The picture above was taken at the Tagalong where we rented the Pontoon boat. We took a similar picture last year in the same spot. I can’t believe how much has changed in one year! I can only imagine what next year will be like..
Wow, what a whirlwind month! I think we can pick up from the last post with the SURPRISE PARTY I threw Jason for his 30th Birthday! What a relief it was to get that done - planning was incredibly frustrating, but I think I managed to pull off a fun night at Elsie’s. Thanks to everyone who was able to show up!
Speaking of birthdays, we also had a big birthday celebration at my parent’s house for a bunch of may/june birthdays (my cousin’s daughters turned 21, my Dad celebrated a birthday, my Aunty Pat, and Jason). It was a gorgeous day weather-wise and we all had a fun time out on the patio! There are TONS of pics in the linked album, but here’s a few of my favorites:
Then, the end of June rolled around. We traveled out to Lake Mills, WI to visit some of my Mom’s cousins, and to go to a memorial service for Great Aunt Gloria, who passed away in December. She was an incredible woman, and left behind an amazing family. While we were out that way, Jason’s Dad drove in to see us and he and Jason spent some quality time together going to some historic sites in the area (Indian burial grounds, and stuff about a pyramid in the middle of Rock Lake out there). Our friends Jeremy and Cara (and JJ!) also drove all the way out from Milwaukee to see us! It was so nice to see them again, and meet their little boy. We live far enough apart that we don’t get to see each other often enough, and now they are moving to Vermont next month so we won’t get to see them again for quite some time. Cara was 9 months pregnant at the time, and has since given birth to a beautiful little girl!
We started off July with a bang as Jason and I (along with Greg, Dave, Shawn, and Andy) went to the TOOL concert at Xcel Energy Center. That was a great night, and amazingly I stayed awake through the next day at work, which was also my last day before our 1-week CABIN VACATION! Always the highlight of my summer! We had a blast going swimming at the beach club, swinging on the swing Grandpa hung up off the deck, renting a pontoon boat, and playing a million card games each night after the girls went to sleep. Lily, Claire, and Abby got to sleep in the same room (on the same air mattress!) together this year, which was certainly interesting! They actually did pretty well at night time - the twins especially would conk out pretty quickly and we would hear Lily over the monitor, talking and singing to herself. We did overhear some amusing things when she would pretend to talk to her cousins even though they were asleep! “You’re Claire, and You’re Claire! Except one of you is Abby…” Lily and Claire especially like to do their own rendition of “Under the Sea” from the little mermaid, which is adorable beyond words. We did learn, however, that nap times would just NOT happen if they shared a room so we had to split them up during the day, which worked out pretty well.
That brings us to this weekend, which has been much more laid-back than our previous few weekends. We had the Beaverson’s over for dinner on Friday night, which was fun! Other than that we’ve just been relaxing and getting things done around the house, and trying to deal with a crabby 2-year-old who is FINALLY breaking through her 2-year molars.
Sorry about the lateness of this post, but it took me 4 days to write this AS IS! There are TONS and TONS and TONS of pics and every one of the (FOUR!) albums I posted, so please feel free to browse through those! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and can we please make time slow down a little bit now?!?
Hey, look at that - it’s been a month already! I think this once-a-month blogging is working pretty well for me. And, boy, what a month it’s been! Lots of stuff to catch up on. First bit of big news - I got a new job! I no longer work at Hopkins - my last day was April 29th!! On Monday I start as a “System Administrator - Windows” for the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at the University of Minnesota. I’m nervous and super-excited for the change - I’ll be sure to post and keep you updated on how it’s going.
The most difficult part about my new position is that I’m going to be giving up my Fridays off with Lily. I am so incredibly grateful that I’ve been able to have that extra time with her for the first 2 years of her life, but I admit that I will miss it (and her) a lot. To celebrate our “last” friday together today I took her out for lunch, just the two of us. I told her that I’ve had such a fun time with her and enjoyed our “girls Fridays” and she nodded and said, “yeah! I love you so much, little Mommy.” so then I had to choke back the tears! I know I’m a total sap, but the child melts my heart like nobody I have ever met!
