Donovan turned TWO!! Wow! Already?

I can't believe Donovan turned 2 already. He is growing up sooo fast! It was an eventful week. The day of his birthday was pretty low key. His nanny, Paula, brought him a gift and made him a cake and he was able to open a few presents. He is very much into cars and trucks, so those were his favorite gifts all around this year. He can't seem to get enough of them!

We also had a birthday party for him yesterday (Click here for pics). He had a lot of fun, especially opening presents...well, if they were cars or trucks or something that moved. LOL! He played fairly nicely, getting upset a few times when one of the other kids touched his stuff...particularly the new gifts. This is understandable at this age as they are still learning to share, right? ;-)

Donovan's doctor's appointment went fairly well, for a 2-year old, but I wish I had brought Donny with me. :-p He hated most things about the appointment, but then wouldn't leave the waiting room to go home. Typical 2 year old. LOL! He's about 34 3/4 inches tall and 27+ pounds, so he's growing nicely.

He is talking up a storm, although we probably are most apt to understand him, still. Some things are clear as day and other things we only know what he's saying in context because we interact with him daily. Most of his sign language has been replaced with words, which is expected. I am VERY curious, though, if he will remember them and use them with the new baby or at least understand the new baby when we teach him signs too. He has a few signs left and I think "more" will be the last to go, even though I've noticed he's not using that one as much, either. He knows all his basic colors, I'm pretty sure all of his numbers, knows many letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make, and knows that letters make words, but obviously can't read yet. I think he can be an early reader if we keep fostering it. He is really grasping the concept of time, too, and will look at the clock and say the numbers on it. I used it sometimes to say "At Eight Oh Oh, we will...". It works...sometimes. ;-) He still LOVES to read a lot and can read the same book 20 times or 20 different books after one another. We think he is very smart, but of course we are biased. :-) He also moved into a "big boy room" and is doing very well staying in bed...so far. I'm so glad that has gone better than I ever anticipated!

Finally, unfortunately, his nanny found out her grandmother in Brazil is in the hospital and very ill. :( She decided to go back to Brazil for a little while for her grandmother and to help her family through it. Because travel is so expensive back and forth, she has decided to stay for a longer period of time, probably through Christmas. :( Well, unfortunately, although we really love Paula, this means we needed to look for a new nanny because her absence is undetermined and we really need to be settled a couple months before the baby is born. Donovan is going to have a lot of changes and we need to make sure we limit them as much as possible around January and February. But, we are pleased to welcome Jerri Sue to our family!! She is a professional nanny and has been doing it for 20 years. She has been with her past 2 families for 5 years each and so we feel confident that she wants to become a part of our family and stay with us for a long time. We are really looking forward to working with her and getting to know her better. She is obviously very warm and loving. I find it very impressive and encouraging she's done mission work in other countries, as well. :-)

I'll close here by saying that Donovan is so wonderful. This is such a fun age!! It's a challenging one, but the interaction is just so awesome! I love when he says he loves me or night night or just gives me a hug or a kiss without prompting. It's so wonderful and I don't remember my life before we had him...much. LOL