"Yes, my dear Mommy?"

Man, I've been sitting on this blog post for FOREVER. As a result, some of the things are out of date now, but whatever. Here goes!

• When we were driving in the car one day, I started tapping my left foot on the left foot rest (also called a "dead pedal," apparently). Aubrey heard it and said, "What's that?" I responded, "I'm tapping my foot." A few seconds later, she said, "See, I'm tapping my foot too!" I turned around to find her tapping the bottom of her left shoe with her right hand. I almost died from the cuteness.
• She often says, "You're my best friend!" to me and to Carter.
• Daniel gave her a blessing a few months ago when she woke up very sick in the middle of the night. A few weeks later, after she hit her head on something and it was still hurting awhile later, she said, "Daddy, can you give me a blessing for my head?" I love that she thought of it and that she asked.
• Speaking of churchy things, she has finally started saying prayers again. When we sit down to dinner, in fact, she'll often just start saying the prayer without being asked and without either me or Daniel being ready. When we say our family prayer before bed, she often volunteers to say it. She always says, "Thank thee that Carter could feel better" as the first thing and often asks that each member of the family feel better or expresses gratitude that a certain person feels better (You can tell she started saying prayers while we were all sick, haha.). Then she looks around the room and starts naming items she sees and saying we're thankful for them. She's also said some funny/cute things like:
• "Thankful for our family"
• "Please bless we'll have pancakes for breakfast"
• "Thankful we can use the potty and get a chocolate kiss"
• "Thankful we could talk to Grandma and Grandpa"
• "Thankful for keys to drive the car"
• Also on a churchy note, she likes to read the scriptures herself. Only she can't read yet. So when it's her turn to "read" (which she insists on), she opens up the Book of Mormon and turns the pages, occasionally saying "Jesus can help us" and "Nephi built a boat" and other such things.
• One time she randomly said, "It's okay, Mommy, I'll protect you from the dragon!"
• When Pam was over recently, Aubrey was playing with her trains. When Pam pointed to the coal car and asked what was in it, Aubrey looked at it and said, "It's meat." Haha!
• She loves the "Happy Birthday" song and for awhile there would sing it randomly. Only she'd say, "Happy birthday to Carter. Happy birthday to Carter..." and use different names of friends and family each time. Now, she mostly just says, "Happy birthday!" randomly to me and Carter.

• One of her favorite phrases is "kind of." And she uses it in really funny ways, usually before answering what something is. Example: When asked on Halloween what her costume was, she said, "It's kind of Rapunzel!"
• She randomly started saying a few funny things. First, she started calling me a "silly muffin." She also started saying, "Yes, my dear Mommy?" when I call her name. I love it.
• Most of the time, when someone tells her she's [insert adjective or noun here], she'll say, "No, I'm Aubrey." Recently, when Pam said she was a speed demon, she said, "No, I'm Aubrey." Funny girl.
• When she does something she's not supposed to and I tell her to say sorry, she says, "Can you say the words?" and utterly refuses to do it. So obnoxious. When someone does something nice for her and I tell her to say thank you, she buries her face in her hands or shoulder and again refuses. *Sigh* 
• One of her favorite things to do is put her stuffed animals, dolls, and Little People to bed. She lays them on the floor and covers them with blankets. Then she shushes me and tells me to be quiet because they're sleeping. She also likes to make "beds" out of playdough by pulling it apart into chunks and lining them up next to each other. Then she lays her Little People on them. She gets very upset if they roll off.
• Speaking of getting upset while playing, she is uber obsessive about how she plays picnic. She'll spend a lot of time setting up the food, and she's very methodical about it. She'll start to put something down somewhere and then change her mind and put it somewhere else. It's all very deliberate. And Heaven help you if you try to pick anything up or if you knock something over. If that happens, she starts flapping her hands in front of her and having a little anxiety attack until it's fixed. She shouts, "Oh no! My picnic!" (Also, I'm pretty sure she calls it a "pipnic.")
• In the morning, she often covers one of her toys with a bunch of blankets and then tells me "I have a surprise for you!" when I come in to get her. She then unveils the toy with a flourish and beams when I get excited about it. She also arranges her play food and dolls in a long line.

