Happy 2nd Birthday, Morgan Addison!

Our "baby" turns TWO today. How is that possible? She's still our BABY. As in we still cuddle her like she's small. We still love her like a tiny person (although she's very much the opposite now and lets it be known routinely).

And so after sounding all sad and forlorn that my baby is turning 2 (is she still a toddler?? I think so...), I'll turn on my happy words and say how very EXCITED I am that she's TWO. She can do SO many things and with the pending needytouchmeconstantlyinfant's arrival soon, I'm counting my blessings with all the things she can do, say, and know. I'll make a brief list (or try my best to do so) of where she's at developmentally but we couldn't be more proud of our little Morgan (who's not so little - we'll find out her size/percentiles tomorrow morning at her well check) and she's the world to us (like that's not the most obvious thing...Liss, you have a nose on your face. Liss, Morgan means the world to you and Adam. Catch my drift?).

Motor Skills:

• Morgan LOVES to climb at the park - ladders, climbing walls, anything. She will make sure you're there to watch her (usually) but really loves this. 
• She likes to "long jump" and hop all the time (esp in the store, awesome). 
• Morgan walks up and down steps holding the railing although sometimes she'll crawl (me too...ha) and sometimes she alternates her feet if she's holding someone's hand.
• She runs. And runs. And thinks that's what's supposed to happen when you put shoes on.
• She likes to write/color and has almost the right grasp probably half the time...sorry, I forgot my OT words here. Morgan also holds her silverware (when she chooses to use it) with an overhand posture but is starting to use an adult grip sometimes.

Language Skills (squee!):

• She can talk a blue streak. Morgan uses sentences that are up to 6 words in length sometimes and often Adam will find me with my mouth wide open, fingers counting and being amazed at the words she puts together. One of these days I'm going to have to take a language sample. :) Meh...maybe not.
• Morgan can follow at least 2 step directions (receptively) and sometimes 3. I often wonder how much of that is choice vs. comprehension. ;-)
• She adds plurals, -ing, etc etc and I realize I'm starting to get work report-y here so I'll stop. To sum up, she's a SLP's dream child in terms of her language skills. ::angels singing::

Cognitive Skills (and here's another squee!):

• Morgan knows and can name all her upper and lower case letters. She totally learned lower case letters from the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" in the past 3 weeks. 
• Morgan can tell you the corresponding sounds that go with said letters for about 1/3-1/2 of the alphabet. 
• She's into counting and can consistently count to 15, almost up to 20 with consistency. 
• She can figure things out. She thinks while she plays. She likes to read to her babies as well as her baby sister. She remembers TONS of words from her favorite books and will say them while "reading." 
• She uses lots of adjectives. This is fun...

So now that I've put some things out there about where she's at, we're eager to see where the next year goes. It will be a big year, with Morgan getting a baby sister for Christmas and all of the fun things that come with the age of two. I don't mean the "terrible two" stereotype - I mean to watch her grow and learn and be happy. We're so lucky to have her! I will post pictures soon along with this post of all her birthday happenings. If you have Facebook, you've likely seen most of them.

For now, Happy Birthday, my wonderful little girl. We are so proud of you and we love so very much!