3 years, 4 months (updated)

Dear Dylan,
You have such a fun personality. I love you so much. I wish I could kiss you and carry you like a baby all the time. I have to say that my favorite time with you is when it's just the two of us up at your *Transformers bed around 10pm each night. After you're in one of Isaac's diapers, your teeth are clean, I carry you up the stairs (That's my one time to carry you each day) and you have your sippy cup and green "wanket," you ask if we can read a scripture. You want to read a scripture about Moses. (I thought it was pretty cool that you knew that the story of Moses is in scriptures. We have a movie we stole from Grandma's house b/c it was your absolute favorite movie about a year ago, it's called "The Prince of Egypt." It's about Moses, from the basket to the Exodus.) When I read to you, you are so into it. There aren't many distractions, and you look right at me and ask "why." It gives me butterflies in my tummy because you're providing the teaching moments, and you really want to learn. I videoed one of our conversations, but it's too long to share on the blog. You can look it up one day. After the scripture, we sing a song or two and say a prayer. You repeat the meat of the prayer, then if I'm not too tired, I ask you "what else are you thankful for?" You reply with the standard "dinosaurs, and thank you for, um, um, ummmmm, beds, and badeyes, and thank you for towers." It's cute that when I say "please bless_____," you repeat "thank you for bless_____." You're full of thanksgiving I guess:) We hug and kiss and tell eachother we love the other more, then I turn out the lights to you rolling to your side with your blanket and thumb. I sneak back in to look at you, kiss your cheek, and sometimes take a picture.
You're a good negotiator. You figured out to ask me if daddy says no and vice versa. Then you go back and say "Mommy said yes," when in fact, I said to ask Daddy. You're a little con artist at times.
When we're in the car or on a jog, you ask, "Mom, can we talk about creatures please?" I ask what creatures, and you reply with some kind of animal. You say, "Let's talk about sharks." Then it's alligators, tigers, lions, snakes, worms, dinosaurs, then sometimes a wild card. You ask Daddy too. When we try to have a conversation of our own, you tell us that you need to talk about dinosaurs. If we tell you that we just did, then you say reply with "ok, then let's talk about sharks." Or you say, "but we didn't talk about them last time." If my sewing machine were better, I'd make you a shirt about your conversations. Maybe I'll get an iron on creature.
Sometimes you give me clues if I forget an important part, like what sharks eat or something. You just like hearing it over and over again. You'll give me facts about things when it comes up, like when it's raining, you tell me that it's so that the plants, trees, bushes, flowers, and grass can grow.
You know that monster frucks live in the mud and cars live on the freet.
In the car, I wrote down some funny things you were saying. You told me that you were scared from bad guys and lions and tigers and monsters and frocakiles and from donosaurs, then asked "what you scared about?" I said cockroaches and you said "yuck, I'm scared from bumblebees. What you scared about?" Since it was my turn, I told you that I was scared of monsters in a forrest. You said, "oh my dooness, that's not good." You named some other scarry animals then asked me again. I said something about a soccer ball hitting me in the face and you told me, "you have to run away from a soccer ball, then it won't hit you. Talk about 'nuther scary creatures."
When you're really excited, you sometimes scream and make silly noises and faces. You get the screaming from Malia and Noah.
We were making animal noises in the car with Jake and you were guessing what animal makes that noise. Then you wanted to go and were being silly. You made a noise that I thought was a leopars hissing or something, but you said, "no, a fleenex!" (A Kleenex makes that noise - so funny to me and Jake.)
When I put a pad of butter on your home made bread at Grandma's, you asked "will you smush it please?"
You like to dance, but not only if you don't think anybody is noticing b/c you get shy. Today, we were all dancing (Isaac always likes to dance), but I kept you sorta behind me so you wouldn't stop. You were clapping your hands, bobbing your head, and stepping side to side and really feeling the beat. SO CUTE!
You recognize places and point them out. You recognize the huge cornucopia and exclaim "hey, I went to there last time, wis you and Isaac!"
You know that certain phrases are funny and repeat them to me. Today you came up with a few, like "come on, mom, come on" when I say no to you. Yesterday, you said "Spencer says oof, like this, say oof when I hit you mom [hit] see?! That's what Spencer says [laugh], he's silly."
You like to take pictures then look through them. (These are from today on our way home from the beach.)

Randomly, from another room you call for me: "Mom, . . ." I answer and you tell me, "I wike ya!" I tell you that I like you too. Sometimes you switch out the word wike for love. It's sweet, but I think you may say that instead of whatever you were going to ask depending on how I first answer your call. If I'm happy, you go ahead and ask me to play with you, but if I sound busy, you tell me you wike me, THEN ask me to play with you.
You love life. You love friends, toys, outside, swimming, parties, Big Grandma's, and Tiny Grandma's (great = big, so to differentiate, regular grandma = tiny), fishing, the toy store, the grocery store, anything but salad. You'll eat salad, but you always have to tell me that you don't like it. Who put that thought in your head, Daddy?
You ask for everything you see in person, in a book, or on TV. You beg and plead for the most rediculous things, like a monkey, a sharp sword, or a space ship (life size). You're rediculous and funny.
You're learning how to take a breath when swimming. You can also float a little on both your tummy and back. You're great at squirting squirt guns.
You are learning about opposites, colors, numbers, letters, singing, and days relationships like yesterday, today, tomorrow, and last time. You never want to wait for tomorrow, you want to do the fun things today.
You search for bugs, but keep your distance and ask Daddy to KILL them for you. You ask Malia why she likes bugs, and if she's not here, he'll say that he wants to save a bug for her.
*We moved you into the office to Malia's bed so we wouldn't feel guilty about letting Isaac cry in the middle of the night, but of course that's the night that he slept through the night. He hasn't woken up since. We got you Transformer bedding so that you would want to go in that room b/c you loved your monkey bed so much that you would only sleep there. The bedding worked! You love that new bed now.