Happy Birthday!

Today is Quentin's 2nd birthday. It's amazing how much he has grown since he was born, but especially over the past year. He is very much a little boy now rather than a baby. He runs all over the place now and can go up and down the stairs upright with no help (he does hang onto the railing, but doesn't need either Aaron or I to hang onto). He is quite adept at opening and closing zippers and doors and enjoys coloring books and putting together puzzles. Right now he is BIG into trains and cars of all kinds. Since they started building a house next to ours he has enjoyed watching the construction equipment and frequently asks about the bobcat. He can follow instructions (when he feels like it) and loves "helping" us unload the dishwasher and doing laundry and vacuuming. Quentin is quite the talker and is fairly easy to understand (at least I think so - I'm the official interpreter)! He strings together several words at a time. Overall he's a very good mimic and will say just about anything he overhears or is asked to say. He knows all his colors, can somewhat count to 10 (numbers get left out a lot, but he can say every number), and he can say all the letters of the alphabet. He also recognizes all letters in capital form and numbers 1-9. We're working on potty training, but he is quite sporadic about it and rarely actually goes in the toilet. Hopefully by this time next year he'll fully potty trained. He loves to ham things up especially when pictures are being taken! Over Christmas he was shouting cheese over and over when anyone was taking a picture of him. He is also getting quite good at expressing emotions to us when he is upset. He'll tell us he's crying or he's sad or mad. And he's really good at saying thanks or no thanks and recently I'm sorry. It's been a frustrating year at times what with his weight problems, but hopefully those are behind us now (he gets weighed again at his 2 year checkup on Monday). Overall it's been a great year! Happy Birthday little man! Can't wait to see what you get into in 2010. Love you lots!