Some other big things that have been happening this last month - Lily developed a sudden, unprompted interest in potty training! She asked me three times in one day if she could sit on the big girl potty, so I let her but she didn’t really do anything. I told her daycare woman about it the next day and so she sat her on the potty after lunch and Lily did go pee. I took her out to the store and we bought a potty training chart with stickers, and a bunch of prizes for when she earned enough stickers (I like that idea better than rewarding with M&Ms or the like). My plan was to do a prize from the bag for every 10 “pee” stickers, every 3 “poop” stickers, and if she went potty on the big potty every day for FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT she could get a dress-up dress (that she’s been dying for lately). It started out well, she was really excited and kept talking about the “5 days in a row” excitement, but the excitement fizzled out after a few days before she even earned a single prize. I backtracked and decided the next time she did ANYTHING on the potty that I’d give her a prize to show her that she DOES get rewards, but she hasn’t done anything yet. I think maybe she’s not REALLY ready yet and we may back off and try again in a few months.
Random Lily-isms: A few weeks ago we had strawberry shortcake for dessert, only instead of shortcake we had angelfood cake. I brought it out and Lily announced to everyone - “Yay! It’s my birthday!!”
My daycare woman passed this one on to me - a couple of weeks ago Lily was at daycare and told Jenny, “There are 3 girls outside - Maeghan, Molly, and Lexie. There are 3 girls inside - Lily, Emily, and Sadie. There are 6 girls.” Jen said her mouth dropped open and when she finally recovered all she could think to say was, “uh… don’t forget about Jacob?” To be fair, she did say GIRLS.
I painted Lily’s toenails one weekend and then the next weekend we had a sleepover with her cousins Claire and Abby and gave all 3 girls manicures and pedicures. They all did REALLY well and Lily thought it was about the coolest thing ever to wear nail polish - on her toes! A few days later we were out driving and drove by a water fountain, and she matter-of-factly told Jason and I, “That’s a fountain. It waters the grass so it can be pretty. Like my toes.”
Speaking of that sleepover - for the first time we attempted to let all 3 girls sleep in the same bed (since Claire and Abby are in Big Girl Beds! now, too!) and I think they’re close but it just did not quite work out. Lily wasn’t very tired, and Claire was VERY tired, so Claire was trying to sleep and Lily and Abby stayed awake talking and giggling and stuff which made Claire upset. We ended up having to move Claire and Abby upstairs to the guest bedroom where Abby promptly climbed out of her pack-and-play and slept in the guest bed. Poor Lisa didn’t get much sleep that night!
Lily was telling me a story about a dream she had the other night and was talking about Dragons, then Dinosaurs. I can’t remember exactly what she said Dinosaurs do, but I just said “Oh, Dinosaurs do that, do they?” and she replied, “Well, only the Pteranodon.” I’m sure she picked this up from a book of hers (Snoozers) that has a Pteranodon in it, but it was still crazy to hear her say that out of the blue! Today she even used the word “intermittent”! She used it incorrectly, but still Jason and I had to ask her 3 times what she said to be sure we were hearing correctly. heh
Another form of amusement lately - I don’t remember how exactly this started but it seemed accidental that one day at dinner Jason and Lily were talking and started suddenly just saying a word, then going back and forth listing words that rhymed with the original word. “Look - book - took - crook - nook - shook” etc. Lily thought this was HILARIOUS and kept erupting into this enormous and adorable belly laugh, so we’ve made it kind of a game that I call “Rhyme time”. Nice and easy to play in the car when she’s bored, and she seems to love it!
