I’m not feeling too creative right now, and I’ve been trying to write this post for 4 days.. so forgive me if it’s short and boring! I can’t believe it’s March already, and I’m SO HAPPY it’s March already!! I have had spring fever SO BAD for months now. I think this winter has been so long, so cold, and so snowy and I just can’t wait until it’s over! Ok, that’s enough of that!
Updates on Lily - she is adorable as ever, but we are COMPLETELY in the terrible twos. She argues with us for the sake of arguing, she wants to do everything herself, she’s belligerent and doesn’t listen, and she isn’t SLEEPING. This Mama is exhausted, people! We still put her to bed by 7:30 but for the last 3 weeks or so she doesn’t fall asleep until 10-10:30 or so, then I have to wake her up by 6:15 so I can go to work. I tried skipping her nap hoping that it would help her fall asleep earlier, but then she was just about falling over by 5pm and STILL wouldn’t go to sleep until 9-9:30! One night she came walking out into the living room and handed me the bulb from her night light - she unscrewed it! The next night she walked out and handed me her entire night light, unplugged.. then she chucked it down the hall into her room and shattered the bulb. Needless to say, she no longer has a night light in her room.
I love so many things about this age - I love seeing her incredible personality, having conversations with her, and hearing how her mind works. I love watching her learn something, and the things that come out of her mouth are just adorable (see “Lily-isms” on the right-hand side of this blog)! She makes me laugh almost every single day! However, there are certainly a lot of challenges with this age as well. She completely knows all of her letters and the sounds they make (she quizzed me the other day and said I did “pretty good”). She is starting to sound out words, and is learning to write a few letters (”O” being the most common, though she has written an “L” too). She can’t go to bed at night without at least one book in bed with her and sits and “reads” it before she goes to sleep, and lately has added more and more stuffed animals into her bed at night so you can hardly find her in the middle! Word World is still her absolute favorite show, and I think her favorite people in the world (outside of Mommy and Daddy) are her cousins Claire and Abby, and Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, have I also mentioned she’s a shoe fanatic? I have NO IDEA where she gets that from - really!
Ok, well. I ATTEMPTED to do a very “ghetto” photo shoot of Lily, so if you want to laugh at that, click on the album below! I hung a sheet over her door as a backdrop but didn’t realize HOW BADLY the sheet was wrinkled until I really looked at the pics and they’re all pretty horrible. Plus she wouldn’t stay in the right spot, or wouldn’t look at me, or wouldn’t smile! Then she kept running over to me after every picture and saying “did you take a picture? Can I see?” This is one of the best ones -
Finally, I’ll leave you with a few snow pictures from our yard this weekend. Jason took Lily out into the yard and they went sledding down our front hill, built a snow tunnel, and an ice sculpture! They had a great time.
Well, we had even MORE birthday celebrations this month, beginning with a joint birthday party for Lily (2), Claire (2), Abby (2), and Uncle Greg (30) on January 10th. It was mostly family at the party and we had a great time! Hopefully I can teach Lily that birthdays don’t TYPICALLY last well over a month! The following weekend we had a surprise party for Uncle Greggy for his 30th birthday. It went well, and we pulled off the surprise after a number of close calls! I think Greggy had a good time, and that’s the most important part.
Finally, the tale end of the “big girl bed saga”. If you remember from last post, Lily learned to climb out of her crib so we converted it to a toddler bed. In doing so, we found out that her crib had been recalled and needed to be “destroyed” (we had to send in all screws and support plates as proof we weren’t using it). After much debate, we decided to use the crib as the “full-size headboard and footboard” and just buy her a full size box spring, mattress, and rails. We went out and did that the very next weekend, and ended up having to rent a truck to pick up the mattress, drop them off at home, and return the truck (mostly to avoid the $90 delivery fee). We also went all the way down to IKEA to get bed slats only to find out the rails we bought were “slatless rails” so we didn’t need them and need to go return them to IKEA. After all that running, Jason put together the new bed and we realized the bed was SUPER high off the ground. Lily couldn’t even climb up on it with the little steps we put near the bed and I was really afraid of her falling off the bed from that height since she had been falling out of bed pretty frequently since the conversion. Jason and I discussed our options, and finally decided to disassemble the bed, disassemble our guest bed upstairs, and swap the frames. So the guest bed frame is in Lily’s room now with her NEW mattress and box spring, and the guest room has Lily’s bed frame with its original box spring and mattress. PHEW! Way too much drama for a “simple” change! The good news is that the transition is going very well. She sleeps really well in the bed, doesn’t flip around as much as she did in her crib (even keeps her blankets on some nights!) and hasn’t fallen out of bed once. She loves the new bed so much that we must do EVERYTHING in bed - change her diaper, read her books, play with dolls or games - everything. I’m sure the novelty may wear off at some point!
