Two Year Old

So much has happened in the last month.
Her birthday was spectacular! We had a Mom and daughter breakfast, swam in our pool, painted, had lunch with Daddy downtown, dinner and swimming with the Cornelius's, cake, candles, and presents. She refused to be 'two' until she ate cake!
That weekend we headed to Austin and celebrated Kennedy's birthday, Ellie's birthday, Morgan and Madison's birthday, and Father's day with all the Dads in our lives. Grammy and Grandpa even made it into Austin to help us celebrate. We were also able to christen Alissa and Zonk's new house. Their backyard proved a perfect party spot! It was a very busy weekend for Ellie and she handled it like a champ. She was pretty pooped the next week though.
For the fourth we headed to Austin and the Hill Country and Ellie had a blast with her extended family. She LOVED the fireworks and kept saying 'again, again.' She called them 'boom boom' and 'ty-ook' for firework.
She also developed a little shoulder shimmy thing. She started off doing it when she was excited. It is super funny and cute, but just a teensy bit Las Vegas show girl-y. She also started doing it when she was upset. Must get it on video.
She's been singing 'Happy Party day to - - -' to all kinds of people since her birthday.
We're in a really really fun stage right now, except for a habit of whining. I've always felt that Ellie was more serious than the other kids her age, but boy oh boy has she gotten a case of the sillies lately! Every moment is full of running around in circles exclaiming 'run around in circle' over and over again, or funny stories of the doggy coming to get her, or stories of EB and Todd taking things from our house, or the cat puzzle piece meowing at pictures of cats, etc. She also calls me 'silly mommy' when I say something weird.
She says 'name' when she wants to know the name of something.
At her two year check-up she was 24 lbs (between the 10th and 25th percentile) and 33 inches long (25th percentile). He said she was beautiful and very smart, but we knew that. She had to get 4 shots and wasn't too happy about them, but stopped crying immediately when they were over. She was very excited about her band-aids actually and talked about them and the tongue depressor the Dr had given her for the next day.
We've talked a lot about her most recent and serious boo-boo. She scraped her foot on some concrete steps at Northpark mall (in the courtyard) and bled a bit. It feels 'all better' now, but still looks pretty yucky. She likes to talk about how Daddy picked her up and kissed her to make her feel better, about how we cleaned it to help it heal, how the blood came out, how Mommy had a boo-boo at Kennedy's house a few weeks ago and my boo-boo is all better, how Daddy put a band-aid on it, etc. She actually asked to go see the Dr to make it better!
After a hiatus she is back to using the potty most of the time.
She is also sleeping better, although not yet sleeping through the night. Some nights she is waking just 2 times, other nights she is wide awake for a couple of hours, and other nights she wakes up 6 times. Yes, that is an improvement! The Dr said that it is the price we pay for having such a smart little girl. I feel like we got a bargain!!!
Melissa K babysat a few weeks ago while we celebrated EB's birthday and Ellie was as charming as can be. She even went to sleep for 'M' all by herself!
There is so much more, like her obsession with downtown and the DART light rail. But I must go to sleep, I don't know what Ellie has in store for me tonight.
I do know I'm the luckiest Mama alive and I'm so grateful for our amazing little girl!