Finally, if anyone has a Burlington Coat Factory near them you should go and check out some of the adorable sundresses they have for little girls! They had a TON of them for like $8.99 when we were there a few weeks ago and of course I couldn’t resist. Here’s Lily modeling one of them that evening (and her new Dora sandals - she would be very upset if I didn’t mention those!). Enjoy! Until next month?
Well, it appears that I have become a “once-a-month” blogger. I’m just going to let myself be ok with that! The main downside is that I just can’t REMEMBER all the cute stories that have happened over the last month, so forgive me if I get disjointed or ramble on.
What a month March was!! Beautiful, beautiful weather and a complete lack of snow (!!) gave us the opportunity to get outside a lot more and start to cure our cabin fever over this long winter. Some of the things we’ve done so far this spring - gone to the zoo, easter egg “hunt”, pajama party at grandmas, flying kites, swimming lessons, bubble-blowing, and many, many walks and trips to the park.
A couple of weeks ago we woke up on a beautiful Saturday and wanted to do something fun with Lily. Jason suggested the Children’s Museum so we started getting ready to go there. Then I saw online that my friend Jill A was going to the zoo and I thought “that sounds like fun” - plus our membership was about to expire. THEN my sister texted me and said she and her family were heading to the zoo - so that settled it! We met Auntie Lisa, Uncle Ryan, and Claire and Abby at the zoo and had a fun, spontaneous day.
The Easter Egg Hunt we went to was put on by our city, and wasn’t really a hunt at all (as I expected it would be). Another huge surprise to me was the AMOUNT of people that were there! It was open to kids 12 and under, and when we showed up a few minutes before it was to start the line went out the back of the city hall building, all the way down the block, turned the corner and went halfway down THAT street! We waited in line for about a hour and when we finally got inside Lily got to pick 2 plastic eggs out of a laundry basket, then bring them into this big prize room where a volunteer opened them and brought her the prizes she won. In this case she won some colored pencils and a fish game - but one of the kids ahead of us won a new BIKE! It was certainly an experience, though I’m not sure if we’re going to go again next year.
The pajama party at Grandma’s - Grandma was on spring break and decided that she’d like to have all three granddaughters sleep over at the same time (Brave Woman!). So she organized a pajama party for them, made them a special meal (homemade mac and cheese, hot dogs, and strawberries I believe), treats, games (fishing for prizes, etc), activities (dying easter eggs), and more! When I came to pick Lily up the next afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa looked like they were about to fall over and sleep for a week, but the girls were all really good and had a great time! I think this may have to become a regular event, if Grandma and Grandpa can survive it!
We began swimming lessons every Thursday evening, which will go until sometime in May. So far, I think it’s been a big success! Lily’s favorite part is jumping into the pool (what a shocker there - huh?) and she’s not so fond of floating on her back. Other than that, she picked up kicking and “reach and pull” like a pro! She did accidentally go under water on her 2nd week of lessons, which scared me to death but she did REALLY well! She managed to hold her breath and blow air out of her nose (I could see the bubbles) and when she came up she wasn’t coughing or screaming, just looked at me with huge eyes like “WHAT just happened??”. I think we’re going to be dunking her on purpose in one of the classes in the next week or two, so I really hope her reaction is just as good that time, too.
One more picture I had to include from our kite flying session a few weeks ago - this picture is underexposed and blurry, but there’s something about it I really, really like! It kind of looks like a dream or a painting or something..
Other than stuff we’ve been doing - Lily continues to grow and change almost daily. She makes Jason and I laugh like nobody else with the silly things she does or says. The other day she called out to me from her room when she woke up - “Mommy? Where IS my BINKY?” I looked at her and said “In your mouth?” and she stopped for a minute and said “Oh. hehehehehhehee (total giggles)”. She has developed this funny way of overemphasizing every word when she says certain things, especially when she’s in a silly mood. She also sounds like a teenager whenever you call her name and she replies with this bored-sounding “What.”. She has started to tell stories a lot, which can always make me smile - especially when I can follow most of it! Sometimes she’s just retelling the story of a certain Word World episode or something, but acting as if it happened to her or she was involved.. sometimes she just gets a collection of random information and strings it together into a story with a bunch of “and then’s” in the middle.
