Happy 2nd birthday Halli Ann!

Halli turned two! two weeks ago.
Blogging has been a struggle lately and I don't even have a newborn yet! So hopefully I can get the motivation to hop back onto the blogging train. 

This year was a little different than last in terms of what I put into her birthday party. I just couldn't do the same amount of work and attention to detail as I did for her 1st for obvious reasons called the middle of a third trimester pregnancy. But it was a success and I tried to stress as little as possible about it. I didn't bake a thing and it was awesome! I ordered and bought EVERYTHING this year. We ordered Papa Murphy's specialty pizzas and had friends help with the baking since we only had one oven and Tyler took over the baking of the pizzas so like I said: zero baking for me! =D We ordered sweet rolls from a yummy nearby bakery instead of cupcakes or cookies etc. It was Tyler's request =) My sweet mom brought an assortment of fruit and watermelon. It all turned out great! I took a few pics but just didn't really stress over getting every detail and moment this year. I even spaced getting a pic of the three of us with her cake or presents. Oh well!

Here are the invites I had made by my talented friend Ashley.

my mama

I bought the tassels at hobby lobby already cut and just had to twist them and string them along. They were too heavy to tape so I had to tie them to the light fixtures.

I bought the burlap pennant banner already made at Hobby Lobby and then tied ribbon and clothes pinned some pictures =)

spoiled with presents!

Halli with her Grandma Jana and Grandpa (Tyler's mom)

She got a picnic basket full of plastic picnic food from my Mom that she immediately walked to the door with to go outside to have a picnic =)

Halli's first potty! That flushes and everything =) She loves it. 

She loves her abcs =)

Got some cute headbands from Aunt Maddy but she wasn't in the mood.

special "nail polish" just for Halli. It's called Piggy Toes and it's "as natural as mud." Pretty much like paint. It wiped off her skin with a wet paper towel but stayed on her toes for a while!

Halli's first time giving herself a pedicure =)

She has so many bouncy balls. You can never have too many!

Her favorite gift(which was from us =) We actually ended up taking it back to get her something a little bigger that she picked out herself cause her legs were a little long for this and it looked like a lot of work for her to push herself around =)

I custom ordered her cake from Target.

It was delish!

Unlike her cake smash last year, she only took about one bite WITH A FORK of her cake and then signed "all done" it was pretty funny =) Here are videos for those who care. She blew out her candles like a pro! =)

She even wiped her own hands clean with a napkin. I guess i'm raising a neat child. I am constantly wiping her hands though so i'm not that surprised that she doesn't especially enjoy getting messy.  

this one is a longer one full of all the details =)

These are the cake eating and singing split up

We took some family pictures at the Alpine poppy fields and here are a few of her.

 her outfit is from H&M and her jeans are 4-6 months. Her shirt is 12 months. H&M runs big!

I probably need to talk about Halli now but there is so much to say I don't know where to start!
She is my sweet crazy girl. I don't know how I can love her so much and then the next moment want to throw in the towel. She is definitely going through some crazy two year old mood swings and has decided she doesn't want her bedtime to be at 8 anymore. She has a little attitude (Tyler calls it her "tude") but for the most part is such a sweetheart. Despite our efforts, she still has no idea what the word "share" means but I think that will just come with maturity.
I know this sounds so selfish but sometimes I miss making all her decisions haha. She has such an opinion now! On everything! Except her outfits thankfully. Not quite there yet but pretty much everything else she does and eats! We have to convince her to do everything if she doesn't want to do it at first. It's quite the patience builder =)

She loves patting my belly, kissing/hugging my belly while saying baby sissy. It melts my heart! I only hope she still loves baby sissy when she is actually here! Today she was playing a game on my phone and then randomly patted my belly sweetly and said "baby sissy." Then went back to playing her game. Such a a sweetheart! I am getting more excited to finally introduce baby sissy =)

One thing that has been really hard is she is such a momma's girl lately. She won't even let Tyler get her out of her car seat. She'll yell "mommy! mommy!" every time we park and if we tell her no and have Tyler get her out she will meltdown. Like seriously the end of the world meltdown that is so not worth dealing with just to have Tyler take her out. I'm sure once the baby gets here she will change cause she gets so jealous when she sees Tyler with babies. But the hard part is getting her ready at night. Some nights she won't let Tyler do a thing for her which really wears on me. We get her ready for bed together so it was really weird when she stopped letting him to anything for her. Read to her? nope! Change her diaper? nope! Get her pj's on? nope! Aggh! I have to completely leave the apartment or she usually cries for me to do it. Tyler hates it =( I don't know what to do about it. I guess you can't expect much different when I take care of her all day. She still loves Tyler though and hates sharing him with other toddlers/babies which doesn't make sense! Oh well. I sure hope it's just a phase! The weekend before her birthday I was gone the whole day shopping and doing errands and she had a blast with him so that's comforting. And frustrating haha.

