Two.

Anniston is TWO!! I cannot believe it! I never really believed parents when they said your children grow up in the blink of an eye, but I definitely do now!

• Anniston is 28 pounds, 14 ounces (75th percentile), and 33 inches tall (50th percentile).
• She can sing the whole alphabet song with minimal promptings from us. She can identify the letters A-B-C, and she knows that her name starts with the letter A. 
• Anniston is finally getting the hang of colors. She had a hard time for a while. She knows black, white, yellow, orange, and pink. Pink is her favorite color. 
• She loves all of her baby dolls. I find this extremely funny, because I hated dolls and the color pink.  We waited until she started to show interest in dolls before buying her one for that reason.
• She loves bugs!! Her favorites are ladybugs, spiders and snails.  She got a spider bite a few weeks ago and was so excited about it! She showed everyone, and now she is really distraught she healed. Ha.
• The zoo is her favorite place to be. The animals that she always requests to see are the kookaburra, the okapi, the panda, the dragon (komodo dragon), and her newly adopted baby hippopotamus (see Anniston's birthday party post for explanation). 
• Anniston started potty training this week. It seems to be going well, but we are keeping our fingers and toes crossed, hoping it continues.
• She really fancies crab. Anniston has expensive taste like her dad. She isn't too keen on shrimp, but she loves most seafood.
• Anniston really just likes food in general.  Her most used sentence is, "What are you eating?" After she receives her answer, she follows up with, "Can I have some please?" She gets the please in there most of the time. Ha.
• Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is her absolute favorite thing to watch. When she is watching it, she has a huge smile on her face the whole time. I'm thinking it's because she only gets to watch one episode a day at the most, so it still hasn't lost its novelty. She also loves Curious George, Sofia the First, Mickey, and Minnie Mouse.

And that's our not-so-little-anymore Anni at 2 years old. 

Anniston's Safari Party

We decided to go with a safari theme for Anniston's birthday this year because, well, Anniston loves animals, and she also loves being outside. Whenever we take Anniston out to the backyard, she likes to pretend to see exotic animals. There are toucans and monkeys in the trees, tigers in the bushes, and pandas hanging out by the bamboo plant. We figured if there actually were exotic animals in the backyard for her birthday, she would be beyond excited! I'm very pleased to say we were right! Anniston's little friends thought it was pretty cool too. Now I'm going to be completely honest here and say that if you were an adult, the backyard safari Gabe and I set up would look straight up ghetto, but to a two year old, it was legit. Ha. This year, Anniston was all prepared for her party, which made her party that much more fun. She told us how she really wanted cupcakes and a baby hippo for her birthday weeks before the actual party. Nothing else. Just cupcakes and a real hippopotamus. Gabe told Anniston that we adopted a baby hippo from the zoo, but it had to stay there, because our backyard doesn't meet the required living space for a hippopotamus. He even whipped up a letter from the San Diego Zoo and some very authentic-looking adoption papers, which included a picture of Anniston's new baby hippopotamus, Devi. This whole thing worked out very well for us, because there just so happens to be a two month old baby hippo at the San Diego Zoo right now. She was totally sold! She cannot wait to go to the zoo next week to see her baby hippo, Devi! All in all, the party went well, and there was even a little breeze so we weren't melting, which is always very welcome during Southern California summertime.