Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie turned 2! We can't believe she's already two, but also can't believe she's only two.

At her two year check up, her stats were, weight 30% and height 48%. We are glad that she's not as short as we thought she was... She is still afraid of the doctor from when she got burned, but she definitely did better than last time we were at the doctors...

For her birthday, we went to the Kangaroo Zoo to celebrate. We invited our neighbor friend, William, to go with us. The kids had a blast, and we were there for 3.5 hours! I was so tired from chasing after the kids with Eli but they still had enough energy to come home and ask to bake a cake!

After both kids took really short naps, we baked funfetti cupcakes and made icing. The kids helped decorate the top of the cupcakes, and we got to sing and blow candles out when daddy came home for dinner.

Kids licking frosting off the hand mixer

While we waited for the cupcakes to cool, we practiced decorating cupcake tops with watercolor.

Kids showing off their work.

I was afraid Ellie wouldn't know how to blow candles out, but she was a champ!

Next day, we had a small party with some family. I got a mini cake from Smith's since I knew we wouldn't be able to finish a whole cake (and I ran out of time to bake one).

Ellie is really, really verbal. At age two, Al could only say maybe ten words (not including the alphabet). She can say full sentences, and pretty much say anything she wants. We think it is because she has an older brother that she follows around everywhere, but she sure is smart, too. She knows most of the alphabet and is starting to catch on with the numbers. Considering we haven't taught her as intensively as we did with Al (he was studying the alphabet and numbers for hours everyday), she has learned so much without much effort (on our end).

She loves to play with Al, and they love to run around the house playing Zombie tag, hide-and-seek, house, doctor, and whatever else their imagination can conjure up. Right now, they are both playing on nintendo ds, and Ellie does a pretty good job pretending to play (with the stylus).

She is so loving and not at the same time.. She will cuddle up to people (familiy members) and give hugs and kisses, then turn around and hit people... (sigh) We are still trying to teach her to control her temper. Threats of time out works most of the time, and sometimes, she just gets reallys stubborn and would rather go in time out than give up and do what we say. (But she always crys when she goes in time out). Sometimes though she feels really generous enough to share her special "blankie" and gives it up to me or Eli.

She's always loved to dance, but she's starting to get into singing. She follows along the Korean nursery songs we have in the car, and her favorite song is "Tomato," just like how Al liked it when he first started singing.

Here she is, with her first piggytail, all ready for church! And yeah.. the purple hair thing only stayed for like 5 minutes before she pulled it out.