Happy 2nd Birthday Elisha!!!!

I can't believe you are 2 years old! The time has flown by!

Elisha, you are such a joy to your daddy, brother and me.

You are so fun and sweet. You are my little snuggle bear and I love our hour of snuggle time each morning and all of the random hugs that you give me each day. You are brave yet still aware of what you are doing and almost cautious. You are confident. Some of our friends having characterized you as having swagger, and I couldn't agree more. You walk around confident and comfortable in different situations like you are comfortable in your own skin and not easily intimidated by others. You are tough physically and take injuries and harassment from your brother with such grace, yet you are a little on the softer side emotionally. You are such a helper. If you hear me open the dishwasher you come running into the room to help me unload it. If you make a spill you grab a towel and try to clean it up. You are more of an introvert, completely happy to play by yourself for long periods of time, although your extremely extroverted older brother doesn't give you much time to yourself. You love babies and want to engage and show physical affection to them all. You are going to be an amazing big brother to our little baby! You have THE best smile in the world, your eyes squint completely shut as your big grin crunches up you entire face. Overall you are a very happy, laid back, easy going little guy. You are so much fun, so happy and easy going and you make each person in our family laugh everyday.

We almost never call you Elisha. We often call you Eli, but more than anything these days we call you E.

We recently moved you from two naps to only one afternoon nap and you don't seem to care either way. Each night while you're watching your evening show we tell you it's bed time and you pause your show and run straight to your room waiting for us to put you in your crib. You immediately lay face down and we almost never hear another peep out of you from that point on. You and Noah share a room and yet somehow both good to bed so quickly and quietly (even with all of your toys in the room). We have yet to have problems getting y'all to go to sleep or needing to keep you from interacting with each other.

You are talkative and babble a lot, as well as have a good vocabulary of words. I love the way that you yell "NO-ah" each morning when your brother wakes up and walks into the room (about an hour after you get up). You are always so excited and happy to see him. You two really are best friends and love each other and look out for each other. If one of you gets a snack or treat you are adamant on making sure that the other one receives one also.

You love to read books, draw and color, play outside and go for walks. You have a few favorite shows right now, mainly Bubble Guppies and Creative Galaxy with some Yo Gabba Gabba and Tumbleleaf thrown in there as well. You enjoy playing with trucks and cars and old Mardis Gras throws that light up. You love dogs and animals and point to them all, but tend to be a little timid about getting too close to them and very cautious if petting them.

You are a pretty good eater. You eat almost all fruits, assorted veggies, beans, eggs, cheese, chicken, sausage and most types of snacks or sweets. You eat all of the time yet don't seem to grow very much either up or out, you've been roughly the same size for the entire last year.

 

You are quickly learning so much and can count to 5 on your own and can recite the alphabet one at a time after us if we say each letter first. You know a few colors (mainly red, yellow and blue) but you don't get them right 100% of the time.

Over the next few months we are going to start transitioning you to potty training and to sleeping in a big boy bed rather than a crib so that you are ready for the arrival of your little brother.

 

You love it when garbage trucks drive down our street and (much to my dismay) you have learned how to open our door and lean out to watch as the trucks go by.

 

You are such a great combination of a sweet nature... thoughtful and caring and yet rough, tough, silly and "all boy". You have a disposition of wisdom about you that we can already see at this young age. You are thoughtful and discerning. You are going to do great things, you were destined for them. You are going to be a peace keeper... level headed, unemotional yet with a deep caring for others. We believe in you and are your biggest fans. I'm so honored to get to be your mom and get a front row seat to watch the as you continue to learn who you are and who God created you to be and to watch you thrive.