Jade is learning more words. In fact, a few weeks ago, we were in a restaurant, and I (Vanessa) got up and told Mike I was going to find the bathroom. Well, Jade starts pointing at me as I'm walking away, yelling "poo poo!" over and over. So the whole restaurant is hearing it! How embarrassing! Guess who taught her that!

She also can say ball, baby, home, book, and many more new words. Along with new words, she is learning her colors too. She can say blue and purple, as well as point them out. She can also point out yellow, red, gray, green, and black. She loves coloring, and regularly talks us into coloring with her in her puppy and horsey coloring books.

To help teach her some good habits, we've started Jade on a sticker chart. She gets a sticker when she takes a nap, puts her dirty clothes away, puts her toys away, and anything else that deserves positive reinforcement. She loves it. When we decided to start doing the sticker chart, we were wondering if she was too young to get it, but she's not. She totally got it the first day! Now when she does one of the things on her chart, she points to her stickers. It's been really good! She's even getting her toys involved. She'll let her bear or bunny pick out her sticker. Or she'll even have her Mickey Mouse ball or bunny purse pick one out. But the best was today when she had her sock pick out a sticker! Oh my! The girl's got quite the imagination! She can make anything come to life! The real kicker is that after we put the sticker on the chart, she always wants us to show it to her bear or bunny or whatever chose the sticker. When I held that purple sock up to her chart to show it the new sticker, I had a very hard time not laughing! But she felt pretty good knowing that her sock was very proud of her!

We'll have to make a separate sticker chart when we start potty training in late summer. If anyone has advice on potty training a 2-year-old girl, we'll take it!

Along with good habits, we're also trying to teach her about money. She earns one dollar every time she fills up a sticker chart, so we take her to the dollar store to pick out what she wants to buy with her money. Eventually we will teach her about saving and tithing as well. Although she does have two piggy banks which she loves putting coins in. In fact today, she found a tin in my night stand that had some coins in it. Mike was watching her. She figured out how to open it, and managed to take all of the money out. Mike asked her what she was going to do with it, and she made a piggy face! It was her way of saying she wanted to put it in her piggy bank! I came in and Mike said "Our daughter just robbed you blind!" He showed me the money in her hands and told her to tell me where she was going to put it. When she made the piggy face, I just died!

Jade brings so much laughter to our lives! We are very blessed to have such a special girl!

We hope everyone has a nice spring. Let's pray it actually gets here someday soon!