Now that the big girl bed transition is done, I think our next big milestone is going to be getting rid of the “binky”. It’s starting to drive me crazy! We’ve been really good for quite some time at restricting the binky to sleeping times - naps and bed time - but lately Lily is going in reverse and wants the binky 24/7. I’m sick of trying to find them, and listening to the whine when I tell her binky is only for sleeping! So, I think we’re going to give that a try in the next few weeks - wish us luck!
Let’s see - on Thursday the 21st I got a call at work from daycare saying Lily had hurt herself. Apparently she was jumping on the couch at daycare and Jen yelled at her to get off the couch and Lily didn’t listen. Jen was walking over to pull Lily down and Lily decided to JUMP OFF THE COUCH and hit the side of her face near her eye on the coffee table. I took her in to Urgent Care and the Doctor was very kind, told me we could do a stitch or two because the cup was somewhat deep, but after talking about the pros and cons I decided against the stitches. Her eye swelled up pretty nice the next day (about half-way shut) and she had a nice black eye but I was really impressed at how quickly it healed. Unfortunately, the “jumping” lesson was NOT learned as she continues to jump on the couch and on the bed and is way too acrobatic and daring for my comfort!
Finally, last weekend we took Lily out to her first movie! We went to the Cinema Grill where Lily got in free and Jason and I were only $2.50, and saw “The Princess and the Frog”. It was actually a great way to try out going to a movie because it was cheap so we weren’t wasting much if we needed to walk out and leave, plus she was somewhat distracted by food, and we sat on a bench in the back so she had more room to move around. She did REALLY good the whole time - at first she was so amazed she was just STARING at the screen with her mouth hanging open. It was so much fun to watch! She was perfectly well-behaved through the whole movie until about half an hour before the end when she stood up and announced to the theater “I’m ALL DONE with this movie!”. heheheh
Random updates - Lily has been getting argumentative over every little thing lately. For instance, reading one of her books that mentions a cow eating grass and she tells me “No, Mommy. A cow does NOT eat GRASS.” And I’ll say “I think he does, honey” and she says “I think he does NOT.” (Then she went on to say a cow eats fruit snacks - HA!) She also loves her new bed, which I mentioned above, and she is still doing amazingly well with her verbal skills and word recognition. She knows all of her letters and what sound they make, and she’s starting to recognize some words when written down (Lily, hat, water to name a few). She LOVES pointing out letters on ANYTHING anywhere we go and always wants to know “what is that spell?” when she reads them aloud to us. Lily loves to call some of her scribbles certain letters, and Jen said she’s going to start working with her on writing her name. I just can’t believe how big she’s getting! It happens so fast. I saw a 6-week old baby today and can hardly remember Lily being that small already, and sometimes can’t believe she’s not STILL that small - how does the time go so fast? Hope things are well with you all and I’ll try and update again sooner rather than later!
Good thing I didn’t make a resolution to blog more in 2010, because I’d already be in trouble! We had a FANTASTIC Christmas (many Christmases!) this year, and it was so much fun for me to see Lily really get into it this year.
So.. in case you didn’t notice - we got some snow! The Christmas 2009 Blizzard did it’s best to mess up our Holiday plans, but we still managed to fit everything in.. just sometimes a day or so later than planned. We went over to my parents house on Christmas Eve and spent the whole day there with Grandma and Grandpa, Great-Aunt Pat, Auntie Lisa, Uncle Ryan, Cousins Claire and Abby, and Uncle Greggy. Lily was somewhat sick and didn’t nap AT ALL so by the time we ate and started opening some presents, she was having a bit of a meltdown. The meltdown only lasted through the 1st present, then she realized that all those presents were for HER and she got to open them and keep them and somehow she got a second wind!
Lily got so many presents - I don’t even know where to begin! She got very excited to open each present and sometimes didn’t even want to look at what it was for more than a minute because she was anxious to start opening the NEXT present!
Due to the weather, we all ended up spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house (except for the Lambert clan), and amazingly Santa found us there on Christmas morning! We woke up Christmas morning and were just doing normal stuff - I had to change Lily’s diaper, etc, waiting for everyone to get up and moving and I think Grandma was almost more excited to go see what Santa brought than Lily was! Finally, we did tell her that Santa came and we should go downstairs and see what he brought and then she got really excited!
Our original plan had been to drive down to Jason’s Moms house on Christmas Day, but because of the bad weather we decided to push it off one day. We ended up spending most of the rest of the day at my parents house, then met the extended family at Aunty Pat’s house for pie in the afternoon. The most exciting part of that was getting to meet my newest 2nd cousin - Alexander Lawrence! He was only 1 week old at Christmas and SO good - he slept through the whole thing. He’s adorable!
