Ally's 2nd Birthday!

My little girl is two years old!  It's so strange to see how she's grown-

birth

1 year old

2 years old

According to my babycenter.com weekly e-mails, she is now a "pre-schooler" instead of a toddler.  I'm not sure I believe that.  Whatever you call her though, she is quite the character and smart as a whip.  She is loving being an older sister.  We hear constantly, "Aww," "Cute," and "Mine" from her when she's referring to Jacob.  She loves to hold him, though she gets done with that if he starts to wiggle much or cry.  She'll lay on the floor and play with him, or bounce him in his bouncer (he's not so fond of that one), and try to give him his dummy - whether he wants it or not. 

Tonight we were getting her ready for bed and I had Jacob on the floor in her room with me.  I picked Jacob up so she could give him a hug.  She did that very well, but Jacob, being two months old, still doesn't have great control of his head and wapped her on the chin with his head.  Neither of them liked that much.  It was hard not to laugh though, when Ally grabbed her chin with one hand and wagged her finger on the other hand saying, "No, no, Jacob."  It's funny how much she learns just by observing.  We are really having to start watching what we do and say around her!  She's started clapping her hands when she says "No!"  Ernest and I had both done that at times when we were trying to get her attention. 

One of the sweetest things she does now is stroke your face and say, "Mine."  Or, she'll say "My Mama" or "My Dada" or whoever you might be.  Very possessive, but so nice.  When she wakes up from naps she'll usually give me a sleepy smile and then say "noo noo" which is how she says "Love You."  She has stolen my heart. 

Other things she does now - Jumps.  All of the time.  And she says "jump jump jump" when she does it.  Makes the sound of any animal that she sees or hears you mention.  One of my favorites now is "ribbit."  Wants to do EVERYTHING herself.  We hear "No! Me!" a lot.   We try to let her be independent and try not to get frustrated when it slows us way down or makes a bigger mess.  Throws her food on the floor if we don't get it off her high chair quick enough when she's done.  Loves to clean anything with a wipe.  The walls, her toys, her face, her shoes, Jacob - so we have to watch pretty close.  She still hates to go to sleep.  Though now she insists that I stand in her doorway and sing to her before she falls asleep.  It's sweet the first 3 or 4 times I sing the lullaby to her.  She's quite good with colors now, and is learning numbers (she thinks counting starts with two though, not one), and even trying do to Left and Right with her. 

For her birthday, which was a couple of weeks ago, we just had cake and ice cream and invited our family and a couple of friends over.  With such a large family around here it gets hard to do things with very many other people, especially inside in February.  Anyway, we didn't do anything big.  But I did try my hand at a birthday cake for her again.  She's been very into Dora the Explorer lately, so I decided to do a Dora cake.  I decided to go get her a Dora figurine from the toy section of the store and use that as a combination gift and cake decoration.  I was very disappointed in the selection at Walmart and was too tired to go anywhere else.  We ended up with a Bath Time Castle which had a Dora and a Boots in it, both dressed in medival attire.  So there went my plan of an outdoor adventure cake.  Now I needed a castle.

My neice, Sophie, volunteered to come over and help me decorate the cake.  I made marshmallow fondant and a milk chocolate layer cake.  I love this fondant, by the way.  So easy to make, easy to use, and tastes great.  First I did a two-layer square cake.  We tried to use smaller squares of cake to make turrets, but I couldn't get them covered neatly in fondant.  So, I took four of Ally's small snack cups and covered them in fondant.  Then we used cookie cutters to cut out fondant and decorated the rest of the cake.  We used icing to stick the fondant pieces on.  I thought the end result was cute and it tasted really good.  I really need to do this more often so that I can get better at it!