Marin's 2 Year Old Loves

Our Curious 2 Year Old!

Marin turned 2 on December 27th and we celebrated with Curious George! We had the kitchen all decorated for her when she woke up. She LOVED all the decorations but the balloons were by far her FAVORITE. She also thoroughly enjoyed singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles on her breakfast donut, cookie cake, and then her birthday cake. It was all day celebration. She opened presents and played all day with her gifts. We had a special date and then napped (she wanted me to sing Happy Birthday to her for naptime instead of the normal "night night" song. In fact, I would finish singing and she would say "mo" (more) and I would sing it again. Three times we sang Happy Birthday for naptime.) Then she got to bake and decorate her own cake. She had a ball. Happy Birthday sweet girl! We love you!

She loves M&Ms. 

She loves Curious George and was so excited to see him "hanging" around for the day!

Eagerly waiting for the birthday girl to wake up. 

Every single present was wrapped because she had so much fun unwrapping at Christmas.
Thanks, Maye Maye. 

Marin had been practicing holding up her two fingers so we got her a big 2 balloon! 

Curious Hollis!
(And yes those are boy pajamas but they have dogs on them and the girls love dogs.) 

This was Marin's reaction to us singing to her when she woke up. :o)

I love that he is the kind of Dad that will wear the birthday hat.
And then let me take his picture in it.
Marin is going to look back on this picture one day and LOVE it! 

Total sweetness.

Just a girl with her donut, balloons, and birthday hat. 

She didn't really go anywhere without the balloons. 

Thanks Mimi for the car roller coaster! We play with this everyday! 

Thanks Maye Maye for the sand/water/sensory table!
(Today I actually put some towels down and put some water in it. She had a ball. Then I put some floral water beads in the water. So. VERY. Neat.)

Thank you Aunt Betsy for the 2 shirt! 

Love, love, love this girl. 

She had to nap with her balloons. :o)

Marin helped bake and decorate her cake.
She had sprinkles, m&ms, and gummy monkeys. 

Showing Daddy her cake... 

She LOVED blowing out candles!

A little close up of her birthday cake masterpiece.

Christmas

We had a great Christmas and were so glad that Burke could be home with us. Plus we had an added bonus of both grandmothers being with us on Christmas Day. So glad that MayeMaye and Mimi could be with us. The girls had a blast with all their new presents from Santa. Hollis woke up first and surveyed all the goods from afar before jumping in and playing with her new ball pit. Then Marin woke up and was so excited to see all of her new toys. She especially loved unwrapping the presents. The girls have played with every single gift. And I have loved watching them! 

This is just a random sweet picture of the girls "playing" on the iPad together. 

Hollis, our ball loving girl, got a ball pit. It is a hit of course.
We have put our little slide in it so now they slide into the balls.

Now Marin's turn!
(They each got a BIG stuffed animal. Marin got a dog and Hollis got a froggy.They LOVE big animals!)

She got some Melissa & Doug slice and bake cookies for their kitchen.
It came with an oven mitt.
Everyday (once or twice or seven times) a day she will walk around with her mitt on and serve everyone a cookie.
She'll even tell you which one to get if you want her too. :o)

They got a bag of plates and some condiments for the kitchen.
Again, we cook and serve Froggy and Dog and Pinky at the table every day.
Hollis got some more magnets (that are so cute!)
And they each got a Disney sofa. (Thanks, Amanda for the suggestion.) They LOVE those couches. Love them. 

Marin got Memory. We play it all the time. Well, we play a modified version. :o) Sometimes we just name each picture and try to say new words. Other times, I will set out cards face up and she has to find the matching picture. It is fun to see her excitement when she matches the cards! It is becoming a nightly event for her to sit on her Mickey couch and look through her cards.

Hollis got a game too. A really cute color dice game. They roll the dice and then get a card that matches the color the dice lands on. The card has different instructions on each one.....hop 6 times....is Marin's favorite card right now. 

They each got a new puzzle. 

And a grocery scanner and cart....

She got the Letter Factory bucket thing. (I can't remember the name of it.) Santa added that one because he knew we did Letter of the Week but Hollis actually plays with it more than Marin. 

We had a great Christmas and it was so much fun seeing the girls' reaction to it all! We did have the tree down that afternoon though. :o) We had to get ready for a little birthday girl.....

A few December Videos....

Hollis has the funniest little "gorilla crawl". She can crawl the normal way but we think it hurts her knees so she always moves like this. Our little gorilla girl can move pretty fast too!
MVI 1726 from Stacey Brednich on Vimeo.

Hollis saying "uh oh"....
MVI 2369 from Stacey Brednich on Vimeo.

And we showed Marin a video of some kids doing the chicken dance. She loved it! And we had to play it over and over for her. Here she is doing her version.We love the toe tapping at the end!
MVI 2025 from Stacey Brednich on Vimeo.

Santa Claus

So we went to the mall to play on the little indoor playground they have and I decided to do Santa one more time. I went back and forth a million times but decided to do it. If Marin was afraid of him and was going to cry no matter what, I would have said forget and just kept the crying photo. But with it being Hollis' first Christmas, I went ahead and did again. 

No tears. But no smiles either. 

You have to know two things about these pictures....

1. There is a choo choo train that rides around the mall and Marin had already spotted it. 

So for most of the Santa experience, she is saying choo choo choo choo. She had been pointing to Santa on her shirt the whole day wanting to see him but a train will always outdo an old man with a beard. (Until she figures out he brings her presents at least....)

2. We had just left Walgreens to get Hollis some passport photos taken. And the funny thing about that is she smiled and giggled and flirted and totally hammed it up for her passport picture. But for Santa....the frown couldn't get any bigger. Seriously, I don't think I have ever seen her frown so hard in her whole life. hahahaha! It's like she was saying, "Mom, I've already done this. Let's move on to something else."  Argh. 

Keeping a close eye on the choo choo train.....

Hollis cracks me up here.
Marin....still watching the choo choo train. 

"Choo choo" 

And....she got to ride the train. :o) 

Now she smiles. 

Hollis loved it too.
Last time she hung her head out the window and spit at everyone.
This time she did her new little wave.
We have progressed with her social skills. :o)