Olive is definitely 2. Wow! She has been biting and spitting lately, and is super defiant. I am comforted that Dr. Oyas told us to expect this at her age, so I know she's not just a rotten kid, but I must admit I'm stunned! We're learning a lot about how to discipline, how to show lots of love after disciplining, and how to give lots of positive reinforcement in the meantime. It's good for us and her to go through all this. But sheesh!

One funny thing she does, thinking she's being very mean and defiant, is to yell, "I promise!" I don't know where she got it, or why she thinks it's a mean thing to say. And who knows, maybe she's not even saying I promise. But that's what it sounds like, and it's all I can do to keep from laughing when she yells that at me.

A couple other cute things she's doing lately - she'll often tell Chris or me to "come hur," and "sit hur." When we oblige and sit down, she'll say, "So what do ya think?" So cute. She has become able to open the refrigerator. Today she opened the fridge, took the grapes out of the drawer, and put them in front of Lucy on the floor. Lucy immediately started munching. Then Olive went back to the drawer, took out the carrots and ranch, and set herself up with a snack at the table.

Her vocabulary is expanding, and she's doing really well with colors in particular. She wants to watch Dora the Explorer all day everyday. She has picked up a few Spanish words from that show. As always, she loves to read with me and scribble and color, and do puzzles. It's fun to watch her learn and progress.

She's still very much a performer - singing and dancing, and creating a stage anywhere and everywhere. She's bossy and lively and funny and fun. And this is a bit of a tough phase, but of course we are as in love with her as ever.

Things Olive is doing lately:

When she wanted to be held she used to say, "I wanna holdju." I would say, "I wanna holdju too." Now she just says, "I wanna holdju too." Very cute.

I try to limit TV to 2 hours a day, but she throws a fit and would watch it all day long if I let her. She usually requests Dora the Explorer, and we pull it up on Netflix on the Wii. She has figured out that if she pushes the A button on the Wii remote that it will start the next episode. So if I'm in the other room, she'll go ahead and help herself to another episode. She's also figured out that if she stands on something she can turn the TV on by herself. We are not fans of these discoveries at all!

Every morning we read a story out of the Book of Mormon stories and one out of the New Testament stories (since that's what we're studying this year at church). After we read the New Testament one, Olive always wants me to turn to the page where there's a picture of the baby Jesus. When Chris is the one reading, he always tries to fool her by showing her the picture of the baby John the Baptist. But she's no fool. She tells him emphatically to show her the right baby. It reminds us of the scene in Talladega Nights when Will Ferrell says he prefers to think of the baby version of Jesus when he's praying. Irreverent, yes, but so funny.

Each day Olive and I have about an hour of education time where we do puzzles, play Memory, review letters and numbers and colors, and color pictures. I print off 3 or 4 pictures from a website that has free coloring pages, and Olive waits by the printer for the pictures to come out. She loves pulling them off the printer and then getting to work on them. Olive loves to color, and I tell her, "Make an O for Olive," and she does a very crude circle. It's a start!

Olive runs super quick, she runs from place to place, and it often morphs into a gallop.

She's very affectionate these days, loves to hold your face and give long lingering kisses. We die over it!

She has started saying, "Go-to go-to park," or "go-to go-to car," or "go-to go-to pool," or "go-to go-to church."

On Sundays we tell her we're going to church, and she says, "Lundin!" (Sister Lundin is the nursery leader).

Olive has never been jealous or territorial with me since Lucy was born, but lately she totally is! If I pick up Lucy, Olive comes running over for me to pick her up too. Or if I'm playing with Lucy, she totally wants in on it and often wants Lucy out of the equation entirely. She's really never acted like this before, and it'll be even more interesting to see the dynamic once Georgey gets here.

Olive is smart and bossy and funny, and I just can't get enough of her.