Christmas evening we went home and unpacked all of our stuff from that sleepover, and repacked for our trip to the farm. Right away Saturday morning we headed out to Jason’s Mom’s house and met up with Jason’s family (Grandma Gayle, Grandma Jim, Uncle Shawn, Aunt Shannon, Cousins Arian, Tali, Eanna AND even the Wilkemeyers (Aunt Chandra, Uncle Aaron, cousins Akasha and Aria) were in town from VA! We had another great Christmas down at the farm, and Lily got to sit on and pet a couple of horses!
Overnight at Grandma Gayles, Lily made a new discovery - that she could climb out of her pack-and-play without help. I was really hoping she’d never discover this! We would put her in it to go to sleep, and she’d climb right back out. One time she climbed back out immediately, before I could even sit down again. Finally, she did sleep well but it was only a few days later at home that she decided to try it in her crib. I heard her waking up and went into her room and saw her with one leg on top of her crib rail up to her knee, and trying to hoist herself on top of the rail. She looked over at me and said “This is scary!”. You’re telling me, kiddo! So, that night we converted her crib to a “toddler bed” (day bed kind of thing). In doing so, we realized that her crib has been recalled so we’re trying to figure out exactly what we’re going to do. I think we might end up getting her a new, full-size bed, and use the voucher we get to buy a new crib and just leave it in the box until we need it again whenever we have another baby. I can’t believe how fast Lily is growing up! This “big girl bed” has been quite an adventure, and she seems like such a big kid to me. It’s so bittersweet!
The only unfortunate part about her new bed is naps. They have been pretty hit or miss for the last few months, but since switching her crib to a bed she hasn’t napped in it once. She still naps at daycare, and she napped at my parents house once, but she won’t nap at home which has been frustrating - I’m not ready to give up nap time yet!
Sorry, I rambled off there - once we got back from Grandma Gayle’s (that Sunday) our friend Travis came to visit from New Mexico! It was nice to see him, even though I didn’t get to spend much time hanging out and I had to work the next day. I think he’ll be back this summer, so I’ll look forward to hanging out with him more then! Now, let’s fast-forward to New Years Eve. We had spent so much time running over our long Christmas weekend that I think we were all in need of a more low-key weekend at home, and to just spend some time together without things to do all the time. We went to the Beaverson’s for the 2nd Annual NYE sledding party on Thursday afternoon, and that was fun (though COLD) and our only real planned event for the whole long weekend!
We had a really nice, relaxing long weekend that we spent together. Lily did really good in her new bed (she slept in until 9 am - twice!), we did a few casual errands and got some things done around the house, took down Christmas decorations and found a way to rearrange the toys in the Living Room to incorporate all her new Birthday and Christmas toys.
Just general Lily updates - She continues to amaze me constantly. She knows all of her letters, the ABC song, and the ABC song with a word for every letter (A, “ah” alligator, B “buh” ball, etc). Today her daycare woman told me she was playing Boggle Jr. with two of the preschool girls and actually PLAYING it! She has been very concerned with feelings lately - understanding her feelings, and ours. She says “I love you” and “I love you so much” and gives us giant hugs. SHe asks if we’re happy, or upset, and tells us “I’m so happy!”. She’s had some cute sayings, most of which I haven’t remembered to write down in time, but I did catch some of them! Yesterday she said to me “Mommy, can I have a nest like duck?” I said, “Don’t you want to sleep in a bed like Mommy and Daddy?” And she said, “No, I want to sleep in a nest. Like Duck.” A few weeks ago, Jason and I were talking while Lily was playing near us in the Living room, and Jason said “well, in one of the most under-reported scientific discoveries of the year - ” and Lily interrupted with “the sun is HOT!” which just made us laugh like crazy. I am still just absolutely loving this age!
Finally, I’ll leave you with a video of Lily singing her ABC song, but be sure to stay tuned until the very end when she has a big announcement to make - “My Mommy is _____!”
It’s so hard to believe - my baby is two years old already! It just amazes me that two years has flown by, yet I can’t remember living life without her in it. I am so grateful for the chance to be her Mommy, and Jason and I can honestly say we have never laughed as much in our life as we do now that she’s part of our every day.
Lily had a great day! She woke up a bit too early from a coughing fit, but became so instantly enamored with the Christmas Tree we had decorated after she went to sleep the night before that she forgot all about the rough start to the morning! We brought one of her birthday presents into the living room overnight so she could open it right away in the morning. She kept staring at it as if it couldn’t be real, and Jason and I kept encouraging her to rip the paper off and open it already. Finally, she tore it a little bit, then came running over to me and said “Mommy, fix it!”. Once she finally got the idea that she COULD rip the paper off and wasn’t going to get in trouble, she did a great job opening the easel and played with it off and on all morning!