She has discovered that the magic in “Mommy kisses” must come from saliva! The other day we were at the park and she bumped her head on something. She was being kind of mopey about it so I asked her if she wanted me to kiss it. She looked at me, licked her finger and touched her head where she had bumped it and said, “Nope. I’m good.”, then ran off to play again. She’s also very concerned about how people are feeling - especially that they’re happy! She is always asking us (me especially) if we are happy, and then verifying that we are STILL happy after something has happened or some time has passed.
The other day when we were driving home she asked me - “Mommy, what is a Mommy?” I asked her what she thought a Mommy was and she said “A Mommy is a people. A Daddy is a people, too.” I asked her if Lily was people, too and she decided, “No.”. Then I told her that I was her Mommy, and she was Daddy and my daughter. She thought about this for a minute, then nodded and said, “Yeah! That’s what Daddy calls me - Lily Daughter!” (he actually says Lily Dot - Dot being short for Dorothy).
We are still somewhat struggling with sleeping - good days and bad days - whether it be nap time or bed time, but I think it will iron itself out soon. Part of it, I think, is her imagination on overdrive. She has started saying random things about monsters when we try to put her to sleep (she can see a green monster, or hear a monster crying, etc) but she doesn’t really ACT as if she’s scared, she seems like she’s just telling a story.
There have probably been at least a dozen cute stories or things she’s said that I want to share with everyone, but I just haven’t been very good at writing them down and I can’t remember them for very long. I wish I could have a video recorder on her all the time because I know how precious these memories are, and I know how quickly it will pass by. I will try to make more of an effort to jot some of these down and share them with you! For now, there are a few cute things on the twitter feed on the right-hand side, and there are TONS of cute pics (4 albums worth!) so please check those out to get your Lily-fix!
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 _____!”
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!
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!
Whew! Life has been busy. A couple of weekends ago, Jason and I took Lily to Edinborough Park (where we got married) and ran around with her in the gym area and on the play area. She was too little yet for a lot of the play area, but she had a blast anyway! She even went into the inflatable jumpy thing, but there were a bunch of bigger kids in there so she just kept falling over. She loved it when we pushed her around in the little chairs with wheels, and helped her get the ball in the basket.
Lily has finally, FINALLY gotten used to her summer daycare place, which has made life a bit easier. She no longer screams and cries when we drop her off, and just last week started napping again! And apparently she decided she has to make up for all those naps she missed, because she’s been napping 2 1/2 - 3 hours there every day since then. THREE HOURS! She doesn’t even do that well at home! Of course she does get the hang of this new place just in time for us to change again. Her regular daycare woman is back on August 17th, so hopefully we won’t have a bad transition back to her. I don’t expect we will, because Lily already knows her and the other kids - and keeps asking about her even now.
Jason and I have started looking for a new car, to replace his Mitsubishi Mirage. We were initially hoping to be able to buy a Prius, but the price tag is just too high. Plus, we were thinking it might be smart to have at least one slightly larger vehicle, but we’re not SUV fans or anything - we want something with decent gas mileage and a low price tag. How hard could that be? We did test drive a Mazda 5 which we both liked pretty well, but I think we’d have to find a good deal on a slightly used one to make it work. Anybody drive anything they absolutely LOVE? Please share!
Lily has gotten very particular lately about having things in “their place”. Books must be stacked in a pile. Her little farm animals need to either be in the barn, or stood up in a line next to each other. Or, in this case, the cow and the horse needed to wear her shoes. Sure, why not? She worked quite hard to get the animals in the shoes just right, and the shoes lined up side-by-side, and was as proud of it as a 19-month-old tends to be with ANYTHING she accomplishes. Which reminds me of one of Lily’s newest tricks. Whenever she accomplishes something she sets out to do, she raises her hands over her head and shouts “DID IT!”. It’s adorable, and sometimes completely hilarious!
