Happy Birthday, Bella!

Annabel turned two last month, which is almost impossible to believe (except for the fact that we have another tiny baby living at our house, so she darn well better be two, right?).  We were lucky enough to have my mom fly in for the day on her way back from visiting Mike, Kelly, and baby Ruth in North Carolina.

When a crazy little girl turns two, she get to wear her swimsuit while she eats pancakes for breakfast and opens baby dolls from Grammy.

She gets to pick orange "cacakes" and chocolate "I-beam-tones" as her one request for the party.

She gets to have her sisters decorate the house with orange balloons, orange streamers, and orange scraps of paper because orange is her favorite color.

She gets to have so much help opening her presents.

She gets to blow out two candles in one tiny cupcake.

She gets to dress up in whatever she likes.

And best of all, she gets her own "mu-ic", a CD player and CDs to listen to all day and all night long.  (Completely unrelated side note:  How many times can a mom listen to "If You're Happy and You Know It" without losing the last shred of sanity she's clinging to?)

My favorite things about Bella:
*She is almost always happy, and when she's not happy, a minute in time out is all she needs to chill out.
*Our family calls Puff Pancakes "Hootenannies".  Bella calls them either "Auntie Boos" (what my girls call John's sister Rebekah) or "Poopy Panties."  Either one is good for a laugh.
*She loves to swim and she loves to wear a swimming suit even more.
*She's perfectly sweet to her own babydolls and Baby Maddie.
*She chatters happily to me all day long, and when I don't understand what she's saying, she smiles, slows down, and says it all over again.  Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn't.
*She goes to bed like a dream.  (That maybe should be the first thing I listed.  It's the thing that makes my life the easiest.)

I love you, Bella Boo!  I can't believe I've already known you for two years!