After all of that excitement, Daddy and Lily played with the Easel in the living room and watched “Word World” (Lily’s favorite show) while I made her a very special breakfast. She didn’t end up EATING much of the special breakfast, however, because she filled herself up on the drinkable yo-baby yogurt we gave her (or as she calls it - “spoonie” (smoothie)). We played with her most of the morning, and gave her a super-fun bath where she got to pour water all over Mommy! Mommy then made her a special lunch of Mac-and-Cheese, but by this point she was getting pretty tired and cranky. We finished lunch and brought her over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to nap so we could put some decorations up (at their house) while she was sleeping. Of course the flaw in that plan is that whenever we NEED her to nap, she won’t. This was no exception! I left her in the room for about an hour, trying to get her to sleep, and we were able to get everything we needed to get done during that time.
We ended up having my whole family, and Jason’s brother, his wife, and their kids all at my parents house for cake and presents and it was total chaos! Lily forgot all about her earlier reservations in ripping off the wrapping paper and went to town opening all of her presents. She got a LOT of nice stuff, and was totally spoiled! She would sometimes hardly look at one present before wanting to rip open the next one. She got two Word World DVDs, Tinkerbell DVD, a sled, the “Tag Jr.” reading system by Leap Frog, a puzzle, a kid-tough digital camera, a rocking chair, a book and gift certificate to Half-Price Books, and a toy kitchen! The Toy kitchen was a huge hit, and instantly had all 5 girls (age 4 and under) swarming it and fighting over the pieces. They continued to play with it throughout the afternoon, and I think it’s going to be one of her favorite new toys at our house - as soon as I find a place to put it!
Finally, we got to Lily’s favorite part - the part she had been talking about ALL DAY. The cake, of course! We got her a Yellow Butter cake with Strawberry Cream filling from The Cake Box (the same place that did our wedding cakes!) and it was delicious! Lily ate an ENTIRE piece of cake AND strawberry ice cream! After the sugar high wore off, she crashed HARD on the way home and slept through us carrying her in, and even laying her down on the couch. Poor, wiped out little birthday girl!
Anyway, all in all it was a great day and I can’t believe it’s mid-December already, and that it’s been two years since she was born! Sorry if this post seems broken-up and hard to follow - it took me two days and 4 separate starts to write the whole thing! If I don’t post again before then, have a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) everyone!
Wow, where to even start? I can’t even remember everything that has happened since my last post. The highlights: Jason+Lily+pony= LOVE, girls night, vacation week, new job, illness, Thanksgiving.
Lisa and I organized a girl’s night at Mom’s house where we brought snacks, movies, and “spa supplies” and had a girls night in while Mom was recovering from surgery. Since Jason was going to be alone with Lily, he decided to take her down to his Mom’s house to ride Jesse Pony one last time (for the year), and visit his Mom. They had a great time, and they both survived their first “solo” (without Mommy!) trip out of town.
The week before Thanksgiving, I took a full week off work (vacation time)! I needed some time to catch up on things and not feel like I was constantly drowning in “to do” lists, and to get some extra rest. It was a FANTASTIC week, I got a lot done and felt much better going back to work. Unfortunately, that Friday Lily started to get sick. I wasn’t sure what was happening at first, but she had a low grade fever (100.3) and just seemed tired and like she wasn’t feeling well. Over the weekend it turned into a cold, but I still had a nagging feeling that I should bring her in. She had been exposed to pertussis (Whooping Cough) the previous week at daycare, and I didn’t want to risk her getting the really bad cough and getting REALLY sick. So, the day before Thanksgiving I got her into see the Dr who did a nasal swab and put her on antibiotics as a precaution. Turns out it was a good thing I listened to that gut feeling, because it came back positive! Luckily we caught it REALLY early so it never got worse than a typical cold, and she didn’t have to suffer through that horrible cough.
On Thanksgiving we went to my Aunt’s house for our traditional family meal. It was fun, but it was so obvious how much things have changed. Lily, Claire, and Abby got to join us this year at a “kiddie table” next to ours, but they were too excited to be sitting next to each other to eat much. While Lisa was doing the dishes, I was helping watch her girls as well and let me tell you - three almost-2-year-olds are utterly EXHAUSTING! At one point I was talking with Claire and lost sight of Lily and Abby. I found them a few minutes later in my Aunt’s room with an OPEN BOTTLE of Excedrin PM!! I couldn’t tell if they had eaten any at first and my heart just stopped - I was totally freaking out. I did find one pill on the floor with some of the coating dissolved so I think one of them put one in their mouth and spit it out when it tasted so horribly bitter. Luckily they were both fine - perhaps even better than I was after that kind of scare!
