Two

Two years ago tomorrow, this little bundle of fire joined our family and changed our hearts and world forever!  When you have only one child, you love that child so much and I wondered how I could love another one as much as I loved Grady...  It's hard to imagine that before it happens, but the moment she arrived, it was instant love at first sight!  She and Grady are SO incredibly different.  Their personalities are night and day and it makes me laugh just about every day, thinking about how opposite they are!

 My sweet small group friends and I are currently reading a wonderful book together called  Praying Circles Around Your Children.  The author hits home when he says that you don't love your children EQUALLY, but rather you love them UNIQUELY as each child is so unique in himself/herself!  How true that is!  And how very unique little Miss Vera Helen is!!!

 She keeps us rolling in laughter all the time!  There is never a dull moment.  Our lives were quiet and calm before she arrived.  But after she got here, things are rather lively and we have to stay on our toes!  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  Grady thinks his sister is hilarious.  He often can be quoted as saying, "That girl cracks me up!"

 She is so smart...(I know, I am biased...  but it's her birthday and I can brag on her today!)  She can count to ten, sing her ABC's, (and a variety of other songs that you can clearly understand the lyrics to as she sings them!)  She is speaking in complete sentences really well and has such an extensive vocabulary that I am blown away every day with new words she will say that I didn't even know she knew!  (Insert side note...I LOVE her teachers and they need so much praise for doing SO much more than just babysitting her at school!  We are so very blessed to have them in her life!)

 She is MISS PRISS 50% of the time and TOM BOY the other half.  She loves her "babies" and Disney Princesses and Minnie Mouse of course!  She parades around the house in her light-up Minnie Mouse shoes that are 4 sizes too big (Thanks, Aunt Sue), 15 bangle bracelets, purse, and cell phone like she is on a shopping spree mission.  And then Grady dumps the cars, trucks, and legos out on the floor and she sheds the girly get-up in 5 seconds and is immediately down in the floor, fighting him over the biggest bulldozer!

 She LOVES animals!  Live ones, pretend ones, ones on TV... I can't wait to take bunny pictures next week and see what she'll do with the bunnies!  She calls most animals by name and the ones she doesn't know, she asks me, "Mama, what's that?"  I'll tell her, "That's a walrus" and she always repeats in such a matter-of-fact way like she knew it anyway, "WALRUS!!!  Oh!"

 The girl likes to eat!  And Eat...  And eat...  Hence the belly!  ha.  But she's not the same kind of eater as Grady-man is.  He is my healthy guy.  She's my meat-and-potatoes girl.  Grady goes for the vegetables first and asks for seconds on them and eats salads like they are candy.  Vera shovels in the meat and potatoes and pushes the veggies off her plate or just squishes them up in her fists.  AGH!

 She's a boss, too.  (Gee, I wonder where on earth that trait came from...???  ha!)  She is QUICK to tell you NO or STOP THAT or tattle tale on her brother or her daddy too!  ha.  Lately, she's started calling Josh by his name instead of Daddy.  Drives him nuts.  She's heard me call him that and she thinks it's funny that it gets on his nerves...

We are so blessed to have this little BIG GIRL in our lives and I look forward to what this year holds for our two-year old! (As Josh chants..."potty-training, potty-training, potty-training!)  What a precious gift from God she is!  Happy birthday, little V!