- Love is the Motive -: And Then SHE Turned TWO

Miss Heeya is now TWO YEARS OLD!!!

What a whirlwind adventure it has been to have her in our already crazy household.

For some fun facts:

She is 33 1/2" tall and 26 lbs.

Average on the weight but on the short side. But hey she has my genes so her height isn't expected to be very high on the scale.

We celebrated her birthday this year 4 days early because Hyrum and her were given an amazing Jollibee party thanks to my wonderful Tita Lynne, Tito Burt and cousins Ein, Arjae and Kuya AJ. We had a great time!

Jollibee (a famous fast-food character, kinda like Ronald McDonald BUT way cooler!) knows how to throw a party!

Then we just had a simple cake with Mavericks family on her actual birthday because we were all still super tired from the travel.

So now let me tell you about my Halia Chiya at 2 years old.

This little lady has quite the personality. My little miss drama queen!

We butt heads ALL THE TIME because she is always so demanding on what she wants, especially if it's something that she can't have. She knows how to pull at your heart strings and make herself look like the saddest little girl in the world. Mav and I are surprisingly immune to all her dirty tricks but she gets everyone else. Especially the grandparents.

Mav and I have had many talks about the way we parent her because most disciplining tricks that we did with Hyrum does not work with her. She is more stubborn, more hard headed and more prone to tantrums. Which has led us to more visits to the 'Time-out Corner'. We are baffled at her commitment to really test our patience everyday. She has rocked our world! And it took us a while to be able to get through to her with compromises or threats or bribes. Heck we still don't quite know how to get through to her. And I doubt we'll ever will.

On a more positive note, Halia has a lot of good characteristics that we absolutely adore. She is a smart cookie!

She knows her ABCs, 1-10 and some colors. She is a good problem solver and loves to laugh and make others laugh too. She is not as eager to sit down learning as Hyrum but she is very inquisitive and detail oriented. I have to work hard to get her to sit with me to practice her numbers or colors or whatever but if I say we are doing some coloring or painting, she is excited! I think that she has possibly inherited some of the creative genes. She likes to do little nit picky fine-motor skills stuff like putting cards back in the box or threading beads. She LOVES books! She always asks to get read to and sometimes books are the only thing that can calm her down. And she will be your best-friend if you take the time to read her a book.

She is a GREAT talker!

I always get compliments on how well she can talk coz even other people can understand her (sometimes). She has full sentences and we have conversations that actually makes sense. While in the Philippines, she even picked up a few Tagalog words. But what's funny is that she would talk to my relatives in a specific babble that, we can only guess, is what Tagalog sounds like to her. But she would really look up to them and make this 'malabadaba' sound and expect an answer. It was funny!

Another thing that I love about Halia is that she is singing ALL DAY LONG!

It can be from a commercial, or the last song that she heard, or sometimes, she makes it up herself. One night in the Philippines while in bed she was singing, "Daddy is in Idahhoooo! Daddy is in Idahhoooo! Mommy is sheeping (sleeping) wight heerrreee! Hyra (Hyrum) sheeping wight here chhuuu!" Over and over until she fell asleep. I was trying so hard not to LOL!

And oh my heck she is potty trained!!! We started when she was 18 months old and it took about a month for me to really call it good. She would still have accidents once in a while but for the most part she was fully trained. I had the goal of having her potty trained by the time we take our trip to the Philippines (which was 3months after we started) and she had it down by that time. Not a single accident despite the long plane travels, inside the car during crazy traffic, gross toilets and most not having a toilet seat. It was definitely easier that potty training Hy and most definitely much faster. We are very proud!

She LOVES her 3 Bs. Babies , Barbies and bags.

Who would've thought that I could spawn someone so girly?

She got her first baby doll from Lolo and Lola on her first birthday and her collection has grown ever since. She carries them around with a blanket, talks/sings to them, make them sit beside her to watch TV, sleeps with them, push them around in their little stroller with one of her sippy cup, she even puts them on time-out when they are naughty. She loves her babies BUT when a real one comes along she gets all giddy and shy. And when I'm holding one, she would slyly sit beside me and steals little touches and points out his/her little features. I'm going to be in a lot of trouble trying to keep her away when the next sibling comes along.

I don't know how the Barbie started but she loves them and it's what she asked Santa for. I'm not a very big fan coz of all their little shoes and little accessories and little clothes that will always be off and will just add to my already crazy messy house. Plus, I don't want to see little naked bodies all over my floor. But going down the (dreaded) Barbie aisle, I found that a lot of them have built in clothes and shoes already! Genius! So I made sure Santa knew what kind of Barbie this mommy approved of.

She likes to walk around with bags and sticks all sorts of things in it. Cups, dolls, puzzles, pencils, or her favorite rock collection. When we have misplaced something like a cellphone or remote control or a spatula, we look in her many bags and would usually find it. Another funny story while in the Philippines, my mum bought her a souvenir shoulder bag. She loved it and was showing it off to everyone. When we got in the car, my cousin admired it and she proudly said that she has something in it... An unpaid crocodile toy from the same store that the bag came from. A shoplifter at such a young age! Needless to say, my uncle ran back to the store and returned it apologetically.