The day after Thanksgiving, we headed down to Rochester for Thanksgiving Part 2! Jason’s Dad drove in from near Madison and was able to meet Lily for the first time, and Lily got to hang out with her other cousins (Arian, Khavy, Dominic, Tali, and Eanna). It was a fun trip, and it was so much fun to watch all of the kids together and see how much they’ve all grown!
Slightly out of order, but during my week of vacation, Jason received a job offer! He accepted the position and today was his LAST day at Hopkins! On Monday he starts working for Community Action Partnership for Ramsey and Washington Counties (CAP). I’m very excited for him, but very sad that our time working together has come to an end. I will miss seeing him during the day, miss carpooling and eating lunch together! However, I think this is going to be a great job for him and I know he’s really excited about it, so as bittersweet as his leaving is for me, I know it’s for the best and I am really happy for him!
Finally, I got a cool new camera! A Canon EOS Rebel T1i DSLR camera. I have a plan (3-5 years) to open my own business, and this (along with taking the classes it came with) is my first step. None of the pictures from this post are from the new camera, but you can see some from my first night of playing with it here - http://picasaweb.google.com/jill.woyak/20091129NewCamera#.
I can hardly believe it, but my baby girl is going to be TWO YEARS OLD in only 10 days! I will do an update about her birthday in a few weeks, but right now I’m in shock that it’s even December - much less her birthday already! Where does the time go?!?
The night before Halloween, Lily and I got to hang out with Auntie Lisa, Claire and Abby! It was a really fun day and the girls had a great time hanging out together, and we even had a first-annual (maybe) super-special Halloween sleepover party!! Once the girls were in bed, Lisa and I got to hang out and drink wine cider, eat junk food, chat, and watch cheesy movies (like 2gether)!
The next day, I made a special Halloween breakfast for the crew (Baked Apple Pancakes - yummy, but not at all healthy other than the apple), and we got all the girls ready and headed out. After running a few errands, we headed over to my Aunt’s house to show her the girls in costume, then over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to see Grandma home from the hospital (surgery the day before) and trick-or-treat at their house as well! All three girls were dressed up in these adorable matching Lamb costumes made by Lisa’s step-mother-in-law(?), which were a huge hit!
At that point we parted ways, and we each went home to get our respective kids ready for the real deal - their first “real” night of trick-or-treating! After dinner, Lily changed into her Frog costume and we headed out on the streets. We first went to Derek, Alix, and Sebastian’s house where Lily took the candy Alix offered and then declared “I come in!” and tried to force her way in the house. Luckily we did know them, and Lily got the hang of it after that, so she wasn’t barging into strangers houses all night long! The rest of the neighborhood was pretty dark, but as soon as we rounded the corner onto Zenith I could not BELIEVE how many people were out! It was like being in a mall. I have never, in my entire life, seen that many people out trick-or-treating and it was incredible! We went to about a dozen houses, then ended up running into our friends The Beaverson’s and went back to their house to hang out for a bit. We didn’t end up getting back to our house until 8 or so, so I ended up shoveling 3 bags worth of halloween candy into the bags of 7 trick-or-treaters that came to our house just to get rid of it!
Now I’m going to skip forward to the weekend after Halloween. On that Friday, I brought Lily to Kid’s hair in Maple Grove and got her hair REALLY cut - into a Bob! I think it turned out really cute, and it looks thicker and will hopefully all grow out at the same length now and be less of a mullet. Here are some before and after pictures -
Before -
More excitement last Saturday when the weather was 60s and BEAUTIFUL so we packed up and went to the MN Zoo! It was the perfect day to be there (apparently everyone else thought so, too, because it was packed!). Lily really got into seeing the animals this time and I think she had a REALLY good time! Her favorite part was the tiger, because we went up to the glass partition at the tiger area and there was a tiger RIGHT on the other side of the glass, pacing back and forth. He was literally INCHES away and I think it about blew Lily’s mind. She’s still talking about it! Since she was such a good girl, I even gave her an ice cream cone (her first whole ice cream cone, and she devoured the. entire. thing.). Sunday we just did outside chores and got some Christmas shopping done.
