Bedtime Routine

Ryan and I love our bedtime routine with Lily. We give her a bath and then put on a clean diaper and pajamas (she looks so cute in her footie pajamas!). After we brush her hair, Lily gives me a kiss and then I ask for a hug. As she hugs me, she puts her head on one of my shoulders, then she straightens up and then puts her head on my other shoulder so I end up with two hugs; it's the best! She walks over to Ryan and gives him a kiss and two hugs. Then I ask her to tell me night-night. Her response: "nigh-nigh! bye-bye! off?" She is telling me good-night, good-bye and wondering if I will turn off the light. It cracks me up. After I turn off her light, she blows me a kiss which I love. After I leave, Lily and Ryan sit in the rocking chair and turn on the humidifier. I think Ryan's favorite part of the day is when Lily will just lean against him for a few minutes while they rock. Ryan always tells Lily "Daddy loves Lily. Mommy loves Lily. Jesus loves Lily" and then they say a prayer. When he puts her in her crib, she asks for her blanket and her book. She loves the new soft book called "Fuzzy Bee and Friends" that we bought her. Once she is tucked in, Ryan walks out and, without any crying, she's asleep within a minute or two. What a great way to end the day!

Chuck E Cheese visit

Today was Lily's first visit to Chuck E Cheese's. She loved it! We went about 11:30 so we could eat a light lunch there too. They have several rides that are perfect for little ones. Her favorite was a little car that she "drove" while Chuck E sat in the passenger seat; it also takes your picture at one point. She probably rode this 6 times so we have several pictures; I'll try to scan them in and upload one or two later. There was also a Bob the Builder construction ride, a merry-go-round and a firetruck that she liked. She had a good time watching the other kids and the big-kid rides and games. She's definitely a good observer. There was certainly a lot more noise and activity than she is used to, but she seemed to like it all. She really enjoyed eating the cheesy breadsticks and watching the big screen tv's that showed Chuck E and his friends singing and dancing. She tapped her foot along to the beat several times. We took her up to the stage to see what she thought of the big Chuck E, and she seemed to really like him. Her eyes were really big, but she waved hi to him; of course, he's not a real character so it didn't interact with her at all. However, I hope this is a good sign for how she will act at Disney in a few weeks. This was a really fun way to spend some of our Saturday morning; I'm sure we'll return in the near future!

General Cuteness

Here are a few cute stories about Lily's recent activities...

1. As Ryan puts Lily to bed each night he says "Daddy loves Lily, Mommy loves Lily and Jesus loves Lily." When he put her down tonight he said "Daddy loves Lily, Mommy loves Lily and who else loves Lily?" She replied "Jeez!"
2. Lily has always been a really good sleeper. For many months now, she has been sleeping over 12 hours each night. However, we realized a week or so ago that when she wakes up, she likes to throw all her crib toys (3 toys and 2 soft books) over the side of her crib into her laundry hamper. Then, she just sits there or lays there sucking her thumb until we come in to get her; she doesn't make a peep! It's certainly nice for us to wake up to this sweet, quite girl.
3. As I mentioned before, Lily is obsessed with Mickey Mouse these days. She also loves "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" though not quite as much as Mickey. Anyway, it's so funny to ask her to bounce like Tigger (because that's what Tigger's do best!); she laughs and then starts jumping. She can only get a couple inches off the ground, but she loves to jump. She also loves to jump in her crib. She holds onto the side and gets a foot or so off the mattress; she loves it!
4. Two of her favorite things to do now are wearing my shoes and coloring. As soon as I take my shoes off, she puts them on her feet and walks around in them. Of course, they are huge on her so it looks really funny. She also loves to color. She will stand on one of the kitchen table chairs (she can't see very well onto the coloring book if she's sitting) and color for a little while, up to about 10 minutes. We have several masterpieces already!
5. Lily also loves "to do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around." She will spin in circles over and over. Yesterday, she jumped up off the floor and started spinning. She probably went around a dozen times. When she stopped, I opened my arms and said "Lily come here!" She took one step towards me and fell over. When she tried to get up, she just fell over again. She couldn't stop laughing which made me laugh. After a minute or two of this, I started tickling her which made her laugh harder. She has the best laugh! This made me smile all day!
6. Almost every time Lily sits down, she crosses her feet at the ankles. It doesn't matter if she's in her chair at the table, on the couch, on the floor or in her chair reading, she will do this. While that in itself is adorable to see (especially if she's barefoot), I think it's so neat because this is how she was sitting when we saw her ultrasound picture about 2 years ago. I think it's really cool that how she was comfortable then is still how she's comfortable now.
7. Lily goes through a little routine MANY times a day. When the urge hits her, she says "Dada?" and I reply "he's at work right now." Then she says "Meme?" (that's my grandmother who we see once or twice a week) and I say "Meme's at her house right now." Then she'll say "Papa?" (that's my dad) and I say "Papa's at work now too." It's so funny that probably 10 or 12 times a day I hear "Dada? Meme? Papa?" again and again. She just wants to know where the people she loves are!

All around...she's such a sweetheart!

