marin turns 2!

you're thinking, "poor girl, still doesn't have any hair!" this was actually her 1 year old picture. :)
" see! i have lots of hair! because i'm 2 years old!"
a nice new noise-making bus to play with! thank you gran and pawpaw!
now you can see even more hair! she looks so old. i'm sad. :(
we had a dairy queen ice cream cake! yummy!

dear marin,
you are now a big 2 year old. but still our baby. last year you had just started walking and now you run, hop, climb, twirl, somersault... and you have a bit more hair. here are some things that come to mind about your little life so far.
1. you are a talker. don't know where that comes from.
2 you are a singer. right now you love to sing, "ABC," "happy birthday," "twinkle, twinkle," and some original tunes that only you know.
3. you don't really like being/playing by yourself. maybe that comes from having two slightly older siblings around all the time. but on days when they go to preschool, you are never more than a few inches from mommy. even in the bathroom. geesh!
4. you love to eat. not so much veggies. but definitely fruit, meat and carbs. we go to the dr. in a couple of days so we'll see where you fall in the percentiles. right now, according to our scales, you weigh more than your older brother.
5. you are stubborn. and can have a bit of a temper. when you don't get your way you make your face turn all red and shaky. and you bite. remember when you bit mommy's cheek this morning?
6. you love going to daddy and getting "orders."- "go kiss mommy's nose" "go kiss mommy's ear" -back and forth you go.
7. you can count to 10 and say most of your abc's.
8. you love to "help" mommy fold the laundry. thanks.
9. you love to talk on your phone. aunt susu gave you her old one and somehow you can tell that it's "real" and don't even touch the fun plastic ones that we have.
10. after the dr. visit we now have the official stats.
weight-31lb 7oz 93% WOW!
height- 34.5 inches 69%
head circumference- almost 19inches 29% your little head is just filled with brains!
11. you love talking with ellory at night after we put you to bed. ("elllllll reeeee! townsend bite me!" ) townsend finally got you back the other day for all your biting on him. :)
12. you love taking off your pants and diapers and running around the house.
13. you are starting to pray and sing "jesus loves me."
14. you are much loved and adored by mommy, daddy, towney, and ellory.

prayers

last year we moved out to denver with 2 other families to start new denver church. one of the families, the reddens, have 2 boys, ethan and andrew. now we really haven't spent a ton of time with them but this past week we did borrow some cowboy boots and hats from them to wear to the stock show and rodeo. maybe that prompted this? don't really know.
today i was with townsend in his room.
townsend- "what is ethan's daddy's name again?"
mommy- "stephen"
townsend- "what is ethan's mommy's name again?"
mommy- "kate"
townsend kneels down by his bed and says, "jesus, i pray for stephen and kate."
later when we were praying before bed he asks their names again and during his prayer he prays for ethan, andrew, stephen and kate. it was so sweet. he always prays for our family and will go through aunts, uncle and grandparents but he really never prays for non-family. i'm so curious as to what prompted his little heart to pray for the reddens. actually kate is out of town right now so maybe stephen needs the prayers! :)

conversations

this happened yesterday.
townsend to ellory- "hello, dora!"
ellory to townsend- "hello, diego! nice to meet you!"
townsend to marin- "hello, zoe!" (cute little muppet on sesame street)
townsend to mommy- "hello, big bird!"

i'll take that as a compliment.

lions, TIGERS and bears-oh my!

so a couple of weeks ago we were with the kids in the living room. playing around. i can't remember exactly how it happened but the kids started talking about tigers being in the house. or something like that. norton gets up and says that he is going downstairs to the bathroom. not true. he quietly goes out the side door and comes in through the back door to our sunroom. there is a door between the sunroom and the living room. pretty soon we start hearing scratching noises on the door and a low growl. ellory was pretty calm. but marin immediately put the throw blanket over her head. townsend started to cry. then marin joined in. they were so scared. norton opened the door to show them that it was just him. but they kept crying. it has been over a week. maybe two. and marin still talks about the tiger in the house. if i go to the bathroom, she is right with me and won't go into her room or the living room by herself because of the "tigers." we keep asking them, "where are tigers?" and they answer, "in the zoo." but they are still a little afraid. poor things.