The Childress Family: Ryan: 2 Years Old

Wow. Is it June 3rd already? Is it 2013 already? What?!

This little girl has become such an incredible part of our family! Her smile lights up our lives and her energy is contagious! Oh how we love her!!

Ryan definitely has her own personality. I'm not sure where she gets her energy, but she is busy busy busy. So busy! She is also goofy. She loves to make faces and scrunch her nose when she smiles. It's so cute!

Ryan loves to make animal noises. Her favorite happens to be a monkey right now. She loves Curious George. She also loves Bubble Guppies and Dora. Those 3 shows are what we rotate through these days.

Ryan can count to 10, but she doesn't really know that she is counting. Ha! She just knows the numbers from watching her shows. She also knows the colors green and yellow and I'm pretty sure she is catching on to red and blue too.

Her favorite toys are Beckett's toys... when she does play in her room she loves to push her grocery cart and play with her baby doll. She likes to read herself books and has little patience for us reading all the words on each page. She has her own pace when it comes to flipping pages.

Ryan's favorite foods right now are fruits. She loves apples, bananas, strawberries and applesauce. She is also a big fan of carrots and broccoli. She will try just about any food we give her. She might not eat it all, but at least she is adventurous when it comes to food!

Ryan can pretty much talk all day long. We can understand more and more of what she is saying. She can ask for food- apple, banana, carrot, milk, strawberries, chips, pouch (applesauce), and cookie are what we hear a lot of requests for. She can ask for her blankie and paci, she will tell us night night, and she loves to say hat and shoe as well (such a girl right?). If she can't find something, she will say "Oh no, where'd it go?". She loves to say (and play in) water and splash. "Outside" is her favorite place to be!

She is also learning people's names. She can identify and say Mimi, Grandma, Papa, Emi, Dom, Daddy, Momma, Beckett, and Addy.

Ryan also tries to talk along with her shows. She can sing and dance along with Dora and Bubble Guppies and she knows the words to several Curious George episodes! It is not unusual for her to break out in song in the car or when she is playing.

She cracks us up by taking a pen or other stick and saying "Abra-ca-dabra!" Here she is doing it with the play gas can from her play mower.

I love seeing her individual personality come through. Ryan loves to make people laugh. She will do something, like put on a hat, and then look at you and smile as if to say "look at me, I'm silly".

She and Beckett get along really well, but when it comes to sharing they sometimes have issues. Ryan will tell B to "stop it" and she doesn't hesitate to say "no". But she smiles so big when she sees him after nap time and she will say, "Beckett!"

She loves to play and she is usually her happiest when she is chasing the big kids around. She thinks she is a big girl who can do whatever the other big kids are doing. It's so funny!