Clara at 23 months.

Clara is quite a character!  My favorite Clara-isms of late are:

"I choose..." (and then she picks a color of hair band or crayon)
"Just kidding!"
"I be wight back!" (right back)
"Clara do it!"
"Moo juice" is milk
"Daddy-O!  Macky-O!" (she's adding o to the end of everything these days!)

She has grown three inches since Thanksgiving day!  She is now 34 inches tall!  Crazy!  I'm a little shocked, because her eating habits are so up and down.  Sometimes she eats like a horse, and other times she doesn't touch anything!  She still loves milk though.

She can count to 14, but don't ask her to...she'll refuse!

She can identify quite a few letters.  I haven't done a formal assessment (are you surprised?) but if my memory serves, she knows the following uppercase letters:

c ,l ,a ,r ,h ,y ,w ,e ,i ,o ,k ,x and j, which is called candy cane, didn't you know?

She knows all her basic colors, and some shapes too, like circle, heart, and star.

She has learned to joke around.  Last night we asked her what puppies she loved, and she said, "Oma" and giggled.  Sorry Mom, we know you're not a dog!

She still can be a little naughty challenging, mostly to Kurtis and I, but at times we can reason with her and logic does the trick!

Here she is tonight!  Apparently she was feeling inspired, fashion-wise.  She had her jammies on, and then found the socks and shoes and managed to get them on.  And to finish her look, she grabbed the hat from a hook in her room!  After I put the camera away, she added a backpack to her look.  But I didn't capture it for you.  Whoops!

It is so hard to believe that Clara will be two in a few weeks.  She is the light of our lives, and keeps each day interesting and exciting!