Sabrina Turns 2

...and Mommy gets a new MacBook Pro Laptop (which I'm still trying to figure out, so I'm trying to catch up on photos, videos, etc). Here goes.

First, our little baby has turned 2! She seems to have made leaps and bounds in the past month to us in terms of speaking, thinking, sharing (some of the time), empathy, sweetness (especially to the baby in my belly) and her awareness and memory of other people. I think spending time in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving and then with the whole Clarke crew for Christmas really helped her cement everybody in the family in her mind and she talks about everybody often. She even says "Good Night" to Erica's baby a lot! She's very sweet and thoughtful.

In the past few weeks she's said some pretty great things (many of which I've already forgotten), but here are a few that stand out to me:
-- I got a new iPhone for Christmas (thank you Santa/Brent/Daddy!) and it's coming in the mail. This week I was talking to Jill on the phone when the call dropped and I made some comment under my breath about my stupid phone and Sabrina said "Mommy, you need your new phone." We hadn't even told her about the phone really...why would we?...but she has clearly been listening!
-- When I opened my new laptop on Christmas morning, I looked at Brent and said "You went to the Apple store!" (it's one of his favorite places) and Sabrina said "I went to the Apple Store TOO" - when I asked what they sell there she said "...apples" (as if I was a total dummy). Then she went on to say "Mommy, it's a new laptop!" In this family, she definitely knows what a laptop is.
-- Me: "maybe aunt ashley could come to your Christmas concert at school." Sabrina: "yeah!" Me: "Should we invite her?" Sabrina:...silence...then "no, I don't want to bite her" haha

As I said, I'm sure there are more that I've already forgotten, but I'll throw them up on the blog if/when I remember them. She's pretty insightful these days and has an amazing memory that regularly shocks us.

To celebrate her big day we had dinner at Nana and Poppy with the whole fam (Nana, Poppy, Ashley, Dante, Tim, Erica, Erica's baby, and Natalie, Kurt, Celia, Della, Lee, Cara and Casey!) It was a wonderful dinner followed by skating on the Boulder Ice ice rink that Poppy has been working on tirelessly to get ready for the Christmas/Birthday season, capped off by a fruit tart cake (candles, of course) and prezzies. The next night we hosted a party for more friends at our house where Sabrina got yet another cake (with more candles, which almost burned off her hair...we're not used to leaving her hair down!) and several more prezzies. We're going to be a part of one more group party next weekend with her birthday buddies, Casey, Lily and a new friend, Noa (all of whom were born on the same day, 6 days after Sabrina). That should be another fun and crazy event! The fun never stops around here.
Her favorite gifts from her birthday include her new strider bike from Nana and Poppy, her baby doll stroller from Grandma Gail and Grandpa Rich, her drum from the Baumgartners, the new CD for Mommy's car from Ashley and Dante (with Yellow Submarine and Octopuses Garden on it...new faves), her blue monster from Tim & Erica, and her "food baby" from her teacher Zeba at school. She got many more things and we're still finding time to play with everything. We're feeling very loved and lucky these days!

Here are some photos and a few short videos from her first two birthday parties.