Meilani's Milestones: Approaching the big 2!

Our baby girl is quickly growing into a toddler. In just a few weeks she will be turning the big two. In the last several months, she's had many milestones worth noting. The biggest milestone is in talking. We've moved on from words and phrases to sentences. It's amazing how Meilani can narrate a whole day's worth of events with 3 to 5-word sentences. We're fascinated by all this talking and language acquisition. The funny moments are when she throws in some slang like "C'mon, Mama" or "dude" or "Oopie" (oopsie) and her distinct, "Um, yeah." Do we say all that? Apparently.
Meilani has definitely grown more of a sense of humor in these last few months. She likes to do silly things and then laugh at herself and declare, "Funny!" This morning she set up her booster seat on a chair on our patio, got out her bubbles, put on her shades and informed me that she was in "Nani's office." (Where in the world did she get that one?)
We've created a girl with a world traveler heart. She's already been all over California, on a mission trip to Haiti, to a conference in Michigan and this summer she will be our companion in Virginia, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and beyond. She LOVES airplanes and has quite the radar for them. Whenever she hears an airplane or helicopter, she informs us and points to the sky. "Take off, take off!" She also loves motorcycles, cars, garbage trucks and "fi-re cucks" (fire trucks). During a visit with our friends Josiah, Bethany and Beverly Ford last week, we saw a fire at the apartment building behind their house. We called the fire department, heard the dogs barking and watched the smoke. Meilani said a little prayer for the dogs and the people and hasn't stopped talking about the "fi-re cuck" since.
Meilani has been a little climber since she was a baby. She crawled out of her crib the first time at 8 months and that's where it all began. She's graduated to bigger and better climbing adventures. She always finds the tallest playground equipment and goes right to the top. She's also into balancing/standing on our exercise ball and galloping around the block. (Yes, we'll blame Daddy for these unique athletic abilities at such a young age.) This week we started taking walks with her in the neighborhood. She walks, runs, gallops ahead of us now instead of riding in the jogging stroller. It's a whole new world! And she's very observant of bugs, flowers, dogs, bumblebees, cars. (Watch out, Mama. Car come.)
Mama's favorite antic was this recent scene in the kitchen.
Dorina: Meilani, what are you doing?
Meilani: Feed baby!
Dorina: Why is she under your shirt?
Meilani: Baby eat milk!
Yikes! Yes, we are indoctrinating our child about the virtues of breastfeeding.