Not a Baby Anymore!

It's hard to believe that our baby is no longer a baby anymore!  Last Tuesday, Mia turned 2 (which she can tell you and indicate by holding up one finger from each hand :) 
Although her party isn't until this weekend and Travis has school Tuesday evenings (which equals very little Daddy time for the day), we wanted to make the day special anyway.  I mean, how often do you turn 2?

As soon as we heard her start to stir, I went up to get her while Travis readied our camera.  As I greeted her with, "Happy Birthday Mia!" she promptly looked at me and said, "Mommy, cake today?  Present?"  She's a smart one, I tell you. 

We debated on whether or not to give her her present first thing in the morning or to wait until dinner, but as soon as she saw it on our ottoman, there was no stopping her.

I love how when she starts concentrating really hard, her tongue always sticks out.  It was one of the first things we noticed in her referral picture.

Cookies!

Letting Mommy show me how to "bake" the cookies.

Cheese!

She is in love with gloves of all kinds (including socks which she will turn into "glubs") and now she has her very own hot pad.

Many of you wanted to see the "special" cupcakes I made for her birthday day.  They're really nothing too special, other than I made them from scratch.  I thought they turned out simple yet girly.

And really, if you're going to be self-indulgent, you might as well do it on your birthday, right?  So yes, we had cupcakes for breakfast.

And fortunately for me, this girl like the idea of cupcakes more than the cupcake itself, so after a few licks of icing, she asked me to "save it for later."

Later that morning we had our class at Gymboree, so I made sure we wore our birthday girl shirt.  All her little friends and teacher sang to her (which she loves), and then I made chicken and noodles (her favorite) for dinner.  After Daddy left for school, we played more with her new cookies and I did a little photo shoot (and I mean that very loosely...my living room and artificial light do not make for stellar pics).  Can you believe how big she is getting?

Speaking of big, we also took her for her 2 year old check up on Friday.  She weighs in at 26 pounds and 33.5 inches long, right around the 50 percentile for both.  She's meeting all her milestones, except for maybe dressing herself, but that's not been a skill I've been particularly nurturing.  I had to crack up though when the nurse asked if she was putting 2 words together.  Um, just 2?  We get paragraphs from this kid.  She's incredibly articulate, and I'm just in awe of how she's adjusted to life.

It's somewhat easy for us to forget that she's adopted, to forget that there ever was a time in her life that she wasn't with us.  And I take some comfort knowing that she won't remember that time.  We love her so, so much that it's beyond words.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: she is our daughter.  Period.  But, it seems that for every milestone, every anniversary, every major event that happens in her life, we are brought back to that sobering remembrance.  I don't want to dwell on it everyday, all day long, but it's not something that we can pretend doesn't exist.  We are quickly approaching the time when she will start to ask us questions, and I'm sure our answers will be through both tears of joy and sadness.  Adoption is certainly a lifelong journey, not just a process that ends with a court decree.