Today is Hannah's 2nd birthday! Wahoo. Happy Birthday Hannah. We sure love you!
I wanted to write down some of the things Hannah can do and has accomplished over the last year. In addition I wanted to write down who she is and what she loves at this stage in life. I hope to have Nic add to the list and put his own spin on things later. So here's our little Hannah Bean at age 2:
Accomplishments this year:
Feeds herself, drinks out of cup, walks, jumps, kicks, runs “fast”, huge vocabulary, puts toys away, sleeps great (usually 8 pm to 7 or 8 am with a 2+ hour nap), started nursery (and loves it, when we ask her what she did, she’ll say, “play kids, play toys, snack”)
Words Hannah can say:
Well… just about everything, at least she tries to say everything! She often uses 5-6+ word phrases. There’s an example of something she always says when we are driving, “No in dad truck, in mom’s car.” She has a big vocabulary and is constantly talking and telling me things. She’ll usually say things over and over and over, until I’ve acknowledged what she’s saying. She also has a large sign language vocabulary.
Favorite/least favorite foods:
Ranch dressing (sometimes I’ll ask her what she wants for lunch and she says, “ranch!”She’ll dip anything in ranch: chicken nuggets, veggies, even grapes, whatever is on her plate). She loves milk and juice, grapes and watermelon. She’s a good eater! She’ll go through a little phase every once and awhile were she does eat much of anything, but usually she’ll eat anything she can: vegetables, salt and vinegar potato chips, cookies (of course), skyline chili (spaghetti, chili and cheese), chips and salsa (she’s gotta have the salsa), etc… I can’t think of anything right now that she really doesn’t like (I’ll have to ask Nic).
Things she knows:
Basic body parts, basic shapes (circle, square, oval, star, rectangle, triangle), the alphabet (all the upper case, we haven’t worked much on the lower case, but she knows most of them), animals and animal sounds (my favorite is the rooster, she’ll say “cock-a-doodle-doodle-doodle-do” while kind of flipping the sound), her name (we’ve been working on her full name “Hannah Denise Roach”), she basically know the distinction between boy/girl, man/woman, and kid/adult
Other fun things she says/does:
Her “tricks” these days are jumping while standing(sometimes both feet don’t leave the ground, but its sure cute), bouncing (jumping or bouncing on her bum while sitting on a little chair or landing right on the hard ground), and “Hannah upside-down” (she’ll stand with her feet on the ground, bent over with her head and hands touching the ground. She thinks she’s so cool that she’s upside-down!)
She calls herself in the third person most of the time: Hannah, Hannah girl, Hannah Banana ("Hannah Nanna") and Bean. Its really cute that she’ll call herself her nick-name too. If she spills something or drops something, she’ll say, “Oh, Bean!”
Hannah thinks she’s so funny sometimes. She’ll say “Hannah funny” and laugh. She’s even gotten to where she’ll cover her mouth with her hand and laugh (usually a fake laugh)! What a goof!
This ones not so “fun” but she’s definitely at the 2 stage! Hannah wants to do almost everything herself. These are very common phrases: “Hannah do it!”, “I do it”, or “My do it!” and “Hannah turn.”
She’s a tough little girl. I remember a time when a little boy came over and hit her right in the head and it was loud and hard. Hannah just looked at him without making a sound, with this look that was like ‘why did you do that?’ Just this week she fell and skinned her knee and didn’t even cry. Hannah is one that gets right back up and keeps on moving!
Her favorite songs are "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "I am a Child of God." Every night she asks me to sing one or both of them. She is getting pretty good at singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" on her own and will often sing it or the ABCs while she is playing.
Praying. Hannah loves having a turn to pray. She can start out the prayer herself and then will repeat what I say. She does a pretty good job! She’s great at folding her arms and often is the one who initiates the prayer (even at random times like in the car).
Things Hannah loves:
Outside! She’d probably never come in if she had a choice.
The park. She loves the slide and swings. She thinks she’s so big that she can do it all, and of course by herself!
Going to Mama and Papa's. Both sides. She is always asking to go!
Talking and attention. Sometimes she has to warm up a bit, especially in large groups, but around Nic and I, she talks and talks and loves every ounce of attention.
Books. We read lots of books. Hannah loves reading and looking at the pictures. She loves being read to. She’ll often be sitting on the couch, pat it with her hand and say, “mommy, it (sit)” because she wants me to read to her.
Signing Time. Boy, does she love watching Signing Time! She also loves signing.
Animals. Especially from a distance, but she’s warming up with them close by too.
Daddy throwing her in the air. Hannah will laugh and laugh as Nic throws her up in the air, “more” she’ll say! She loves playing with Daddy. He always makes her laugh.
Mommy. I had to add myself to the list too! Sometimes she just wants “mommy” and nothing else will do.
Happy Birthday Hannah. I am so lucky to be your mom! You have such a fun personality and beautiful little spirit. Thanks for being you.
Hannah loves playing with her baby dolls, especially recently. She will feed them and put them down for naps, take them on walks and dance with them. One day she kept saying "Megan" and after a while I figured out she had named one of her babies that. I'd ask what the name was of one of her other babies and she'd say "baby." I suggested Sophie and she's been calling it that ever since. Then the third baby was named a couple days later when she started calling it Graysen (one of her cousins names). Since they've been named, she hasn't forgotten (or gotten them mixed up!) She'll ask "where's baby Megan?" or tell me she's taking Sophie for a walk or that Graysen is thirsty. What a girl she is... and a cute one at that!
