Dear Lydda Grace

Happy Birthday Lydda Grace!

You are two years old now and I am late in posting your birthday post because you and Wade are keeping me extra busy these days! :)

Thinking back it is hard for me to even grasp all that has happened in the last year. You weren't even walking by your first birthday and now you run and climb and hop and dance all over the place.... all the time!

Also in the past year you have gone from just a few sounds/words to talking all the time. You love to talk and have an amazing vocabulary for a two year old. You pick up little things that Dada and I say and then a few days later will repeat them when we didn't even know you were listening. I love being able to talk with you about things that are happening during the day.

The biggest change that has happened is that you are now a big sister, and you are a GREAT big sister. You always want to give Wade "big hug" or "big kiss" and he puts up with all of it quite happily. We pray that you and Wade will continue to love each other and be great friends as you grow up.

One of my favorite things to do with you right now is to put you to bed. You say "one book, one book" and I say "yes, we'll read one book" and then you say "two books, two books!" Usually I just laugh and say, "okay... two books then." We cuddle in bed together and read. When we finish we talk about your day, we talk about what we did and what was fun and who we saw or talked to. Then we talk about people and things we are thankful for. You almost always mention Dada first :) Then we say prayers together. After that I always ask you, "Now what should we do?" and you say "Holy, Holy, Holy" (but it sounds more like "hole, hole"). So we sing your night-night song (you've recently started to sometimes sing along) and then I put you in your crib. I so enjoy this sweet time when we get to cuddle and read and pray and sing.

Here are some things that you love:
- Read- you still love to read and be read to. I think you would sit all day and listen to books if you could.
- Play- you are starting to really use your imagination to go to the store, pretend to pick blueberries, feed Wade pretend peas and all sorts of other creative things, it's so fun to see what you come up with.
- Dada- You love your Dada and run to meet him everyday when you hear his key in the door. It's hard for him to make it off to work some mornings because you will continue to say "big hug, big hug" and "big kiss, big kiss" over and over and will run after him for one more hug and one more kiss before he leaves!
- Church- you love going to church and we are so thankful for that!
- Funny- you love to laugh and be silly. If you see something funny or do something funny you will just laugh and say, "fun-nee" or "I fun-nee" and just keep on laughing! This cracks us up so we laugh at you and you just keep saying it... you really are a funny girl!
- Everything!- You are really at the age where you are curious about everything and want to be a part of everything that is going on. If I am putting laundry in the dryer you want in on it, if I'm feeding Wade you want to get right in his face to talk to him while he eats, if I'm running the embroidery machine you want to sit on the counter and watch it, if we're taking a walk outside you give a running commentary of everything we see and what other people are doing!!

You are so smart and continuously amaze us! You know all your upper-case letters and most of the lower-case ones, you can sing many songs and say nursery rhymes from memory, you know your numbers and can count in order (though you always want to skip from 5 to 8!). The other day you got really excited about "oppsits" (opposites) and had so much fun talking about up and down, high and low, awake and asleep as we acted out all these opposites. You know colors and we play a game where I tell you a color and then you look around and find as many things as you can that are that color, you're really good at it and often find things that I hadn't even seen or thought of!

Even though you are so smart, and fun and talkative and active, I think one of the best things about you is how loving you are Lydda Grace. You love to cuddle and snuggle, give hugs and kisses and will sometimes just randomly tell us "I love you very much!" We love you too VERY MUCH baby girl and we pray blessings on you this next year and in all the years to come.

I love you,
Mommy