Greta's 2nd birthday

This is the last picture of Greta as a one year old :) So sweet. I guess she turned two sometime in the void while sleeping between the 28th of February and the 1st of March. 

 I didn't really know what we should do for her. I took the Thursday off and figured we'd celebrate low key that day cause it was a weekday. I gave her a few options of things and one of them was fish at the aquarium and she got REALLY excited about fishies, and so that's what we did. We did some presents in the morning before Tanner went to work. I had a hard time deciding what to get for her. We settled on what you see below, since she's so into babies and with the new kitchen. I think it's been a hit. Gifts are hard. I want to give them all the things they ever want but so often we accumulate so much stuff gets played with hardly at all. Some of the gifts along the way of our 4 short years of child gift giving have been bigger hits than others. Oh well. Hopefully she and Lottie enjoy these for awhile to come!

Love seeing Harvey's mothery side :)

 Waffles for breakfast and maybe a Reece's egg for dessert?

My whole family and Clare and Berrie came over for pizza and presents after (the rest of the fam was getting together for Emery's baptism on Saturday). We ate and watched her open stuff and she was adorable as always.

 My mom made her the apron and the hot pads to go with their kitchen. So cute.

I love this picture and love her!

We didn't get out the door to head to the aquarium until about 6:45 (kind of both girls bedtimes). Lottie hadn't taken a good nap and was pretty tired and grumpy. My mom offered to stay back and let her sleep. I fought her but she fought harder and so we did that. Kathryn and my dad came with us. It was the Sea Quest Aquarium in the Layton Hills Mall. 

Don't be fooled - she barely touched the iguana and then was quite done. Harvey didn't really want to touch it either. The adults MIGHT have had more fun :)

 She's just splashing in the water - wouldn't touch anything in there.

This was cool - they had just fed some scorpions and so we watched their little pincher mouths and hands eat. It was actually really fascinating.

 Harvey was TERRIFIED of the octopus. Like even if I was holding him up from a far away distance, he was squeezing me so tight and really scared cry crying. So we didn't torture him too much. I don't know why he was so scared. He likes to play this pretend game where I'm an octopus and he's something else and I grab him with my "tentacles". I don't know if the real life version of one was scary to him because of that or what. But I fed it - basically just held a string with a toy that had a little fish in it. It was cool though just because it lurched out from a corner and watching it move and swim and fan out to get it to it's mouth was pretty sweet. Got to pet a tentacle too.

This was EXCEEDINGLY funny. They had this giant tortoise wandering around the halls. When we turned the corner, Greta saw it and I think thought it was just a little feature for climbing on and she RAN up to it and basically jumped on it before realizing it was real and then she was SCARED! She wouldn't get close to it again. Harvey loved it though!

They had a little room with a million little birds in it that you could feed. They said they'd hand us some food and the birds would come eat it. They hadn't even transferred the food when we were SWARMED with tiny hungry birds. It really surprised me and not totally scared me but I was a little...something. I thought it was pretty hilarious overall despite my skiddishness, perhaps?

Harvey came over while we were still in there and was saying he wanted to go in. I was thinking how terrible of an idea that was but he really wanted to try it so my dad and him went in. I seriously thought he was going to FREAK out. He did awesome! It was so cool and funny watching him. You could tell he was a little nervous and kept his hands up almost the whole time but it was so cute.

Harvey wasn't a fan of all the fish that come eat off your dead skin. Tanner and Kathryn and my dad really liked it. I thought it was cool too. They have the pedicures you can do there...maybe next time.

 Then we celebrated with turtle pie from Baskin Robin's - like the best ice cream cake/pie ever. Greta loves most sweets but really likes ice cream and it's Tanner's favorite and so that's what we went with - and it did not disappoint!

 And this is probably my favorite picture of Greta ever. My mom took it. I love it!

 Harvey and Greta approved!

Love this little girl so much. She is FULL of personality! She's got some sass.  She is fiercely independent. She wants to do everything herself and wants to help with everything. She gets some satisfaction from pushing Harvey's button's and she KNOWS she's doing it. Which is both aggravating and entertaining and impressive :) She has been a bit more on the difficult side the last couple of months due to these lovely traits :) She LOVES loves loves babies. She's often carrying around a couple at a time with a purse and a phone. She LOVES music. She shakes her head up and down (in dancing fashion) when she wants it on. She always starts dancing when she hears it and has some pretty good rhythm. She loves to jump and yell yaaaa -hooooo! and it's the cutest thing ever. She is saying lots more words and attempts to copy a lot more now. Definitely able to understand and communicate a lot more which is fun. Can't wait to hear her start making more sentences and hearing her little personality come out more in words. All this and not to mention she's as cute as can be. Can't wait to see what she learns and how she changes this year!