Nora Kate 2 Years

This will be the last monthly update for Nora Kate.  Her next update will come at 2.5 years.  Our sweet baby girl is now TWO!  Nora Kate turned two on Friday, August 14, 2015.  

Nora Kate's big personality is growing more and more each day! :)  She loves to be loud and rowdy with the boys, but she can also be sweet and snuggly when she wants too.  She LOVES books, baby dolls, and my little pony.  She names all of her baby dolls "Baby Zoe" after her cousin.  

Nora Kate's favorite person is her Daddy right now.  She talks about him non-stop when he's at work and wants to be right with him when he's home!  Daddy's girl!  

She is quick to make a mess, but just as quick to clean it up!  She knows where toys go and will generally start picking (some) things up when she's done without being asked.

Nora Kate always knows exactly what she wants and is getting so good at communicating that everyone else ususally knows exactly what she wants too (as she likes to voice this in a LOUD voice)!  John thinks she's our loudest kid! haha!

Nora Kate puts lots and lots of words together to make long sentences.  One of my recent favorite longer sentences came on a morning I was trying to dress her in her older athletic shoes to wear to Dollywood and she declared, "No, I want to wear my pretty shoes!!"  She's been making me laugh lately because when she doesn't like or want to eat something she will say,  "I can't like it! NO!!" (Instead of "I DON'T like it")
One of Nora Kate's favorite topics right now is favorites.  And EVERYTHING is her favorite.  All day long I hear, "That's my favorite" (pronounced "fab-o-rit").  "That songs my favorite" "That pony is my favorite" "Ice cream is my favorite" "Daddy is my favorite"  Yes, she has actually informed me that Daddy is her favorite, as if I didn't already know.  

Nora Kate has become more interested in her clothes than ever lately and will tell me what she wants (or doesn't want) to wear.  She cares about this so much more than the boys did at her age!  She always requests a hairbow and pony tail (which is really just a small amount of hair pulled up in a pony tail rubber band).  We use a pick on her curls and I love hearing her walk in the bathroom and say, "Where my pick go?!"  Haha!

The biggest news for this update is that Nora Kate is 100% potty trained during the day!! She still sleeps in a diaper, but that's not bad at all!  She loves wearing panties and talks about how she is a big girl.  When the boys were potty training we used to give them gummies as a reward when they would go potty.  All Nora Kate wanted to was to go tell the boys that she used the potty.  They cheer for her and that's what she loves best!  Even though she's potty trained now, every time she goes potty she still walks in the room and says, "Everybody, hey everybody I go potty!" and waits on her cheers! Haha!  The other thing Nora Kate does with going to the bathroom that we got a kick out of is asking for privacy!  She's learned this from Dawson who doesn't want Carter or Nora Kate following him to the bathroom.  She tells us, "No! Go out! Close door! Need privacy!"  She apparently even tells this to her Sunday School teacher as it was reported to me! Oh my, Nora Kate! What will we do with you!?  ;)

Unfortunately Nora Kate's 2 year check up isn't until September (I'm not sure why), so I will have to come back and update her weight and height stats after that appointment.
**** UPDATE:  Nora Kate has now had her 2 year check up.  She weighs 31.5 pounds and is in the 92nd percentile for weight.  Nora Kate is 34.7 inches tall putting her in the 75th percentile for height.  Dr. Booher said that Nora Kate was doing "exceptional" and that he loved her fun personality.  He was also impressed that she was potty trained and with how well and how much she talked. 

Our sweet, opinionated, blue eyed, blonde curly headed, loud, loving, book worm, silly, precious baby girl is TWO and we love her more than ever!

Can't believe this sweetie is TWO!

 

Nora Kate's Sweet 2nd Birthday Party

Nora Kate turned two on Friday, August 14th!  On her birthday we celebrated by playing with all her favorite toys at home.  Then when John got home from work we gave her birthday presents from us and the boys!  She was so excited to walk in the sunroom and find her gifts from us!

 

She loves her ballgame chair, and now the boys won't be upset with her for wanting to sit in theirs! 

 

Dawson chose to give Nora Kate candy for her birthday. She loved it and it earned him this sweet hug from his sister!

After celebrating Friday night, we woke up to have Nora Kate's birthday party at our house on Saturday morning.  Here I am with the party girl right before the party!  Love her!

Nora Kate LOVES ice cream and she LOVES going to FroYoz where she can get frozen yogurt and pick her own toppings to mix in.  She actually refers to it as "Mr. FroYoz" I think because it's beside Mr. Gatti's  haha!  Every time we drive by she says, "There's Mr. FroYoz!"  Anyway, thinking that August would be really hot and of her love of ice cream we decided to have a sweet ice cream party for our sweet 2 year old. 

Even though there was only a 10 percent chance of rain for the day of Nora Kate's party, it was unfortunately raining when her party began so all the guests had to start out inside.  Thankfully this didn't last long and we were able to go outside and it wasn't even hot!

Here are some of the party guests!

We were excited for everyone to get to enjoy our new playset.  The sand was a hit!

We had the smaller inflatable set up in the backyard.

With all the kids at the party to play with, Dawson, Carter, and Nora Kate ended up wrestling around with each other in this inflatable!

Inflatable fun!

Look at those blonde curls!

mid air!

Here lately we have been letting Dawson have Sprite when it's a special occasion.  Dawson saw we had Sprite (ideally for the parents) at Nora Kate's party and was pretty pumped to get Sprite on this special occasion! haha!

And, of course, we had to get a girly bounce for our girly girl!  We set this one up on the driveway. The kids loved it!

Getting ready to sing to the birthday girl!

Blowing out the candle!

 

 

napkins

This little ice cream cone shooter was the most popular item in the kids goodie bags! They loved these things!

The cake I made for Nora Kate's 2nd birthday.

Strawberry cake with buttercream frosting.

The ice cream cone part is made with brown sugar.

To stick with her love of the mix ins at FroYoz, we had all kids of mix ins and too many flavors of ice cream for the kids to choose between.  We also had a big tray of fruit and cheese and crackers and pink goldfish crackers!

I think the party wore our 2 year old out!

Here's a picture where you can see some of the candy in the kids goodie bags.

Here's the invitation for her party.  The awkward box on the bottom is just where I covered our address for purposes of posting this invitation on the blog!

 

I always try to keep a list of all the party attendants from year to year.  The friends who attended Nora Kate's 2nd birthday party at our house included: John, me, Dawson, Carter, the Whites (drove from NC!), the Ouarts, the Everetts, the Gibsons, Shanks, Myers, Coppengers, Andersons, Davidsons, Nana and Grandad, Emily Eric and Zoe, Lolly and Pop, Uncle Logan--so I think in all we had 27 adults, 19 kids, and two infants for a total of 48 people!

We are so thankful that we have such wonderful friends who are willing to spend their Saturday morning helping to celebrate our sweet girl turning 2!  You all helped make her day special!