I am totally loving watching Lily with her cousins lately. She talks about them a lot at random times, and seems to understand when we’re going to visit them and she gets SO EXCITED. The first time they see each other they all start shrieking and running up to each other and giving hugs and kisses. It just melts my heart! It’s one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. We were supposed to get together with Auntie Lisa and Claire and Abby last Friday for a playdate, but Auntie Lisa ended up getting pretty sick that day. Instead, my Mom watched the twins, and Lily and I went over to their house so Lily could still hang out with her cousins. It was a full day, but the girls had a great time together! Lisa and the girls ended up stopping by our house this evening for a minute, and I don’t even have words for the excitement pouring off of Lily from the moment she knew they were coming. I really have to video tape their reaction to each other one of these days, and share the cuteness with all of you!
That’s about all the excitement we’ve really had lately. This weekend should be fun (and busy!) as we are going over to the Osland’s on Saturday morning to get help replacing our bumper, and having Derek, Alix, Sebastian, and “Ace” over for dinner (on the deck!) on Sunday. I’ll try to remember to take some good pictures! Have a great week!
First of all, thanks Shannon and Alix for the anniversary wishes! We didn’t do anything too exciting. We worked, then picked up Lily and went to a parent meet-up for her daycare, to meet the other parents and kids. Then we ate at Wendy’s with a co-worker and her son before they went to kung fu. Guess the romance is truly gone! (Just Kidding!)
We had a FABULOUS vacation at the cabin! The cabin belongs to my Aunt, and is near Birchwood, WI. It was Jason, Lily, and I, plus Grandma and Grandpa (my parents), Uncle Greggy, Auntie Lisa and Uncle Ryan, Cousins Claire and Abby, and of course my Aunt Pat for just over a week. It was a little tough planning things around the napping schedules and whatnot for three one-and-a-half year olds, but we managed to have plenty of fun!
We left on Friday, July 3rd, and Lily was REALLY good and napped for almost the entire 2.5 hour drive (slightly longer than that because of bad traffic). We arrived at the same time as Lisa and Ryan, and just a few minutes after Grandpa and Greg (Grandma and Aunt Pat came up the day before), so that was about perfect. As soon as we got our things unpacked and settled a bit, we all went out to eat at a nearby restaurant (Bluegill?). The food was good, but they didn’t take reservations or call-ahead seating, and it took them FOREVER to seat us, even though they had the space. Oh well, we were on vacation - who cares about the time, right? Anyway, the dinner did take quite a long time but all three kids did pretty well. A little bit of fussiness, but it had been a long day for them so they did really well.
Ok, after that, my timeline is going to get a little messed up. I was on vacation, and it was hard to keep the days straight, so I don’t remember exactly what we did and when, but I’ll try to hit the highlights for you. We set up a little plastic swimming pool on the deck, and had the girls do some finger painting (which they weren’t interested in because the draw of the pool was too strong), and then some “swimming”. The twins didn’t seem to care too much about the little pool, but Lily thought it was fun. She really liked it the MOST, though, the rest of the week when it was empty and she could crawl in and out of it and pull the pool all around the deck. Who knows? It kept her busy!