She loves her potty and the show "Potty Time" by the Signing Time peeps. She carries her potty around with her into every room. I'm not potty training her until after the baby gets here but it's awesome that she is loving the potty already. She has yet to actually go potty in the potty but that's not a big deal to me.

I hate to flat out brag about my child, but I thought i'd mention it for the record that Halli can sing her whole abc's and knows her colors and can count to 5 sometimes 10 with a little help. I know lots of other kids her age can probably do this but I have no idea and for us it's a big deal since she barely said 5 words at 18 months!
Halli can say so much these days but here are some cute things I can think of right now:
"dood it" When she wants to do something herself.
"hold it"
"help you" when she either wants help she says help you because that's what we say to her. Halli can we help you? Or if she
"carry you" when she wants to be carried.
"self" when she wants to do it by herself obviously.
"physics" fruit snacks. It took us a little while to understand what it was she was wanting at first. She has gotten better at annunciating fruit snacks but it still occasionally sounds like physics =)
"fide" She gets little fluoride tablets at night right before bed. She loves them and she never lets us forget to give them to her. She loves her teeth brushing, hand washing and flossing bedtime regimen =) Sometimes we'll wash
"pink" pink is the color of both her water bottles that she drinks from so if I ever giver her water in anything else she whines pink pink meaning her pink water bottle.
"up kigh" or "kigh" No idea why she says "K" instead of "H" for high but she does. When she want us to either throw her up high or the the ball high she'll say "kigh!"
"pikachures" meaning pictures. We get monthly GrooveBooks and she loves looking through them. We do it almost daily.
"A mess" She's not a huge fan of messes and after she enjoys a popsicle she insists to be immediately wiped clean of the melted mess.
"pockles" she loves popsicles. She occasionally says the word correctly but I think it's cute.
"change da bum bum/diaper" or "poo poo bum bum" whenever she is poopy (or bored) she'll get her changing pad out and sometimes even a diaper and wipes for us to change her bum.
"la loo" or "i lav loo" I love you =) It's my favorite thing to hear her say I love you Daddy or I love you Mommy =)
"ground" when she wants you to sit on the floor with her.
She loves adding "ie" to everything like juicie and chippies, shoesies, feetsies, milkie etc. It's because I do it as part of my baby talk to her. I should probably stop but I think it's so cute!
When she is fighting her 8 o clock bedtime she'll sob "come on Mommmyyyy!" it's heartbreaking =(

Halli loves signing words still and watching the show but i've noticed she makes up her own signs. Like when she wants her pacifier or a drink, she moves her arm up and down at the elbow. Kind of like the sign for outside if you know what that is.
She calls her binky "bink." Yes she still takes her binky but only at naps and bedtime.
She loves her "monkey" "teddy" "ephant" and "babies." She usually has to sleep with all of them with her.
She loves to turn on "noise" by herself when we put her down for naps or bed. She has slept with white noise since she was born. She usually turns it up way too loud and we then turn it down. Which reminds me of when my sweet girlfriend was baby sitting and didn't know how loud it should be. So she let Halli turn it on for bed and didn't turn it down at all. Halli still slept soundly the whole night with blasting white noise haha. It made us laugh =)

I love that Halli now repeats everything we say which is kind of scary too! Tyler says whats up a lot and now Halli will say "sup" and "whassup." The cutest thing is that she is starting to repeat prayers. She usually says the last word of what we say. Like "please bless this food." she'll say "food." or "bless food" and so on. But she loves loudly announcing amen when it's over =)


Anybody care to know her 2 year check up stats?
She weighs a whopping 21 lbs 10 oz! Putting her in the 1% haha.
32 inches long which puts her all the way up in the 14% yay! =)

She's a tiny thing and i'm thankful. I couldn't still carry her around in my condition with her weighing any heavier.
Okay I know there's probably more I could say about this little one of mine but I need to start a post about my 36 week mark! Eek! Less than a month till my due date!