The richenna clan: Peanut is 2!

I had my first ultrasound with Brielle at 6 weeks. I remember laying nervously on the bed while they looked around for the tiny little baby growing inside of me. All of a sudden, we saw her darling little flickering heart and the nurse said with excitement, "there is your peanut"! I fell instantly in love and after that, her nickname was found.

"feeding" her babies! She set this up and was feeding them.

2 years (and 8 months) later, our peanut is now a darling, spirited, determined, social, fiery, happy, flirt who loves to play dress-up and be the center of attention! She has quite a BIG personality that is stuck in her "little" body! She has an opinion and she will let you know! She will not be forgotten, that is for sure. But I love that about her. One day, my little peanut will be a powerful woman. She is loud and loves to squeal at an incredibly high frequency, whether she is happy, mad or sad. Truth be told, she will be a powerful soprano one day.

She LOVES animals!

She loves babies of any form, and is always seen carrying around a stuffed animal on her hip or in her arms! My favorite thing is when she takes a "baby" in her arms, craddles it and shushes while she bounces her knees up and down! AND the best: when she takes her shirt off and "feeds" her baby while making an eating noise. She definitely is observant! She absolutely adores her siblings. She called Liam "Lawmie" and Lydia "La La". They are her favorite! If she sees anyone else other than Richard or I holding Lydia she will cry and cry saying "MY BABY!" until they give her back. It's really darling to see how much she loves her! Her and Liam play together all day (it's finally paying off having them close together!) unless they are cranky and getting on each others nerves...but for the most part they play so well together.

Her favorite baby...notice it's dressed in Lydias clothes and swimming suit

With her favorite babies! And no the blanket isn't over Lydias mouth. Her hand is under the blanket and blocking her face

She is really big for her age (about the 90th percentile) so everyone is shocked when they hear she is JUST turning 2. She wears the same size show as Liam, just 1 size smaller than him (she is 3T and he is 4T), and a couple inches shorter. For all intents and purposes, they look like twins! And Liam is big for his age too! She is just transitioning out of naps (bummer) which is hard on her and mom. Unless she gets up before 7:30, she doesn't want to nap until 2 and most days, that is too late (can really mess with her bedtime). She eats really well and tries new things. Her talking is really exploding and I love listening to her put sentences together and copy things that people say. We had her off the binky (or "mimi" as she calls it), until Lydia started taking one and she digressed. The doctor says not to worry about it, and I don't want to force things and create resentment towards Lydia. She hasn't had ANY jealously issues, and I don't want that to start.

This has to be one of my favorite pictures EVER.

She is such a joy and brings so much life to our family. Her powerful personality is so fun, and I love watching it develop new dimensions as she matures. I cannot wait to continue to watch her grow and mature. She can be scary sometimes because she doesn't have much inhibition (like trying to jump into deep pools, running up to total strangers to say hi/sing to them, running into the street to see the dog across the street etc), but I hope that means she will achieve great things later.

She loves: Curious George, swimming, her "mimi", ducks, any animal, her "babies", any kind of sugar, ketchup, juice, dancing, jumping on beds, playing house, dressing up, playing outside, digging in the dirt, any kind of candy, toothpaste, books, anything "pretty", having her nails painted, shoes, playing with water, her "mimi", her siblings, watching movies, changing clothes etc.

The day before her birthday we had a friend party where we had about 17 kids and 8 of their moms over to play! We had a blast! The theme was princess/dress-up and she had a blast! The next day (her birthday fell on a Sunday), we just relaxed, played together and celebrated some more with Richards brother and his family! Such a fun day celebrating our sweet, darling, spit-fire daughter!

Trying to take a picture of her while we relaxed on her birthday...

she wouldn't hold still (surprise, surprise)