24 Months!!

I wanted to follow through with Maura's last bi-monthly update, even though she turned two almost a month ago (crazy)! I'm so glad I started doing these write ups when she was 6 months old, although I wish I had started right away at 1 month. Sadly, I bought a really lovely first year book for her from etsy and wasn't all that good about filling it in, but the pressure of getting it done here on the blog when I publicly said I would do it was the motivation I needed! It is so fun to look back and read about what she was into or see how she has changed...and I think it will be a huge help when/if we ever have a second child - all those things like starting solids and two naps and crawling are already foggy in my toddler mom brain:)

{my most successful attempt at pig tails and she hasn't let me put them in since!}

Here's her last two months' bunny chair pics (and sadly, probably the last I'll be taking - this has been a fun project!):

Height: 34.75"
Weight: 28lbs

Maura speaks in complete sentences now. I love right before nap or bed time when we are cuddling in her glider having a full blown conversation about our day!

She's made leaps and bounds (ha!) when it comes to jumping...she can now jump off of things with two feet and finally actually gets airborne when she jumps or hops in place. She walks up and down stairs completely on her own.

Maura is still sleeping in her crib and seems completely content with it, so I'm hoping to milk that for all its worth! She is still napping once a day for about 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon.

She's still in diapers...we bought her a potty which we put in the bathroom and a couple of books which we've read one or two times. We're not actively or aggressively potty training right now, just sorta talking to her about it and trying to get her interested and will most likely just let her do it when she seems ready. She'll sit on it every once and awhile, but more for fun, she has never actually gone in the potty yet.

We discovered early on this summer that apparently one of Maura's favorite things to do is go to a country fair!! She loves the rides, the animals, the food, and was completely enthralled watching a folk band up on stage. So since then, we've tried to hit up any and all fairs we can find!!! At first we only rode the carousel with her, but soon we tried putting her on a ride all by herself (those cars that just drive around the circular track). I was so nervous, but she loved it!!!

We did a bunch of other fun things this summer..like going on a seal cruise and riding in go carts!

Of course, we also went to a ton of beaches in all kinds of weather. I'm so glad Maura gets to grow up being around water, its one of the things I love most about where we live.

We went on a couple of hikes:

We've also been doing a lot more arts and crafts...

building things with blocks (usually either a "princess castle" or a road for her trucks - go figure!)...

...and we love to just hang around outside:

{one of our favorite spots in our yard is under these two big pine trees...she loves to lay on the grass and look up through the branches at the sky, birds, etc.)

{Maura's first time getting ice cream from an ice cream truck! Who doesn't love eating a Chipwich on the front steps before dinner?}

Right now, as in since she turned two, some of Maura's favorite things to do are play with her fake food (we have a lot of "picnics"...it is hilarious the things that she decides to put fake mustard and ketchup on!!), play with her train set, have tea parties and use Play doh.

She's a real little person now and I'm always telling her she's my best friend:) Love you so much, girl!!