The baby of the family is now TWO! And she was very well taken care of by all of her siblings who were even more excited to celebrate her birthday than she was. The boys eagerly blew up all of the balloons this morning, making a balloon banner with her name on it and hanging a few balloons in front of her door for when we got her up. We had our traditional chocolate waffles for breakfast and everyone ate so many that we only ate a very light lunch. While Natalie was napping (and after we had finished our afternoon school) the four other kids helped me make Natalie's cake-and really they did a lot of it by themselves- with Asher and Leif leading the way of course. We made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, but made mini cupcakes with an allergy-friendly frosting for Trevor to enjoy.
Natalie is an absolute doll (most of the time) and we love having her in our family. As ever, her language is amazing and she comes out with sentences that surprise me every few days. The other day she told me to sit down with her while she was coloring and today she came up the stairs and said that Heidi needs help with her piano. These are grammatically correct sentences (for the most part) that are very clear to understand (usually;). The biggest grammar mistake I've noticed that she makes is that she often says "him" when she should say "he". Her most famous sentence is "Him want me" which she says whenever she sees a dog out walking with its owner or on tv. She has come to believe that every dog she sees, no matter the size, color, or breed, is her stuffed animal "Snow Puppy" and when we are out on walks she yells "Snow Puppy! Him want me!" and runs after the dog.
Even though Natalie's language is so well developed, she recently has picked up a habit of sticking her tongue between her teeth while she talks which causes her words to slur together. I guess she just likes the sound of experimenting with the different sounds she can make. She also says some very un-cute words that she picked up from older siblings like "shut up" and "idiot". I guess she would have picked them up eventually, but none of the other kids started saying words like that so early- that's just what happens when you are the littlest.
Natalie loves to do "school" in the morning while the other kids are working. She has some little bunnies that she Velcros the tails onto after matching the right color. She loves to play this game and always gets the colors right- and she can say most of the colors, but mixes them up quite a bit. She also scribbles all over any paper that is left on the table and calls out "Mom, I need help!" randomly just because that's what she hears the other kids saying. Most of all though, she loves to read and its not a typical day if she hasn't followed me around with a book saying "Read this to me".
Here is our photo-documentation of the day:
