nobody likes you when you're 23.

This beauty is 23 months old today.

I used to say Carly did something new and cute every single day.

Now its more like she does something new and cute every 10 minutes.

She loves "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Rock-a-bye, Baby", "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", and "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes".

She is getting much better with her colors, since she and daddy like to say what color all the cars are when we walk to the park.

She can count to 6 on her own, then it goes something like " eleven . . . two . . . nine . . . twelve."

I don't think she even knows what a letter is. We'll work on that.

She loves swimming. Like really loves it.

She says funny things:

One morning she woke up and the lawn mower was going outside. "Uh, oh! Airplane!" she said.

Another time there was a thunder storm going on and she cried out in the middle of the night "airplane!".

Seems like she associates loud noises and airplanes.

Yesterday she started running around in circles with her arms up yelling "Carly's flying! Carly's flying!".

When we read scriptures at night, she flips through the pages and says "an came pass . . . an came pass" ['and it came to pass']. The first time she said that out of the blue and we were like 'maybe she does listen?!'.

We went boating yesterday and on the tube she kept saying "wee!"; then we would hit a bump and she would say "WOAH!".

She was running in circles and I said "Wow, Carly you are so fast!" and she said back, mid-run, "Thank you, mama!". Then she started chanting "Carly's fast! Carly's fast!".

She poked me with a book and I said "Ow" so she gave me a kiss and I said thank you and she said "you're welcome". This created a new game where she would poke me on purpose, and we would go through the whole process over and over.

She is an excellent talker and constantly has words flowing from her mouth. She can say pretty much anything you say. A few that come out extra cute are "lawn mower", "peanut butter", "Backyardigans", and "delicious".

She has been quick to throw a tantrum lately, and its hard to tell whether she is just recovering from our long weekend, or if she is entering "terrible twos". We were kind of hoping we would skip that phase.

She really loves nursery. We get to church and about 15 minutes into sacrament meeting she asks, "Go play?".

She LOVES Toy Story. She also likes Cars and "Meeno".

She has a bubbly and sweet personality. She likes to say hi to everyone at the store. She is so full of excitement and zest for life. She is a loving caretaker to all her stuffed animals (whom she calls her "friends"), and has begun to show love and interest for human friends her age, too (thankfully; she has always loved playing with adults, and I've worried a bit about her lack of interaction with other young kids. yay for nursery and playgroup!).

She is so good at "prayers", and sometimes if I'm still getting something for dinner but she and Chris have their arms folded, she will say "Please, mama. Prayers." And there is nothing sweeter than seeing that girl kneeling (or squatting) in her pajamas with her arms folded in prayer.

We like our 23-month-old a lot.