closer to going diaper free. We would LOVE to have her out of diapers (or somewhere close) before little sister's arrival.
Weight: 29 lbs 8 1/2 oz (82nd percentile)
Height: 35 3/4 inches (Above 90th percentile)
