"I'm with my mom."

• She likes having blankets/jackets laid over her chest, and when she asks for it she'll say, "I want it on my heart." 
• One time she came up to me and said, "I want to give baby brother a hug," and she bent over and hugged my stomach. I almost died. 
• She's starting to talk to us the way we talk to her. For example, one morning at breakfast she got down from her chair, turned to me, and said, "If you stay there, you can have one M" (referring to an M&M). Well okay then. 
• Whenever I say "shut up" (to Daniel) or "crap," she says, "Mommy doesn't say that." 
• When we're cooking, she'll come into the kitchen and say, "We need a couple of sugar." She also likes to grab random spices from the pantry, bring them over to where we're cooking or eating something, and "salt" things for us. Thankfully, she doesn't actually open any of them first.

• She loves looking at the pictures and videos on my phone, and when she wants to do that, she says, "I want to see pictures of you and Mommy and Aubrey." Sometimes she puts Daddy in there too. 
• At the end of Sacrament meeting one Sunday, we asked her to fold her arms for the prayer. She shouted out, "I don't have to!" I guess that's what we get for saying things like, "You don't have to, but we'd like you to..." 
• Speaking of praying, she will occasionally repeat the words of my or Daniel's prayer. One time she even said the dinner prayer herself. After Daniel said, "Let's say a prayer," she just started going. I believe she said, "Heavenly Father, we're thankful we can eat this meal together..." among other things. My little mimic. 
• Her favorite game involves putting all of her Little People (princesses, pirates, dwarves [she knows all seven of them by sight], fairies, etc.) in a circle and playing "Ring Around the Rosie" with them. It's a game she loves but refuses to play by herself. She also likes to ask for different shapes than just a simple circle--square, triangle, oval, rectangle, etc. My favorite (*sarcasm*) is when she asks for "a cake" shape. I have to explain that a cake can be many shapes; after much protesting, we always end up with a circle. 
• Another favorite game involves taking her smaller stuffed animals and shoving them through the door of her Little People castle.

• When she wants my phone, she'll demand it and then say, "I need to look for a recipe" when I tell her no. Yeah, nice try, kid. 
• Speaking of demanding things, she's in that stage where everything is "I need..." Our response is always, "How do you ask?" So sometimes she'll be screaming/crying about wanting something, and the second we say, "How do you ask?", she reverts to this affectedly sweet face and voice while saying, "Can I please have [object]?" It always makes me laugh. 
• We finally watched Beauty and the Beast all the way through, and now she randomly says, "He turned into a man! He's not a beast anymore!" 
• She likes to pretend my little mp3 player is a phone and call different family members. I love that she knows and remembers everyone.

• She often asks us to sing to her, and when she asks for a specific song, she'll say nearly all of the lyrics instead of just the title. For example, she often says, "Mommy sing head, shoulders, knees, and toes, eyes, ears, mouth, and nose?" Another personal favorite is, "Mommy sing driving, driving in my car, going down the far, down the street in my car?", in part because she has part of the words wrong. She also always says, "Mommy do ring a rosie, pocket full of posy, ashes, we all fall down?" 
• When she sings the alphabet, which she loves to do, she says, "W, X, now, and Z." Yet she recognizes the letter Y when she sees it. Funny girl. 
• When she's drawing or "writing," she says, "A, U, W, X, now, and Z! That spells [insert word here, usually 'Mommy' or 'Daddy']!" 
• She loves singing along to the songs from her singing Puppy.

• We have a playlist of songs she loves. It includes "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by Joan Jett, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet, "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin, "Somebody to Love" by Queen, "Banana Man" by Tally Hall, and "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift. She also really likes "Strange Magic" by Electric Light Orchestra. 
• I know that she's my daughter because of her love for butter. If you don't stop her, she'll grab butter with her fingers and eat it plain. 
• After I said something about when baby brother comes, she said, "When baby brother comes, I can pet him!" 
• She often says, "I'm with my mom" out of the blue. I find it so incredibly sweet. 
• She has a weird obsession with dressing and undressing herself. She often takes her clothes off (and sometimes her diaper--not okay) in the morning before I come in or when she plays in her room alone. Or, conversely, she'll add on extra layers. She also will take her shirt off of her shoulders, pull it down around her waist, and say, "I'm wearing it like a belt!"

• Her nursery leader is named Sister Robbins, and she will randomly say, "Sister Robbins loves you." She just talks about nursery a lot in general. I'm so glad she likes it. Heaven help us if Sister Robbins is ever released! 
• Despite always having her own water cup, she wants mine. It's somewhat new, and she loves it. She loves pushing the button to get the straw out. She loves using a straw in general. So if she ever sees me drinking from it, she insists on having it. And I let her, simply because I'm just glad she's getting something to drink. 
• When we FaceTime with Grandma and Grandpa, she always asks them to sing to her (a special song they call "The Aubrey Song") and make animal noises. Grandpa gets to be a cow, and Grandma does her best chicken and monkey. Aubrey just loves it. 
• She calls daffodils "daffodiddles." 
• I finally cut her bangs. They were so long that they kept getting in her eyes, so I went for it. They ended up shorter than I meant, but it could have been worse. 

Before:

After:

• If I'm lying on the couch and she wants me to play with her, she'll grab my hand, pull, and say, "I'll pick you up." 
• She often says, "I'm a little big kid." Cute. 
• She always runs away from me--when we go outside and it's time to get in the car, when I try to wipe her hands or face after eating, when I try to dry her hands after washing them, when I tell her it's time to get shoes on, when we're at the mall play space and she realizes the door to the place is wide open, when we go for walks in the neighborhood, when we're anywhere in public if she's not in her stroller (or if I've just gotten her out of it), etc. This is annoying in general, but it's particularly problematic for me in my pregnant state. I can't run after her; she is currently faster than me. And she has been known to run into the street/parking lot even though she will say herself, "A car could hit you. We'd be so sad." As a result, we bought her a frog backpack with a leash. The second I showed it to her, she LOVED it. She asks to put it on and plays with it like a regular stuffed animal. We call the leash his "tail," and she's perfectly happy with it. Judge me if you will.