Some of my favorite Van-isms...

 I love this photographer!  Her website is http://www.clipsandclicks.com/.  Anyway, she did Van's one year pictures so I had her do his 2 yr as well.  I just love how well she captures him! 

Life with Van is so busy and fun!  I've always loved how well he's been able to talk and, I admit, I was even a bit prideful of how well he talked.  That was until he started saying things like, 'No.  I said no.'  Sure it was a direct quote from me, but I don't like my own power to be used against me.

 Some of my other favorites are as follows:

"I need water, dad.  Go dad go!"
"The Church of Jesus Christ Amen."
During a prayer, "Please bless Blake and Carson and Blake and Carson and Blake."  Which is actually pretty wise of him, since my little brothers always live on a the wild side of things.
"Good job getting dressed mom!" We all need some encouragement.
"I like these now!" When discovering that he couldn't eat a cookie until he ate his veggies. 
"Can't mom.  I busy." 

I've noticed most of these sayings of his have to do with telling me no.  It seems like no matter how hard I tried to come up with alternative ways of saying 'no' it slipped through.  But would he really qualify as a toddler if he didn't say no?

I think he's really starting to catch on that he's going to have a baby sister.  On Mother's Day, he came up to my belly and kissed it and said, "Hi baby sister! How you doing?  Hold you?"  I admit, it melted my heart.  It was the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for.  We'll see how he feels once she's really here though...because later that week, he told me he was a baby.  And he wouldn't walk anywhere.  He would only crawl and told me he wanted a bottle.  So I get the feeling we are in for interesting times ahead!

I used to think Van looked so much like me and acted so much like me, but as he gets older, I can see he definately pulled some Matt on both of those fronts.  Which is especially good for the personality part.  We can't have two people in the house being bossy.

Again, I have to say how much I love this photographer.  I liked this picture a lot.  Mostly because he looks so reverant!  Not sure how she captured it (just really quick on the draw, I guess.)  It just reminds me how fast time is flying by.  Two years ago, I had a newborn baby in my arms and now I'm lucky if I can catch the toddler to get a little cuddle.