Two.

More party pics coming soon (promise), but today I wanted to bring back the old bullet point list about what Amelia is up to these days for memory's sake. At two years old, Amelia:

• talks ALL.THE.TIME. Seriously, she never shuts up. She has gone from saying a few real words here and there to speaking in full sentences most of the time. She is able to repeat anything we say, and usually only has to hear a word one time to remember it. For example, the other day I told her the trash smelled disgusting and then she said it a million times. We laugh at something she has said every single day. The other day she told her baby, "Bless your heart," lol. She also says "Oh my goodness" all the time and our current favorite thing she says all the time is "What you doin?" She will ask you what you are doing all day every day and continue to ask you even after you tell her what you're doing over and over again.

• sings any time she is not talking. I'm not kidding, she is never, ever quiet. She loves to sing and is very quick to learn new songs. Her favorites are E-I-E-I-O (Old MacDonald had a farm), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, ABC song, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Jesus Loves Me, The Wheels on the Bus, 5 Little Monkeys, If you're happy and you know it, B-I-N-G-O, and the Jack Johnson songs on the Curious George soundtrack. She will try to sing along even if she doesn't know the song.
• is still working on potty training. She wears pull ups during the day and goes on the potty sometimes, but she has lost interest in telling us she needs to go recently so we're kind of taking a break before going full force again. I hope she will be fully potty trained in the next couple of months.
• can say her ABCs, count to around 16 and knows most of her colors. She tries to trick us and say everything is pink when we ask her, but she really does know most of them. She also asks, "What color is it?" all the time and I think it sounds so precious.
• loves to swing more than anything in the world.

• still loves to read books. Her teacher says the first thing she does when she gets to school is goes and gets a book and goes to a chair to read. I love that she loves to read.
• also enjoys playing with puzzles and baby dolls, cooking on her play kitchen, having tea parties and coloring.
• still thinks there's nothing better on TV than Dora, but we are kind of over her and are trying to get her interested in new things. She also likes the Backyardigans and Sesame Street.
• is very opinionated about what she wears. We have battles every morning before school when she doesn't want to wear what I have laid out for her. She prefers dresses and HATES pants. I know. I have created a monster.

• throws a good ole fit every chance she gets. I have no idea how to stop this. We have tried time out and spanking, ignoring, etc. I guess it's just her age. She has frequent meltdowns when something doesn't go her way.
• still doesn't eat very much, but she seems to be getting a little better. She has become a fan of the chicken nugget, so that's at least some kind of protein she'll eat.
• wears 24 months or 2T clothes and a size 6 or 7 shoe. She can still wear smaller sizes in dresses and skirts and we are even doing some 12 months dresses from last year over leggings as tops.
• loves to go to school and church. She loves her friends and can name them all by first and last name. It is so cute when she says, "There's Joy Leggett!" or "That's Braxton Orr's mama!" Love that. She can also say Amilla Kate Shurr when we ask her what her name is. She has problems with her "f" sounds and says "sh."

Year two has flown by even faster than the first year, it seems. It has brought new parenting challenges, but even more joy than we thought possible as we have gotten to know this precocious little girl and her spunky personality even better. She is such a joy to us and our entire family and none of us can remember what life was like before her.

Happy Second Birthday, sweet Amelia Kate Furr. We love you to pieces!