Random Lily updates - her vocabulary and comprehension continues to completely amaze me. She routinely speaks in FULL (5-10 word) sentences already, and understands concepts (can switch your/my appropriately, etc). She has had a number of very loving moments lately, which completely melts my heart. I will never, ever tire of hearing her say “I love you, Mommy!”. The other day I was kissing her good night and she put her hands on my cheeks and said “I had fun with you today, Mommy.” Tonight as I was getting her ready for bed we were reading a book about Birthdays. I was telling her that she has a birthday coming up, and she’ll be two. She looked at me and said “No, Mommy! I don’t LIKE two. I am THREE.” heh
We have been having a bit of a sleep problem lately, and it seems as if Lily is trying to give up her one and only nap, but I am resisting! She has moved to sleeping in a “big girl bed” at daycare, and sleeps fine there so I’m wondering if she’s looking for the same change at home. I don’t feel ready for that, but if it makes her sleep again, I’ll convert her crib into a toddler bed ASAP! We have another exciting weekend planned this weekend, so I will try and update much sooner next time!
We are still dealing with major mood swings over here! From absolutely adorable to absolutely frustrating in 0.2 seconds flat. Must be the Terrible Twos? Last Wednesday we dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa’s for a sleepover because they were going to watch her while we were at work on Thursday. Well, the work project ended up taking much longer than anticipated (we worked almost 22 hours - 7:30am-5am Friday), so she ended up spending an unexpected 2nd night there as well. She had a great time and even got to hang out with her cousins, but when we came to get her on Friday she was SO. MAD. AT. US. She threw nonstop tantrums until she finally fell asleep that night, and even tried to order me out of the car to walk home. Ever since then, it seems like it’s really kicked off an unbelievable streak of bossiness and we have at LEAST one major tantrum a day. I’m not liking this trend so far!
Lily has been doing some nice things as a part of this age as well, so I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all bad. She has been doing a really good job of sharing and taking turns, both of which are important skills to learn. In the picture above, Gibson was sleeping on the couch so Lily decided that he need to have her lamby (lovey) to sleep, so she brought it to him. Then she decided that she was tired as well so she went and got her blanket and set up on the couch by the cat. It was pretty cute! Also, today she ran up to the front door and said “Bye bye!”. Jason and I asked here where she was going and she replied, “I go to the moon. Be right back.”
Last weekend we FINALLY had some decent weather - no rain and upper 50s - so we managed to spend a lot of time outside and even went to a few apple orchards and pumpkin patches! Both of the places we went had little petting zoos, so Lily got to see and feed a bunch of little animals, and one of the places even had PONIES! It wasn’t quite as exciting as Grandma Gayle’s house and Jesse pony, but Lily did get a small ride on one of those ponies, which she really, really enjoyed.
Have I told you yet about Lily’s addiction to the show Word World?. She LOVES that show! It’s not a bad show, it teaches letter recognition and spelling and basic beginning reading skills. Grandma and Grandpa have a DVD of 4 episodes and we she has them all memorized and we hear about them ALL the time. The memorable part of that show is that they make things out of the word for what they are. Like, the Dog looks like a dog but is also made out of the letters DOG, if that makes sense (click the link if you don’t understand what I’m saying!). The thing I’ve noticed with Lily is that it seems to be helping her recognize the shapes of words already, even if she can’t put the letter sounds together yet. So, the other day we were playing one of their online games and they had the letters for the word HAT scrambled on the ground so you could pick them in order to spell HAT. The letters were arranged as “AHT” and Lily pointed to them and said “ant!”. I was pretty amazed!
Other than that, there hasn’t been a lot of excitement going on. Lily is getting very excited about Halloween and has been practicing knocking on doors and saying “Trick or Treat!”. Tomorrow I have the day off at home with her so I’m hoping we can spend some quality time together since I think she’s been missing me a lot lately, and I’ve missed her. I’m not sure yet what we’re going to do yet - it looks rainy and cold so it’ll be an inside day for sure.
The thing I’ve really noticed about this age is that Lily seems to alternate between absolutely, incredibly, indescribably adorable and insanely frustrating, with very little in between. She is very insistent about doing everything herself, which is good and can be cute, but at times can be so frustrating! Like when we’re in a hurry and need to get out of the house, but Lily insists on putting on her own shoes for 10 minutes. Or brushing her teeth for half an hour before bed.
But the adorable times completely make up for it. Like when she sits down and pulls off her shoes, then grunts and struggles for five whole minutes to get her socks off, and when she finally succeeds she announces “My sock FELL OFF!”. Or pointing out animals in some of her books where there is a Mommy animal and baby animal, and she points to each one and says “Mommy bear. Lily bear. Mommy sheep. Lily sheep.” and on and on like that. Today Jason was carrying her through the doorway that has his pull-up bar on it and she grabbed onto the handles and shouted “I do HANG-UPS!”.