There is a beach club near the cabin, with a pool (and a lake), and a little park-type area. They had a play structure in the park area, but it was mostly intended for slightly older kids. The kids did go on the swings a couple of times, and I thought it was hilarious watching Lily on the slide. The slide is fairly tall, and much faster than the ones she’s used to. She would slide down and hit the sand at the bottom, and have so much momentum that she’d fly forward onto her hands and knees. For the most part, she’d just brush off the sand and do it again! But look at these next two pictures to see her face as she was going down the slide -
- isn’t that funny? Anyway, I believe it was Monday or Tuesday before we took the girls down to the beach club to use the pool, because it was just too crowded before then. They seemed to have a pretty good time! Claire especially seemed to love being held as far away from your body as you could reach and kicking around, to feel as if she were swimming by herself. Lily kept “forgetting” that she was in water, and wanting us to put her down so she could play on her own, but that was not happening! They also all spent some time in these inflatable boat things with their legs dangling in the water. I bet by next year they’ll be begging us to go to the pool and we won’t be able to get them out!
On Wednesday, I had kind of a rough day. Fairly early in the morning, I went to close our bedroom door, not knowing that Abby had snuck behind me. She had her hand near the hinge of the door and was grabbing on to it, and when I tried to close the door, I ended up pinching her fingers pretty good. She cried out and I scooped her up and kept apologizing, then let her Mommy cuddle the pain away. I’ll tell you, I know it was an accident but I felt SO BAD that I cried more than she did. Lisa put some ice on the fingers, and they did look much better just an hour or so later - and almost completely normal the next day. However, I STILL feel bad! That same day, Lily was sitting on my lap and went to jump down (forwards, with no hands or anything) and I grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. It ended up knocking her a little off-balance and she bumped her cheek on the wood part on the front of the chair and she got a bruise on her cheek. She didn’t even want to go to Mommy for comfort - she went to Auntie Lisa! Needless to say, I was feeling pretty guilty that day, but I know they were both accidents and everyone is just fine.
This is out of order, but two different nights “Uncle Ryan” had us gather on the deck and lit some sparklers and set off some fireworks he bought. So, we had our own personal fireworks show. The girls did pretty good with them, except for the loud noises they weren’t too fond of. Otherwise, they liked the lights and were clapping right along with the adults (and Lily chanting “fireworks! fireworks!”).
On Thursday, we rented a pontoon boat for the morning and took it out on the lake. It was nice to have access to such a large boat that we could all go on at the same time! The babies were tired, and got a little fussy about an hour into the ride, but it ended up working out ok. We brought a pack-and-play onto the boat, and Claire even took a nap on-board! Grandpa even let one of the twins help drive (I want to guess this is Abby, but I can’t tell for sure in this picture - Lisa??) and you can tell how exciting that is by the looks on their faces!
Lily had a pretty good time, but I think she was starting to get pretty bored about mid-way through the ride. She ended up eating almost her entire body weight in crackers (slight exaggeration) and getting into just about everything she could reach. She even grabbed the sunglasses off my head and tried to throw them overboard! Luckily they landed on the boat and I was able to retrieve them.
Those are pretty much the highlights of the trip. It was a LOT of fun, and I didn’t want to come back home. The only other funny thing I can think of was our last night up there we ended up going out to eat again and took the recommendation of the guy doing construction on the cabin and went to “Sportsmans Lodge”. If you guessed that’s just a BAR, you’d be correct! We weren’t quite expecting what we walked into, and I completely forgot that smoking isn’t banned in WI as much as it is in MN. The place was smokey, and pretty seedy. They had one highchair, no booster seats, no milk, no kids menus, no covers for their cups, and they brought us “bar straws” when we asked for a straw for Lily. It was quite an experience, but needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be eating there again!
Finally, before we left I was able to capture Lily on video, helping me read “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss. She’s been doing this with so many of her books lately - she’ll pick it up and flip to a certain page and say some word or some phrase that’s on that page. I don’t know how the heck she can memorize which PAGE the words belong to, but it just blows me away! So, about a month ago I noticed her flipping through this book, saying certain words, and she was getting them on the right pages. So the next time I read it to her, I started pausing at the end of a sentence instead of finishing it, and she would finish the sentence. She completely blew me away with how MUCH of the book she knew. She wasn’t completely cooperative in this particular instance, but it’s the only thing I’ve been able to get on video so far! She can normally keep going and finish the ENTIRE book - it’s completely amazing to me!
