Lou is TWO!

LOVES:
 - Bike rides with us (especially on her new Mac ride)
 - Buckles
 - Fruit (berries and grapefruit are her absolute favorites)
 - Anything ice cream and chocolate
 - Playground
 - Back tickles
 - Nursery rhymes - "Skip to My Lou", "Ring Around the Rosie", "Baa Baa Black Sheep", and "Old McDonald" are her all time favorites right now
 - Music - "High Hopes", "Thunder", "Bad Guy", "The Fox"
 - Balloons and balls
 - Stuffed animals and baby dolls
 - All things water related
 - Nursery at church
 - Riding her bike
 - Pandas and sloths (she's my child)
 - Having the Google Home make animal noises
 - Breakfast foods

DISLIKES:
 - Vegetables and most meat
 - Loud, sudden  and unknown noises
 - Dustan making creepy noises (AKA monster noises to Lou)
 - Boogers in her nose
 - Sharing her toys
 - Tomato sauce (yes, this includes pizza and common spaghetti)
 - Getting her hair rinsed out during baths/showers

NEW SKILLS:
 - Jumping with two feet off the floor
 - Complex-ish actions along with songs like "Wheels on the Bus" and "Patty Cake"
 - Speaking in sentences
 - Recognizing many colors and shapes and letters
 - Counting to three (though not always correctly assigned to three objects without repeats/skipping)

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Still a fabulous night sleeper! Typically sleeps 11.5 to 12.5 hours each night without needing anything from us. She does have the occasional nightmare she needs some comfort from, but that's rare. Naps have improved and are almost always at least an hour long, often close to and hour and a half.
 - Whenever she drinks milk, she holds it with her right hand and twirls her hair with her left.
 - Throws some impressive tantrums by screaming, stomping, and even throwing herself onto the floor.
 - Has all her teeth through her first set of molars.
 - Has gotten better about trying new foods, though still is quite picky.
 - Not yet very interested in any crafty type activities like coloring yet, but still loves books.
 - Has gotten so good at imaginary play, and most of her time playing involves her babies/stuffed animals/action figures doing different things around the house.

I'm going to end the blog post with just a few funny things that Eloise has done regularly in the last few months that I very much want to remember forever:

Whenever Lou puts something on her head, she calls it a hat. Then she says "Happy Day!" and insists that I sing the "Happy Birthday" song to her. Every time. I'm not sure how this started, but it makes me laugh every time. She also regularly insists that I sing "Happy Birthday" to her stuffed animals, cars, etc.

Also with hats... Whenever Eloise puts on sunglasses and sometimes hats, she will slowly nod her head and say, "Ohhhh yeahhhh" in a gangster way haha.

We sing "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins every time we put Lou to bed. Lately, she has been loudly repeating the last word of each line and laughing as we sing. Then once we start walking out of the room, she usually yells out, "Bye bye Daddy! Bye bye Mama!" on repeat until the door shuts. Sometimes she'll say "I love you!" on repeat instead.

Whenever Lou hears that Dustan has come home from work when the garage door is closing, she yells, "Daddy! Hug!" and sprints toward the garage to give Dustan a hug. She usually asks to go on a bike ride at this point too.

When Eloise cries over something, she has started to ask herself the questions that we typically ask her when she's upset. She'll ask herself or prompt us by saying, "What happened?" and "You okay?". Sometimes she'll even tell us, "I'm sad, I'm crying...". These usually just makes us chuckle if something serious isn't actually wrong.

We are so grateful for our happy, healthy, beautiful, and energetic two year old! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY!!