"Two" Cute

Today is Maggie's 2nd birthday! The above pictures were taken last week. I was a little worried about how Maggie would do with the photographers, but she impressed us and them! She did so well following their directions and really hammed it up! Then again, she's very familiar with a camera.

We celebrated Maggie's birthday today at the NC Museum of Life and Science in Durham. I'll post pictures of that in the coming days. I've always thought of Maggie's birthday, 3/16, as the day after her cousin Nathan's birthday and the day before St. Patrick's Day. Today a Facebook friend posted this about March 16th, which I'd never thought of before and really like:

"March 16th. 3/16. It's John 3:16 Day! "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

That was the first Bible verse I ever memorized at church. One day I can teach it to Maggie, and she can remember the chapter and verse as being the same as her birthday!

Maggie has made some big strides this past month:

• One morning I worked with her for a few minutes on the "f" sounds, which she used to say as an "h" in words like "forest" and "five" and as an "sh" in words like "Foo Foo". She immediately corrected her speech and now says the "f" sound correctly! As a speech-pathologist, I'm very proud of her, but Maggie's speech sounds so much more mature now.
• Maggie is naming a lot of letters now! The new ones include: Q, C, L, F, E, V, R, and K, letters that we have not focused on, but she has just learned through alphabet books and her ABC bath letters.
• Maggie has been able to identify "1", "2", and "8" for a while now, but tonight she identified "4" and "5" on flashcards (they weren't in order either).
  
• Maggie can count to 10, as long as you help her with the number "7". She likes to say "11", instead of 7, followed by "12, 13, 14"! If you correct her "11" to "7", she'll continue counting "8, 9, 10".
• Maggie has started sitting in a chair (without a booster) at the table with us at lunch and supper times. She gets too messy at breakfast with her oatmeal to sit at the table!
• Maggie can drink out of an open cup now, although she still uses her straw cups most of the time to prevent spills!
  
• Maggie enjoys "cutting" her food with a plastic knife.
• On March 7 at gymnastics class, Maggie jumped on the big trampoline and walked on the big balance beam (with me holding onto her) for the first time! She's been going to gymnastics since the end of November and never wanted to do that.
• Maggie has a few cute sayings now: "Oh dear!" and "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness" (which she's heard over and over in the movie "Annie"). Yesterday morning Maggie thought we were going to gymnastics, but we weren't. Trying to get out of it for some reason, she said, "Maggie not go to gymnastics. Maggie too shy!"

Our lives changed for the better 2 years ago tonight at 10:04 p.m.!