I'm a couple of months late with this post, but better late than never! Isaac and Audrey are 2 1/2 years old, and they have grown so much since they turned two. Well...they haven't physically grown much (still shy of 35inches), but boy have their minds and personalities grown!
Here's what you should know about them at this age:
Audrey
1. Audrey loves to sing and she has some favorites that we have the pleasure of hearing almost every day: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jingle Bells, and Baa Baa Black Sheep. She knows every word, and it's so fun to hear her singing in her high-pitched voice when she's in a great mood!
2. While she has lost a little bit of her interest in books (hoping it's temporary!), she likes to flip the pages of her favorite stories and recite them line by line. Her memory is incredible--she can memorize whole sentences in stories after hearing them just a couple of times. She also likes to pretend (or attempt?) to read on her own--she understands that letters make up words and I've watched her imitate me by running her fingers under the words as she recites the story. Her favorites:
Weather (Winnie the Pooh),
Click Clack Moo (Cows that Type),
Go Away Big Green Monster, and any of the
Llama Llama stories or
Thomas the Train stories.
3. Audrey prefers trains and cars to dolls and stuffed animals. While she loves to wear pigtails (like Mom's ponytail) and gets excited when she gets to wear sticker earrings, you won't find her playing with too many stereotypical "girly" toys; rather, she's right there with the boys to fight over who gets to play with which Thomas trains and whose turn it is with the monster truck!
4. Audrey has started to use her imagination more, and she has different voices she uses for different characters she acts out. For example, she loves to put raspberries on each of her fingers and pretend they're talking to us and she has a special voice she uses (a loving, motherly voice) when she talks to her favorite blankie. It's so sweet and adorable!
5. Audrey is our human vacuum/broom/washcloth/toy picker-upper! She loves to clean and to vacuum--and, in fact, it really bothers her if we leave any trace of mess behind! It's wonderful to have another person in the house to enforce the cleaning rules. :) It also upsets her to see litter on the ground outside--she likes to exclaim, "Oh no!" and point out every little scrap on our street.
6. Some of her favorites at this age include:
Favorite foods: yogurt, ice cream, breads
Favorite toys: monster truck, Harold the helicopter and Toby the train, Legos
Favorite activities: playing with trains, puzzles, lacing boards, listening to/singing along with her CDs, bubble baths, and playing the "monkey game" on the iPad
Favorite animals: penguins, zebras, "puppy dogs"
Favorite movies:
Thomas the Train, Toy Story 3, Lion King, Bambi, and
Elmo's World - The Great Outdoors
Favorite phrases: "Oh no!", "No, Isaac!", "Put it here, Isaac! HERE!", "Share please," "Tuck you (me) in!", and "Where'd Dada go?" (these are the phrases we hear several, several times a day!)
Isaac
1. Isaac is such a thoughtful, reflective kid. We hear a lot of "um..." and "uh..." from him as he spends time forming his thoughts into words, and when his ideas come out, they are so creative and have so much depth! You can tell that he is absorbing everything around him and beginning to understand how things relate to one another. Ask him any question, give him five seconds to think about it, and there's a good chance you'll hear a great (and usually correct) answer! If he doesn't know the answer, he's also honest as well...he'll think about it and then finally shrug his shoulders and say, "I don't know, Mama!"
2. He's also very passionate about specific interests and once he finds a toy or hobby he loves, it's all he wants to do! Right now, he's really into Thomas the Train (and friends--his favorite train is Gordon) and the movie
Cars. He knows the names of all of the Thomas and Friends trains and is quick to correct you if you call a train by the wrong name. I think this is amazing...given they all look so similar to me!
3. Isaac continues to like all birds, but he LOVES bald eagles. At day care, they follow the live-stream of the Decorah eagle nest online (due to lay eggs any day now!) and his teacher Nancy has introduced him to some great books about eagles. He knows what kinds of food they eat, where they live, how they catch their prey (with their talons), and I'm sure so much more! We took him eagle watching down in Iowa last weekend along the river and he was in his glory (we must have seen about 30 bald eagles!).
4. Isaac continues to love listening to stories. While
Thomas the Train books are always the favorite, I can still get him to sit through just about any book, and often several books at a time. This has served us well on long car trips down to Iowa--we no longer have a portable DVD player, and so we rely on lots of books to keep him and Audrey occupied!
5. He's a very physical kid--he loves to run, jump, climb, and (occasionally) hit/bite. But he also loves to hold my hand, dance to music, wrestle with his sister, and gives the biggest and longest hugs! There's nothing better at the end of the day than having Isaac race over to me and throw himself into my arms in a big bear hug!
6. Some of Isaac's favorites at this age include:
Favorite foods: strawberries, blueberries, apples...basically any kind of fruit
Favorite toys: Gordon and James (trains), monster truck, toy cars
Favorite activities: playing with trains, playing Elefun, watching
Cars, and reading stories
Favorite animals: bald eagles, sharks, and penguins
Favorite movies:
Cars, Toy Story 3, Bambi, Barney
Favorite phrases: "No, Audrey!" (followed by a detailed sentence about what he doesn't want her to do), "I want ________," "Mama/Dada do it," and "Can we watch
Cars?"
We love you guys! Happy 2 1/2 years!
