Maylene: age 2.5

I haven't posted an update on our girl in a while. Here's a little bit about Miss MayMay right now...

-Maylene does not stop talking now! She will say Mommy 1000 times a day and I have to look at her and say "yes" so she knows I'm paying attention to her, otherwise she will never stop saying my name. She asks tons of questions and gets excited when she hears every single airplane that flies over our house throughout the day. 

-Favorite foods are CEREAL (she begs for cereal all day, but only gets it for breakfast), pretzels, sandwiches, strawberries, "noodles" = ramen, "treats" = peanut butter m&ms, donuts, milk in a "ba ba" (slippy cup), and cheese. 

-Favorite song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, she will sing it over and over again. She is also pretty good at singing the ABCs, only mixing up a few letters. 

-Loves counting things and is trying to learn 11-20 right now, but says them all out of order. 

-Tells me her name is "Mayween" many times a day and that she's two. She asks me my name and age, and actually remembers now that I'm 25. She says, "You're not 2, Mommy's 25!"

-Favorite TV show is Little Einsteins, she calls it "Rocket" and begs for it constantly.  She also loves Thomas the Train, Jake and the Neverland Pirates & Daniel Tiger. For movies she still loves any and all Disney movies.

-Favorite Toys are Princesses, Woody, Teddy Bear, Baby Stoller

-She loves to help me put the clothes in the dryer and is good about cleaning up messes.

-Loves reading books! 

-For bed time every night Daddy reads her a story (her current favorite is 'Pout Pout Fish' that Erin gave her for Christmas). After the story we turn on her Princess night light and say prayer. She has been pretty goofy about prayers lately, but when she is good she can say most of her own prayer. When she says her own prayer it sounds something like this:

Heddy Fader, fank be for dis day. fank be for fangiwy (family), for daddy, for mommy, for Nannie, for Grandpa, for Grandma, for Kacie, for toys, for bed, for door. (then she will start saying "fank be for you, ....for you, ...for you" pointing at random objects in her room.) Please help be safe, sweep good. i wuve you. in the name, Christ amen. 

After prayer we give hugs and kisses & sing a song or wind up a music toy she likes. She sleeps with SO many stuffed animals, there's barely enough room for her in the bed!

-She loves being outside. She loves to ride her tricycle, go on walks in the stroller or ride in the bike trailer when we go on family bike rides. LOVES bubbles so so much. 

-She is normally happy to go play at the gym while I work out every day and gets excited to play with "friends" she makes there. 

- Her best friends are Aubrey, our next door neighbor who is 1 year older, Alice, Camdyn, Afton & AJ. She misses her friend Beckham who moved to South Carolina!

-Maylene loves princesses and dress up. She knows all of the Disney Princesses and loves to read her Princess books and dress up in princess dresses. She loves shoes, purses and "wip gwoss & chasticks" 

-She is finally pretty good in church. As long as we have fruit snacks and stickers it will hold her over for most of sacrament meeting. She loves nursery and is always excited to wear a dress and go to church with us. 

-She always makes sure we have our phones in our hands. If we leave our phone on the counter she will pick it up and give it back saying, "dat's Daddy's" or "here ya go Mommy, dat's Mommy's phone."

-The words she says wrong but I don't want to correct are "squalella" (Cinderella), "fisk it" (fix it), "Keep doing dat!" (Quit doing that), "cacorn" (popcorn), "nail" & "nop" (mail & mop).

-Wants to do EVERYTHING by herself with no help... "My turn" "MayMay do it" "MY do it!" are a few very common phrases. I have to take a lot of deep breaths every day....

We started potty training over a week ago. Things are going pretty good. She loved getting treats and stickers for going on the potty. And she LOVES panties, she wants to wear all of them at once or change them out every 10 minutes. She still has a couple accidents per day but hopefully she'll get the hang of it shortly. 

We love our smart and active girl! She is still very wild, determined and opinionated. But it is fun to see her learning and growing every day, and she keeps us laughing constantly. I want to put her in dance or gymnastics soon, I think she would love it. Though mom life is tough, I'm so glad she's ours. Love you MayMay.