Happy Birthday 2 You!

On Friday this cute girl turned 2!  I can't believe it!

Unfortunately Doug and I spent the day here so we weren't able to celebrate with her. 

Luckily she has some amazing grandparents who spent the day with her!  Grandpa even took her to a movie and McDonalds! I think it's safe to say she had a fun birthday because of them!

Doug and I spent the day up at Girls Camp and had a wonderful time.  All of the ward and stake leaders did an amazing job and the spirit was so strong!  One of the stake leaders talked about how Girls Camp is such a sacred place.  She also said if you want to know what it feels like in the Celestial Room of the temple, just go to Girls Camp.  I couldn't agree more!  I love it and was so glad Doug was able to see what it's all about and feel the spirit of it for a day.

The stake theme was Unite the Ites and focused on the Book of Mormon.  Our ward was the people of King Benjamin (or King Benji as they called him) and it was awesome.

The lodge had these really cool value flags hanging  in it.

 I don't know who did all this work but they did an awesome job!

One of the fun things they did at night was play Minute to Win It with the bishops.  Here's our bishop tying a tie (blindfolded) on one of our girls.

We also were able to hear from our bishop (I mean King Benjamin) and he did a great job.  The assistant ward camp director made the cute tents.  I thought they were really fun.

Another fun thing we got to be a part of was the ropes course during the day.  One of the stations was getting tossed up in the air on this huge trampoline top thing.  It was so fun (I stole this pic from one of the girls FB pages.  Thanks Abby!) 

It was such a fun day and so nice to be at Girls Camp again.  It brought back so many memories and was just awesome.  We've got the best group of girls too!  They are all so strong and valiant.  They are some seriously amazing girls!  Two of the girls that were there moved in just two weeks ago but it was like they've been a part of these girls forever!  I felt bad because we got home really late (thanks again Mom and Dad!) but being part of that testimony meeting and the whole day in general was worth it!

Yesterday we made up for ditching Mabel on her birthday and took the kids to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Later that night we had our own little family celebration.

Here's her cute cake.

Judging by the look on her face in this picture I think she was pretty fond of it.

 Yup.  She totally embraced the cake and loved it.

 See how happy she is?  Maybe she's just sad about turning another year older.

Once the flames were extinguished and she got to taste the cake she seemed a little bit happier.

 Hm.  I guess it's not too bad after all.

 After cake and ice cream she got to open 2 presents (I love how Sophia spells her name). 

 The sisters did pretty good with the present opening and didn't "help" too much.

She got bubbles (one of the few words she can say) and a Miss Piggy pez dispenser.  Two of her favorite things.

Sophia and Lilly made her these really cute signs.  What good sisters.

 I love how Sophia used an "H" bead in this one. 

Happy Birthday our cute Mabel! It's hard to believe she's two! 

Just a little update on her speech.  She can only say about 10 words so we were a little concerned about her.  We had Kids Who Count come and evaluate her and they said she's average so she didn't qualify for their program.  She scored really high for her receptive language (and the woman said it may have been higher if she hadn't been so shy) and a little low for her verbal language.  I guess they cancelled each other out though so she's just average.  She said with the receptive language stuff when she was asking her questions (with pictures) she got up into the 4 1/2 year old level and Mabel was still answering them correctly.  Apparently she has no problems hearing but she just doesn't want to speak thank you very much.   She did give me a few suggestions of things to work on (including not anticipating her needs which I apparently do too much).  We're going to give it another 6 months or so and then see where she's at.  Other parents that I've talked to that have had similar children have all said they start talking in full sentences (sort of out of the blue) when they're about 3.  I think that's what will happen with her but we'll have to wait and see!  My mom keeps telling me that I shouldn't push her to talk because I won't be able to get her to stop!  I think that's good advice too so we may go with that for now.