Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July!

my beautiful baby

Speaking of Independence.. Allie has learned to like it. She is getting to be very independent and likes things her way. "No" is a familiar word these days - out of her mouth and ours.  I've stopped asking her questions like.. do you want to go to bed? Do you want to brush your teeth? Do you want to .... she will say No.
Sometimes even if she means to say yes.. no comes out first.

She thrilled me the other day by answering two questions. We ask questions all the time and she will answer appropriately, but it still isn't as consistent as we'd like it to be.  The other day on the way to the pool I asked her "where are we going?". She said "swim".  I then asked who were we going to see at the pool. This took a few repeats and then she responded Alyssa.  Alyssa swim.  Then, while I was hooting and hollering and congratulating her, she reminded me that Maddie would also swim with us.  She is really quickly learning to use her words and she is showing us just how smart she is.

A few minutes ago, she finagled her way into another short tv show, as Daddy gave in, he said "one more" and she held up two fingers and said "two" "two more".  You know she won, right?

She is excelling at everything she tries and I believe we are hearing new phrases everyday. Multiple words together and they are getting more recognizable,too. Here are a few pictures of an impromptu photo shoot we did today of our little Firecracker.  Have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

A kiss for you!

Our brilliant 4 1/2 year old