She is getting to be such a big girl - I can hardly believe it. In just over 2 months, my baby girl will be two years old! It makes me teary even thinking about it. I don’t know how it’s possible the time has gone that fast. This past week Lily has graduated from sleeping in a pack-and-play at daycare, to sleeping on a cot. Jen says she has done REALLY well with the transition, and doesn’t even get off the cot when she wakes up - she just sits up and does her normal babbling. This is encouraging for when she makes her switch to a big girl bed, but I am nowhere near ready to make that change yet! As a reward for doing so well with the cot, she’s also graduated to a big girl chair (no booster or anything) at daycare so she can sit right at the table with all the other kids. She LOVES this! Now at dinner she climbs up on my chair and I have to fight her for it, so she might be making a similar transition at home soon.
(Lily proudly showing off the shoes she picked out and put on herself)
The other day she wanted to play with our digital camera, and take some pictures (all by herself, of course). She was very, very closely supervised - mainly because I was worried about something happening to the camera - but she did a good job. And now, Internet, I present to you one of Lily’s first solo pictures -
Isn’t that lovely? And now I’ve put it out on the internet where it will exist forever across the world. She even attempted her own version of a self-portrait, of only her leg -
Backing up a little bit, let me talk about what’s been happening lately! A few weeks ago Lily and I met up with an old high school (and college!) friend named Becky, and her two kids - Alexandra (3), and Noah (1). It was fun to see her again and catch up, and Lily and Alexandra really seemed to hit it off! At one point, after watching Becky struggle to carry Alexandra (who didn’t want to walk anymore), and push a sleeping Noah in his stroller, I came up with the suggestion of improvising a double stroller out of mine. Alexandra sat in the stroller and Lily sat on her lap! They got a kick out of it long enough to get us most of the way back to the entrance, and I just chuckled listening to their little conversation on the way there! We also got to feed goats, and see two bears fighting - click the link for more pics!
Finally, last weekend we took a trip into the past and went to Winona for the first time in close to 10 years! We went to see a couple of college friends (Blaze and Kelly) get married, and it was a lot of fun! We saw a ton of old friends we haven’t seen in a long time, some who have moved as far away as Pennsylvania. It’s interesting to see how much people have changed, and how much some people haven’t changed!
This weekend is our first weekend in close to two months where we have NO MAJOR PLANS and I have been really looking forward to it! Lily, Jason, and Uncle Greggy might go to a Twins game tomorrow (and I will have 3 hours to myself! in the middle of the afternoon!), and other than that I’m just hoping to catch up with some stuff around the house - a little cleaning, laundry, sorting out fall clothes, etc. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Wow, sorry about that - I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without a blog post. Things have been INCREDIBLY busy and stressful, and there hasn’t been much room in life to write down what we’ve been doing! I’ll skim over the highlights, but apologize in advance for anything I miss - it’s far too much time for my brain to hang on to details.
First of all, we had a bunch of birthdays during August! Grandma had a birthday on August 14, I had a birthday on the 16th, and Auntie Lisa had a birthday on the 23rd. So, to start out, on the weekend of the 14th-16th we had Grandma’s birthday, then the next day was a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for my Aunt and Uncle, then Lisa and the twins had a sleepover at our house! That Sunday the 16th was my birthday, and a house-warming party for Uncle Greggy, which was also a b-day celebration for me, Grandma, and Auntie Lisa. Whew!
The next weekend was Auntie Lisa’s birthday, and Claire and Abby’s baptism. The girls did a really good job and I don’t have a single picture because I was the photographer with Lisa’s camera. The next TWO weekends we had visitors from Rochester - Jason’s brother (both times), with Shannon (first weekend), Arian (first weekend), Tali (both weekends), Eanna (both), and Dominic (2nd weekend). It was a lot of fun to see them all again, and give the kids a chance to play together! The only sad part is that we never made it to the splash pad as promised. Lily really seemed to hit it off with 2yo Eanna, and the two of them seemed pretty evenly matched.
On their second weekend up, Eanna had some unsupervised “fun” in our upstairs office/guest bedroom! She got into the desk and found some markers (including a sharpie) and colored ALL over herself and the wall, and some on the desk. She got in big trouble, and I felt bad because I kind of get how that happens so quickly. Anyway, she mostly just managed to get the wall in this little nook we have, so it should be really easy to paint over, and I’m thinking about painting it a different color than the rest of the room anyway.
We also managed to make it to our friend Cameron’s third birthday party, complete with a giant bouncy house and the biggest pizza and cookie you’ve ever seen! We also bought a new car (pre-owned 2009 Mazda 5), started a new school year, went back to our normal daycare (Jenny’s house) which Lily LOVES, met up with an old high school/college friend and her kids at the zoo (will have that in another post), got our steps fixed (FINALLY), and many, many other things that I can’t even begin to list here.
