Anelise is well ahead of the curve when it comes to speech and vocabulary.  She's not even two-and-a-half, and she speaks very clearly, in complete, proper sentences.  Even her responses to questions are complete sentences.  If I ask if she finished her food, she never says, "yes" but always, "yes, I did!"   It's quite entertaining.  Here are some of my current favorites, many of them get repeated often:

"Someday we will have a dog at our house."
"When I get older, I will have earrings and a necklace."
"What in the world?!"
"Thank you, God, for such a beautiful day!"
"You can open my door in the morning, and I can get out of bed!"
"Why do we have so many people?" (in our family)
"What color are your eyes?" followed by...
"Did God make your eyes blue?"
"Hi, Chile Verde!" (driving past our favorite Mexican restaurant), followed by...
"Goodbye, Chile Verde!"
"Are we going to pick up Grandma Miles and go to Bible Study?"
"See you later, alligator!" (when finishing a skype conversation with Grandma and Grandpa Ippel)
"Will Kaylee be in my class?"  (friend from church)
"I burned my fingers on the burner a few weeks ago."  followed by...
"Jesus made my fingers all better!"
"Thank you, Mommy, for giving me dinner!"

Teeth!

It finally happened.  Ethan lost his first tooth yesterday!  I think he's looking so grown up with that missing tooth.  And I'm really glad it happened on its own yesterday, before he gets two more pulled tomorrow!  I'll have to get a picture and post it soon!

We are in the phase of our year where lots of people come visit.  We have four weekends in a row with visitors coming, followed by two weekends of spring break.  That's a lot of people we're visiting with, which is lots of fun!  Last weekend Jon and Joy (my brother and sister-in-law) came for IndyCon (board gaming convention that Jon and Jonathan go to).  We had a fun time, although Joy was sick and eventually was diagnosed with strep throat.  Fortunately, nobody in our family caught it.  This past weekend, Jonathan's dad came for a visit.  We went to BrickWorld with him on Saturday.  BrickWorld is basically a Lego expo.  There are lots of very large lego displays; big cities, airfields, and my particular favorite, Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Colts).  This was the first year we've gone to BrickWorld; the boys loved it!

Next weekend, Orsi and Zoli are coming for a visit.  Orsi and Zoli are my "adopted" sister and brother-in-law.  They live near Toledo, OH.  They're going to join us for a marriage retreat on Friday night and Saturday morning at our church, and the rest of the weekend I imagine we'll play lots of Tichu.  The following weekend, Luke, Mandy, and their girls are coming (Jonathan's brother and sister-in-law) for the weekend.  I imagine our time will be spent here and at Jonathan's Mom's house.  I don't think any specific plans have been made, but we're looking forward to some time spent with them!

And before we know it, Spring Break will be upon us!  I'm starting to get excited about the long car ride.  And yes, I'm serious.  I love road trips.  It's probably time to finalize some details of the trip.  Maybe we'll accomplish that this week.