Aria is TWO!

Our little peanut is TWO!! It seems like a lifetime ago when we were celebrating her 1st birthday without her while we waited to complete the mountains of paperwork necessary to bring her home from Guyana.

Aria has changed so much since that day one year ago.  Day by day, she's getting stronger and is slowly improving her head control. While she still tires easily, she can hold her head up for much longer periods of time.

She is now tolerating tummy time. She refused to be on her stomach when she first came home. She is even able to keep her head up for short periods when laying on her tummy.

She still prefers laying on her right side, but will now willingly roll to the left as well. She thinks it's fun (most of the time) when I roll her onto her tummy and then help her roll over to her back. If her arm is in the right position, she can even do it herself. While her trunk is still weak, it is definitely improving. She's even been able to sit unaided for over a minute.

Aria recently got a stander which she initially loved. After all, who wouldn't love cruising all over the house! But since we've started the abduction process moving her legs out little by little, she's not quite sure about her stander. For our little girl whose been so tight for nearly 2 years, it feels a bit strange and at times uncomfortable. Our goal is 30 degrees in abduction and she's currently tolerating 17.5 degrees. I never thought that would be possible! She even tolerates being in the stander for an hour most days. Studies have shown that standing in abduction can be beneficial for hip dysplasia which Aria was unfortunately diagnosed with. We are hoping it'll improve her hips or at the very least, keep them from popping out of socket and postpone hip surgery for as long as possible.

Our girl loves to move - whether chasing around her siblings while being pushed in the stander or being held by Mom while her siblings chase her! She lets out the most adorable squeals of joy as we go around the house in circles.

The sun peaks in the nursery window perfectly each day, making diaper changes a time to play with shadows on the walls. Aria loves looking at the shadows her hand makes, staring intently, and then giggling as Mom's shadow animal swoops down to grab her hand shadow.

Aria loves the Baby Shark song. We probably play it at least 10 times a day (and it doesn't get any less annoying the 10th time around!) Her foster family used to sing it to her. She also loves watching the video. When I turn it on, her eyes light up and she lets out a giggle at the sound of the very first note.

Aria loves looking in the mirror. She is pretty adorable to look at! She loves grabbing a hold of a rattle, raising it up as far as she can reach, and giving it an enthusiastic shake. But her favorite thing to play with just may be Mom's fingers! She has a heck of a strong grip and loves to yank my finger this way and that.

She is a chatterbox! She loves to babble and loves it even more when you repeat her. We can have an entire conversation with Aria saying, "Ah" and me repeating, "Ah" to which she responds, "Ah" and back and forth over and over again.

She is a huge fan of her pacifier and will suck away while holding it in her mouth with the back of her left hand. Only Avent's brand pacifier will do. We brought a couple along when we traveled to meet her for the first time. While she had a different kind when we had arrived, the nurse poked a hole in it in an attempt to get her hydrated. So we switched to the Avent ones and she's never been able to go back to any other brand. The same thing happened with the bottles we left for her in Guyana. She will only drink out of the Pura bottles. Every other bottle she takes one look at and bats away. She sure became attached to those two items we left with her in Guyana.

Aria loves her car seat and riding in the car. We spend a good deal of time in the car so we are all so grateful at how easy going she is. She is by far the quietest rider out of our troupe. While she used to despise bath time, she now is so eager to get into the bath that she gets mad if I don't go fast enough. And at the end of bath time, watch out! She will let you know that she's not too happy that her soaking time is over.

Aria is such a sweet little peanut. She loves being held. She loves kisses and will eagerly anticipate a smootch with her little mouth halfway open. While she seems to be growing quite long and filling out her 18 month jumpers, she is still so very skinny. Her appetite has been low after getting hit with sickness after sickness this flu and cold season.  She goes on a hunger strike whenever she is sick and had lost every ounce that we had worked so hard to gain. After her latest stomach bug, her weight dropped below 16 pounds. After a bit of research, I asked our pediatrician for a prescription to an appetite stimulant in a last ditch effort to avoid a G-tube. While the jury is still out on whether or not she'll be able to gain enough weight long-term, she did bounce right back after starting the stimulant and is currently high 16/low 17 pounds depending on the day. She is definitely eating more solids lately so hopefully it will be enough to continue gaining weight at a descent rate.

On her birthday, we celebrated at home with our family of seven. She's a December 28th birthday girl - smack dab in the middle of the Christmas and New Year's celebrations - so her big party would come a bit later. We celebrated her special day with Guyanese Cookup Rice (a recipe that I definitely need to work on as it was WAY too spicy for the littles) and cupcakes.

For her big party the following week, there was no doubt which theme she wanted...Baby Shark, of course!

Her grandparents, great-grand parents, aunt, uncles and cousins were all there to celebrate the birthday girl. Aria had the perfect birthday dress to go with the theme. She looked adorable!

There were presents, food and lots of guests wanting to hold the party girl. Aria especially liked the cards and balloons.

After she dug into her birthday cake and smeared it all over her face while somehow avoiding to eat any of it, it was off to the bath to clean up and then a nap for our tuckered out party girl.

A very happy 2nd birthday to our sweet Aria. We are so looking forward to the year ahead - one full of giggles, cuddles, kisses and many more firsts!