Wow, end of June already? Hard to believe! For Father’s Day we (Jason, Lily, and I) went to the MN Zoo with Auntie Lisa, Uncle Ryan, Claire, and Abby. It was a lot of fun! The new Africa exhibit is really cool, and all the girls got to feed a giraffe. Crazy seeing them up that close!
We also had to check out the Zoo’s splash pad, now that we’ve had some experience with our own! The twins were pretty new to the splash pad experience, so they weren’t too sure about it. Lily had a blast, though! She kept running up to the water spout things in the ground as soon as the water shut off and sticking her finger in the holes, then running away before the water turned back on. Sometimes she didn’t quite make it, but she seemed to like getting splashed in the face! Luckily, I was able to capture this on video and will now post it on the internet to give Lily lots of subject matter for any future therapy sessions she may need.
The Zoo trip totally wore her out, and she completely passed out in the car. She even slept most of the way into the house while Jason was carrying her, and for another 2 hours once we got home!
This past weekend we went to Lanesboro to visit Grandma Gayle and Grandpa Jim (and Uncle Shawn, Aunt Shannon, and family).. and of course, the HORSES and KITTIES! That farm is a little girl’s dream. Lily got to ride (bareback, even) one of the biggest horses on the farm (Romeo), and the little pony Jesse. She loved it!
She also loved to harass the kitties, especially the little white kitty named Jasper. Jasper is very friendly, and a little slow.. but was very good and let Lily pick on him WAY more than he should have! She sometimes started to straddle him and shout “Ride Horsey!”, which was Jason and my clue to step in and save the poor kitty from a 28 lb toddler. She also got it in her head that she could pick him up, and tried to do so repeatedly - by his fur. She’d grab his tail, the fur under his belly, wherever she could get a hold onto him and lift. The cat dealt with it remarkably well, but we told her it wasn’t a nice way to treat a kitty.. and if she tries something like that with Gibson he’ll show her exactly how much kitties like being picked up like that. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!
There are a lot of dogs on the farm, too, but Lily seemed to get a kick out of one dog in particular. The dog’s name is Red, but sometimes they call him “Red Bone”, so in Lily-ese that became “Big Bone”. She would get this tone in her voice and say “big bone!” like “oh you silly, silly dog” then just laugh and laugh. He happened to be right at her height so he had easy access to lick her right in the face quite frequently and she would laugh and run away. It was a lot of fun to watch her with him - it was cute and she got such a kick out of him! Even now she keeps asking to “ride horsey!” throughout the day, and doesn’t understand that they are kind of far away. Someday she’ll realize what a lucky girl she is to have the opportunity to ride horses at all!
Once again, the weekend completely wore her out and she slept almost the WHOLE WAY HOME! It was fabulous, because she’s usually not a huge fan of the car so sleeping worked out perfectly! She also somehow ended up with the most impressive case of “bed head” she’s had yet! Such talent.
Just an FYI that we’ll be MIA for a few weeks. We should be back in mid-July, so we hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July Holiday!
One final note, it was 3 years ago tomorrow (the 30th) when I married my very best friend. I love you, Jason, and couldn’t imagine a better husband or father!
A few Fridays ago, Lisa and the twins came over and we all hung out for the morning! We went shopping (with three young toddlers in tow!), and drove out to the U of M to participate in this Peabody study thing to give physical therapy students some practice. One of Lisa’s friends is a grad student there and she asked Lisa if she could bring the twins, and she also brought Lily and I. Basically they just ask them to do all these random tasks (kick a ball, walk up and down stairs, etc) and evaluate their physical development. I don’t know how any of them did because they don’t really share results with us, but it seemed to go pretty well, although it was incredibly chaotic! We did throw Lily’s carseat into Lisa’s van for the day so we could all drive together, so all three girls got to ride in the same car together - for the first time ever! I don’t think they were horribly impressed, but it was nice for Lisa and I.
