Nelle Turns Two

10.12.15 Ali Moore 1 Comments

Our middle turned two today!

And as is typical of Andrew and I these days/weeks/months/last four years trying to keep afloat as our family has grown to three, three and under,

we couldn't find the candles after dinner to put on Nelle's cupcake.

Nelle and I stole away to the store together to pick some out (literally probably 30 minutes after I got back picking up frosting ingredients...we are on the top of our game people), and she walked like a big girl through the aisles with me, jabbering the entire way there, as we were in the store, and the entire way back. We stopped to fill up my car, and I peeked in at her as I stood outside by the pump, and her entire face lit up as she smiled and raised her little dimpled hand to wave at me.

And that's our girl.

The (first) one I thought was a boy. The one that ends every bye-bye with blowing a kiss. The one that makes sure to kiss us all goodnight before bedtime and sneaks into our bed every once in a while at night to cuddle up to Daddy. (And kick me.) The one that could play babies for hours...and does - carefully wrapping each one up in a blanket, shusshing them, rocking them, hugging them, kissing, them, burping them, and putting them to sleep. The one that makes you feel like the best thing on Earth just when she smiles at you because she smiles with everything she's got.

We got her a high chair for her dollies for her birthday

(plus a new glitter purse with a Lip Smackers in it that she beamed at

and called her lipstick! and then slathered it all over her mouth for 10 minutes),

and she spent the morning feeding her baby as Andrew and I got everything ready

to take our brood to the zoo.

I heard her ask her baby if she wanted a hamburger, and I thought, that's about right. Our girl that picks off all the beef on top of her pizza to eat first before anything else.

A girl after her grandpa's heart for sure.

She's so happy with the simplest things.

Wants to be held still all day long and asks "up peas?" 131 times per day,

not to be rivaled with how many times she answers "uh huh" each day...493.

Chugs everything she drinks, which will surely be interesting as she gets older.

She's so articulate already, working new words and sentences into perfect context every day. One of her favorites being "either". "I don't want it EI-THER, Mommy." Because she also tacks on "Mommy" to everything she says too.

Those lashes, her curls, and pouty pouty mouth. She's such a doll.

She's sensitive and nurturing, and full of big emotions. She full on gallops when she's excited, is the bounciest little runner, horribly clumsy, and blood-curdling screams multiple times a day when she's upset. She refuses to look at Andrew when he's scolding her, and is her Henney's little tag-along doing just about anything he tells her.