One of my favorite things we hear, when Gloria is sad or fussing:
Martha: “O-tay Djo, O-tay!”
(Translation: “Ok Glo, Ok”)
In fact, one of my favorite words she says is “Glo” or “Djo”, rather.
Sweetness.
Translation:
Happy Birthday, Martha!!
On March, our Martha-girl turned two. What?!?!? I know, I can’t believe it. To celebrate, we had a lovely picnic at the park with some friends two weeks ago.
Most of the friends who came to celebrate. There were 4 two-year-olds in the bunch.
It was a beautiful day, perfect for a picnic!
Cake Time!
We had butterfly cupcakes:
*see Martha’s face? She faceplanted on the driveway the night before. Poor baby!
The dads had some time to chat…
and so did the mommies (while cuddling babies, of course!)
It was such a special special day to celebrate a very special little girl!
We love you, little Martha-Monkey!
Knock on the door…
Wait a few seconds…
And, most likely, THIS is what you’ll see:
Wanna come over??
Original Overheard:
Noa has always been quite good with her words and rarely has words that she doesn’t say correctly. However, one thing that she consistently says wrong that I absolutely LOVE is when she is communicating excitement.
“Are you be-cited, Martha?” or “I’m be-cited!”
and when her emotion is in the extreme form:
“I’m be-SO-cited!”
I hope she never learns how to say it properly. Just kidding. Kinda.
Added Bonus:
A few moments ago, all three girls were laying on the playing mat and interacting so sweetly with each other – well, Martha and Noa were vying for Gloria’s smiles but it was a friendly competition. All of sudden I hear, in a singsong voice,
“Martha, you grab her feet and I’ll get her hands… c’mon Glo… here we go”
and I look up to see them poised to drag her across the room to her bouncy where they want her to sit.
And we had yet another talk about how Noa is not big enough to carry the baby quite yet.
And one more for good measure:
Noa: “Mommy, when Gloria learns how to crawl, will you get another baby in your belly?”
This kid doesn’t miss much and I guess has figured out the general pattern of things around here 
My biggest girl, BE-SO-CITED!
Almost every day Noa and I get into some kind of battle over clothing. Sometimes – rarely - it is a battle of the wills: What she wants to wear vs. what I want her to wear. Other times it is a battle to change or not to change She tries to convince me that she has valid reasons to change her clothes – like they are dirty, wet, uncomfortable, etc. There were a few times that I wondered if she had purposely had a potty mishap just so she could change her clothes. Our most common battle is using her and Martha’s clothing like toys. She LOVES to take their clothes out of their drawers and “pack” them, put them on dolls, and layer them over her already worn clothes. This has become a discipline matter because, as I have explained to her, it is inconsiderate and unkind to undo the hard work her mother does in cleaning, folding, and putting away her clothes. Furthermore, clothes are a provision from God, and I want her to learn to be a good steward of them and take care of them.
So, these are the waters we are treading right now. It is a daily thing (because – you guessed it - we get dressed every day), and I am trying to work it so it is not a battle every day. I think we have some good ways of dealing with it, but we still have some obedience issues.
Like this morning. The girls headed into their room to play after breakfast. It was entirely too quiet and I could have predicted what I would see when I went in. Sure enough, there were several things on the floor and this is what the girls looked like:
She even got Martha dressed!
So now, after being disciplined for taking out clothes without asking, she has to stay in what she chose to wear all day. sigh.
I guess I am thankful for this outlet of creativity… I just want to know how to instruct her well with it, and be consistent too.
Here’s another exhibit of her clothing craftiness – again – on her sister:
In Martha’s words, isn’t she, “boooo- foh” ?