Since I’ve been SO bad at keeping up with you guys, I’ve included not one, but TWO fantastic Lily videos! The first is a video of how Lily, Claire, and Abby greet each other almost every single time they see each other. I see a preview of the pre-teen years, here! Turn down your volume for this one -
August is flying by faster than any month so far. I love this time of year, and hate how quickly it passes! We have been keeping very busy, which only makes the time pass faster. Last weekend (August 2nd), we had Derek, Alix, Sebastian, and “Ace” over for dinner on the deck. It was a great night, and I think Lily had a great time hanging out with Sebastian! We had fun chatting with Derek and Alix, and were even able to keep eating on the deck during a short bout of rain, thanks to our gigantic umbrella! I completely forgot to take ANY pictures, but Alix was nice enough to send me some that she took. She also made a really cute post about the visit on her blog.
This Thursday, I took the day off work to use up some comp time I’d earned by working a long Sunday a few weeks back. My friend Nora and her 11-month old daughter, Juniper came over to visit. We went to the splash pad, but Juniper wasn’t a huge fan. It was still fun, though! Then Nora and I hung out and got to chat for a while, which was nice. It gets so hard to find the time to hang out with people when you both have kids, so it’s nice to take that time and catch up - especially nice when you can get outside and do something together! Of course, I COMPLETELY forgot to take any pictures.
On Friday, Lisa and the twins came over to hang out! We wanted to go to the splash pad again, but of course it was POURING RAIN the whole day. We have yet to actually get the twins TO the splash pad, because every time they’ve come over to hang out it has rained. Oh well, we had a fun time hanging around the house and Lily was SO excited to see her cousins again! Amazingly, we even got all three babies to nap at the same time for a while, and Lisa and I got some time to sit and catch up without chasing babies.
(Please ignore the back of Lily’s shirt… it’s a long story!)
On Friday night, our friend Travis came to visit. He hadn’t met Lily yet, so it was a fun trip. He lives in Madison, but has just joined the Americorps program for a year and is moving to some small town in New Mexico next week, so he made one last visit up here to say goodbye. It was nice to see him again, and hear what’s been happening in his life! I wish him all the best in NM, and hope to keep up with his adventures somehow. Again, I forgot to take any pictures, but Travis took at least one (Lily was throwing a fit so I don’t know if she made it in the picture at all) so if I get a copy of it I’ll try to post it. Travis spent the night on Friday and on Saturday morning we all went out to half-price books, then Travis left for Rochester to continue his goodbyes.
Yesterday, we took Lily to Kid’s Hair in Maple Grove to get Lily her first haircut! She did REALLY well, but she hated the blow dryer. The hair dresser gave her a lollipop to suck on, which worked wonders in distracting her, but Lily figured out how to pull the whole sucker off the stick, so we had to take it away. She gave her a second one, but Lily did the same thing so that was it for her! I hesitate to even mention this, because I feel like a dork, but I should try and remember it anyway. While Lily was getting her hair cut, I don’t know what came over me exactly but I almost started to CRY. I know, such a wuss. I don’t know if it’s just that she’s getting so big, or the fact that those were hairs she was born with that were being chopped off or what, but I wasn’t expecting to get teary about the process. Don’t worry, I pulled it together and didn’t actually shed the tears. Here are some pics of the excitement:
On Saturday night at dinner, Lily told me she had to go potty. I kind of thought she just wanted to go and play with the toilet paper, because she’s done that a few times before, but I brought her in anyway. I put her on her little potty seat and she started playing with the toilet paper, just like I thought she would. I stopped her from unrolling the whole thing and said “no, no, Lily, the toilet paper is only for AFTER you go potty. Do you have to go potty?” and she said yes, then she started to pee! She was so proud of herself! She grinned up and me and said “Peeing! Peeing!” I was totally amazed! She’s getting to be such a big girl!
Just to end our day of excitement, we had to have a tornado warning at our house on Saturday night. It sounded like it was getting pretty close so I ended up getting Lily out of bed and hanging out with her down in the basement for about half an hour. It ended up missing us (Thank God!) but it was one more adventure for a pretty packed day. Today, Lily got to hang out with Daddy and go on a long bike ride and to a new (to her) park while Mommy went and did some shopping!
And, now, we begin another packed week - I will try to update again soon with all our excitement!
We woke up Christmas morning and were just doing normal stuff - I had to change Lily’s diaper, etc, waiting for everyone to get up and moving and I think Grandma was almost more excited to go see what Santa brought than Lily was! Finally, we did tell her that Santa came and we should go downstairs and see what he brought and then she got really excited!