Lily started a new daycare this week, and it’s been a rough transition. Our normal daycare woman takes summers off to be with her kids, so we needed to find something else for 8 weeks or so. We searched high and low for something suitable and started to appreciate our daycare woman more and more with all the places we visited (especially Kindercare, which literally left me in TEARS). We finally found someone (recommendation from another friend) and Lily goes there Tuesdays-Thursdays starting this week. It’s definitely a different experience for her and I do think that overall she is adjusting pretty well, but there have been some difficult moments. She screams and cries and won’t let go of us when we drop her off, which makes ME cry and it’s so difficult to leave her there. However, she only really continually cried the very first day, and she was even getting better by the afternoon. The 2nd day she screamed when we left and threw a MAJOR fit right after we were gone, but then calmed down and was really good the rest of the day. The 3rd day she started crying when we pulled up in the driveway, stopped right after we left, but had another small meltdown mid-morning, but then was fine. So, I guess overall it’s going well but I just hope she adjusts soon because it’s so hard to leave her like that!
We finally got a chance to try out Lily’s new bike trailer! Jason and I found a new hitch online and so we went ahead and bought the trailer from Jen (our daycare woman) and her husband for a really good deal. Lily so far seems to like it pretty well, and I love that she and Jason can go out and spend some time together like that and I can have some quiet time at home, or get things done. I think we do need to fix her helmet a little bit as it does tend to slide forward on her head a bit, even with the adjuster thing in the back. Anybody have any tips for that one?
We got back to the splash pad again (or as Lily calls it, “sprinkler park” or “park mana (water)”). Lily really loves it, and I’m so happy! It’s so nice to have something like that so close! She usually runs close to the water, then runs away laughing and screaming, but she does get more brave the longer she’s there. This last time she had another girl (4 years old maybe?) completely following her around and she was just oblivious. It was really cute to watch.
She also got to run through the sprinkler at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and she had a lot of fun there, too. I think she is just really starting to LOVE water! Grandma even turned on the hose and let her fill her little watering can and water their plants (pretty much the same flower got about 36 doses of water). At first, she kept trying to put the hose up to the spout end that you normally water FROM, but eventually she got the hang of it. Here’s a cute video of her filling the can, splashing herself in the face, and watering the poor drowning flower:
Finally, the deception part of this post. Tonight I put Lily to bed and she didn’t want to sleep. She sat in bed and babbled to herself (not unusual), and then I heard her cry a “help me” type cry (or as she says - “heppel”), so I went back into her room. She had put her foot through the slats of the crib and then turned her leg so her foot was stuck. I said “Oh honey, you got your foot stuck! Let me help you.” and got her foot free. She immediately stood up and wanted to play, but I told her it was time for sleeping now, kissed her good night again and left the room.
She kept babbling, then started saying “binky! binky!” which I ignored. She got quiet for a couple of minutes and I thought she might be finally falling asleep, but then suddenly I hear her say “Stuck! STUCK! stuck!!!” so I go back in there and she’s holding her foot up AGAINST the crib slat - totally not stuck at all. I said, “you can move your foot - you’re not stuck.” so she put her foot down, rolled over and stood up and pointed at the floor and shouted “BINKY!”. She PRETENDED her foot was stuck so that I would come back in and get her binky back for her. Where does she learn those tricks?!?
You should seriously click on the link below the pictures - there are tons of cute ones this time! We have a lot of fun stuff coming up in the next few weeks so I’ll try to keep taking pictures and update again soon before I forget absolutely everything. Enjoy the beautiful weather!
Lily informed us today that bridges go over the places where water cars (boats) live. "Lily-isms" on twitter2010/06/24
Lily came to visit me at work today! I told her to be quiet because people are working. She replies, but they can leave and I can be loud! "Lily-isms" on twitter2010/06/11