• She is also very particular about how her covers are done at bedtime. Everything has to be laid down just so and in a specific order, and she's been known to freak out and demand that we do it again, shouting, "It's not right" while flapping her hands.
• One night, while putting her to bed, Daniel pointed at the video monitor in the corner of the room and asked her what it was. She said, "It's a lamp." When Daniel asked, "What does it do?", she said, "Weasel pasta." Awesome.
• She likes to put all of her dolls and Little People in one of her toy boxes to give them a "bath."
• She also loves sitting in buckets and boxes and having me cover her in toys and stuffed animals. At different times, the game means different things. Sometimes she's taking a bath; other times she's taking a nap. When it's a nap, she asks me to cover her head, too. 
• Speaking of nap games, she loves to pretend like she's putting other people to bed. She'll have you lie down, and then she'll tuck you in. She'll "read" you two books and then sing "I Am a Child of God" and "I Love to See the Temple" before saying goodnight and closing the door. And when you get up, she says, "Don't get out of bed" or "Stay in your bed." She actually played this game with her friend Quinn, and when she got out of bed, Aubrey kept telling her she had to get back in. Poor girl started to get upset, so we had to intervene. Oh, Aubrey...
• She also likes to pretend to be asleep in her car seat when we go to get her out. Then we're supposed shake or tickle her awake.
• The all-time favorite game, however, is a weird version of hide-and-seek. She hides somewhere or covers her face with her hands or something and says, "Can you find me?" Then I have to pretend to look a bunch of different places and then act surprised when she finally pops out. We do this ALL. THE. TIME. It's cute and all, but oh man...
• Whenever we're all sitting together, or if there's a picture of all four of us, she says, "It's all our family!" So sweet.
• She loves the movie Alice in Wonderland, but she insists that it's called Alice in Wonderworld. 
• She has started to lie down next to Carter and tell him stories, just like we do when we put her to bed.

• When she gets in the car, she often says, "Oh, I need to check on Carter." She then peeks over into his car seat before getting into her own seat. She also says she needs to check on him if he's napping (which really means she wants to go wake him up, so I always have to stop her).
• Speaking of which, she always tries to wake him up if he's sleeping. I HATE it. She will say, "Wake up baby!" and/or try to smack him awake. Punk.
• Through our efforts and--let's face it--the PBS Kids show Super Why, she has started learning what sound(s) each letter makes. She's so proud of herself when she gets them right, and she's very interested in learning to read!
• We ate some pork chops with bleu cheese for dinner awhile back, and she ate the bleu cheese by itself and loved it. She was eating giant chunks of it that would have made me gag, and I like bleu cheese!
• She has started imitating the way I talk to Carter, and she does it in such a funny, high-pitched voice. She mostly says, "Yeah? Yeah baby?"
• Now that Carter is eating solid foods, she wants to help feed him. It's super cute that she wants to help, so I let her, but she often ends up getting more on him than in him, haha.

• She's a very defiant little girl. Everything is a struggle. We're hearing a lot of "no" lately, and when we tell her not to do something, she shouts, "I'll [insert bad behavior here] if I want to!" She also says, "No, never!" and "No, not yet!" when we ask/tell her to do something.
• She's also a little negotiator. When she asks for something and we say no, she often says, "Okay, here's a deal..." before launching into an explanation of how she's going to do that thing (it's usually watch videos) for just a little while "and then we'll be all done." Then she says, "Okay?"
• We got her a Little People nativity, and she loves playing with it. The best part is that she has added the pirates to the mix, so they visit the stable and the nativity people sail on the pirate ship. Oh well.
• She has started calling me "Little Lovey Mommy," which is so funny and cute. She also sometimes responds to me with, "Yes, my dear Mommy?" I (mostly) love how she mimics me.
• When we put her to bed at night, she insists on turning off the light herself. When she does, she always turns it back on and says, "Oh, wait, I've got to check my [teeth, nose, throat, or whatever]." Then she turns the light off again and turns the fan on until we tell her to turn it off. Only then will she get in bed.
• She likes to call everything "spooky" and "pesky." And, of course, she doesn't know what those words mean, so her usage of them is very funny.
• She randomly says "boop bah dah" over and over again.
• When we eat breakfast, she always wants my food. Even if she has the same thing or if I offer to get her the same thing, she wants to "share" mine. I know it shouldn't, but it really bugs me.
• One night, she started saying in a sing-song voice, "Pieces of Mommy's eyes, pieces of Mommy's hair, pieces of Mommy..." When I asked what she was talking about, she said, "I'm going to cut Mommy up into pieces." Yeeeeah.
• She can often be found singing utter nonsense songs that make no sense. She also makes up weird stories that she wants us to tell at bedtime. She says, "I want..." and it usually involves characters from Sofia the First, apples (eating them and climbing the trees), and dragons (sometimes nice, sometimes mean).