Pictures from the Week

There wasn't much going on around our house this week after our great weekend in Birmingham, but I took some pictures of Lily that I thought I would share. Enjoy!

You can see in one picture that Lily is feeding Baby Morgan some of her carrots. She absolutely loves playing with her two baby dolls, Morgan and Kaylee. She spends most of her day taking them around the house with her as she plays with other things and tries to have them play with her toys too. It's pretty cute to watch. Hopefully she will love her real baby brother or sister that is heading her way as much!

Lily is also obsessed with Mickey Mouse these days. She asks to watch "Mi! Mi!" (that's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in case you have problems interpreting!) all the time. We let her watch 2 or 3 a day, but I think she would watch a dozen a day if she could. Bama gave her a Mickey Mouse doll while we were in Birmingham that Lily loves; she would clutch it against herself when she went to sleep. Adorable!

As for Baby #2, we will hopefully find out on July 11 if this is a boy or girl. We're also leaving for the beach that day, so it should be a great day!

Great weekend!

We had such a great weekend! On Friday, we drove over to Birmingham and spent the afternoon and evening with Ryan's family. It's always a treat to hang out with them. After Lily went to sleep, Ryan and I had a delicious dinner with our friends, Daniel and Courtney Cox. It was so fun to catch up with them. On Saturday, we hung out with Ryan's family in the morning, and then I went to a double-baby shower in the afternoon. It was for two of my sorority sisters, so we had a mini-reunion at the shower. There were lots of college friends there, so it was wonderful to catch up with one another. Some of them I haven't seen since college; what a treat! Ryan and Lily picked me up from the shower, and then we met more college friends at Johnny Rocket's for dinner. Bridges and Robyn have a sweet little girl, Evynne, who is just a couple of weeks younger than Lily. It's always fun to watch the two of them together. Evynne seemed to love watching Lily, especially when Lily decided to pull Daddy's drink over, twice, to reach the ice. She loves ice; not to eat it, but to play with it. I'm not particularly fond of this habit, and am trying to get her to stop reaching in glasses for it. After dinner, we talked outside for a few minutes, and the girls were so adorable holding hands and smiling for Robyn's camera (we had left our camera at home). So sweet! Sunday we visited with some of Ryan's family's friends after church, saw Ryan's grandmother in the hospital and then headed home. I have to say, Lily's days of napping well in the car are over. Both ways she slept for 45 minutes only. This definitely makes a difference in the evening since she typically naps for about 2.5 hours. Overall, this was a wonderful weekend!

Memory?

Most of you know that my wonderful cat of almost 14 years, Atticus, passed away on April 15. I have put up a picture of Lily and Atticus napping on Ryan when Lily was about 2 weeks old. Lily LOVED Atticus and for about a week after he was gone, she would walk around and say "Ah? Ah?" which is what she called him (calling him by name was actually the very first word she said). She would also see a picture in a book of a cat and call it "Ah." After a week or so that disappeared and she started saying "cat" instead of "Ah," so I assumed she didn't think about him anymore. A couple of days ago, Lily and I were playing in her room, and out of nowhere she suddenly said "Ah?" and looked under her crib which is where he liked to hide sometimes. Of course, she didn't see him under there so when she looked up at me, I said "what did you say Lily?" She replied "cat." Is it possible that she remembers Atticus and that he hid under there? I can't think of any other explanation of why she would have done that. I guess maybe she misses him too sometimes.

Fun in the Pool

We went to the pool tonight and apparently, the coolest thing in the world to Lily is that someone can go underwater for a few seconds and then reappear. We (or the older kids playing nearby) would go under, she would say "uh-oh" and then laugh and point when we would reappear. She really loved it when she was in her raft, and we would stand on one side, swim under her and reappear on the other side; she couldn't believe it!

She also loves it when Daddy throws her so high in the air and then she lands in the pool (in Daddy's arms of course). She would laugh each time. We're having so much fun with her!

More Cuteness

Here are two more cute stories about Lily...

1. She has really begun to love the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. A couple of times during the show, Mickey will get his helpful tools by calling "Oh Toodles!" Lily now says "To-Do!" when Mickey asks for helps calling Toodles...adorable.

2. On our way to and from dinner with friends tonight (about 30 minutes each way), Lily sat in her car seat, waved and said "bye-bye!" to every car she saw. Even on a Saturday evening, there are still plenty of cars on the Atlanta roads so we heard "bye-bye! bye-bye! bye-bye!" almost non-stop. Every once in awhile I would say "Lily, these cars are coming to join us on the road; let's tell them hi," so she would say "hi!" and wave. Sometimes she would wave with both hands which was pretty funny. Though she was quite loud, it was pretty cute. I wonder what our 8-hour drive to Florida will be like next month...

Fun Pictures of Lily

              Lots of sweet pictures taken recently of Lily.

Ahhh, Chick-fil-a

Mother's Day

I love being a mom to this precious girl!

 So thankful for Meme.

 I love my mom too!

Playing at the Park

It was a beautiful day for a stroll in the park!

C'mon guys, this way!

 Loving it here!

A Morning at the Zoo

Fun times at the zoo this morning!

I love when she wears her sunglasses!

This girl loves animals, so we had a great time seeing so many today!