Michaela: two

I had fun looking back to when she turned one year old, and of course, to my unbeliveable post about the day she was born.  This year the school Christmas program was the same day as Michaela's birthday.  We made cookies to take to the reception and plenty more for ourselves and we shared some ice-cream with family.  No pictures of that (I didn't put candles in the ice-cream for her to blow out - though we would have let her blow out the two candles on the Advent Wreath for the 2nd Sunday of Advent if unnamed children hadn't destroyed the wreath and broken the candles.) At least I did get a good one of Michaela with her Aunt Andrea, below.

The kids all chipped in a dollar to get her a new stuffed froggy - her favorite animal.  I'm bummed that I had the flash pointed the wrong way and this picture is overexposed.  It would have been great one with her oldest sibling, Catherine, who takes such good care of her.

Here is one I got the next morning of her grumpy face.  She used to do this only when she was upset, but now she does it to make me smile, too.  We make this face at each other then smile and laugh.

I want to remember the way she swings her hips when she dances.  She's graduated from BEANS by The String Beans to Save Your Life by the Newsboys.  I want to remember how she sings "Life...oo-ooh...oo-ooh" over and over again.  The one movie I had of her dancing this summer was accidentally deleted and I have not been able to get a second - she would rather be behind the camera watching me take a picture than in front of it so any pictures I get are on the first try or not at all.  She comes to sit in my lap and "help" as soon as she sees the camera.

She runs to dad to get a "big squeeze" (yes, she can say that) whenever he walks in the door and is still fond of pointing out and naming his facial features.  The main thing that I never want to forget is that after tucking her in on her birthday Sunday night I said, "Good night, Michaela."  and she responded, "Love.  You.  Mommy." *melt*