Halloween Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our Halloween...

Ready to start Halloween with a cute breakfast bib!

Showing the Cinderella card to Eeks.



















Ready for the festival in Downtown Smyrna!



















Watching the fish and ducks at the Smyrna pond.


















Having fun in the Gazebo.

Lily loves the frog statue!

Enjoying the afternoon!

The Great Escape

Well, it took about three weeks, but Lily has figured out she can get out of her bed by herself. We realized this yesterday morning. Thankfully (knocking on lots of wood here), she hasn't gotten up in the middle of the night. However, she came to our room at 8 yesterday morning and 7:30 this morning. Since we typically get her up at 8:30, this is a little early. That's not ridiculously early by any means, but Ryan and I really like our sleep so I hate that this is happening! It happens very quickly too. She wakes up, talks to her Mickey Mouse or Minnie Mouse doll for about 30 seconds and then hops on down! This morning, Ryan immediately took her back to her bed and told her it was too early; she needed to stay there until we came to get her. She laid there and didn't make a sound for 30 minutes, but at 8:00, we heard her walking into the den. This of course also means that when she wakes up from her nap, that's it, she's done. She only naps now for 1.5 to 2 hours, but I hate that there's no wrapping up whatever I am working on. I knew this was bound to happen!

Any suggestions from other parents out there? We are debating putting a child door lock over her door handle so she can't come out of her room. Did you do that? She sleeps about 11.5 to 12 hours at night and then 1.5 to 2 hours at nap time, so I feel like she is getting enough sleep. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Happy Halloween!

We hope you all had a great Halloween yesterday! We had a very nice one. On Friday morning, Lily got dressed up in her pirate costume, and she and I went to Downtown Smyrna's "Casper's Friendly Castle." It was held inside the community center and is intended for young children who are not yet in school. There were a lot of little kids there and tons of cute costumes; of course, I thought Lily the pirate was adorable! She would point out all the animal costumes, and she got very excited when she saw a Mickey Mouse (4 of them), Minnie Mouse (3 of them) or Nemo (1 of these) costumes. They had probably 6 games that were appropriate for young kids, and regardless of if the child played or did well, they got candy (animal crackers, mini oreos, laffy taffy, suckers, etc) or a little toy (pumpkin necklace, bubbles, spider ring, coloring pages, etc). Lily was so sweet to tell the worker "thank you" after each game. They also had a magic show, a big inflatable jumper and an inflatable slide. Outside, they had a fire truck the kids could climb in and on. The best part was The Varsity was there handing out free hot dogs (naked or chili), chips and water; yummy! This was really a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Since the community center is next door to the pond and park, we went there next because Lily wanted to see the ducks and fish. She also had a lot of fun playing in the gazebo and with the big frog statute. It was a gorgeous day out, so we had a great time playing for awhile! After nap time, we spent a long time on her "prise" (her playground); she still loves it. What a great Halloween!

Lily also received a cute Halloween package from Grandpops and Grandma Jan. There was an adorable little purple bat in there named "Eeks" that Lily wants to carry everywhere. There was also a little ghost that "grows" when you put it in water. I haven't shown her that yet, but I'm sure she will love it. Her favorite part of the package though...the card! It's a Cinderella card that sings "Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo" when you open it. She keeps opening and closing it for all her animals and baby dolls as she "reads" it to them. It's so cute to watch!

I wasn't able to take pictures of Lily at the festival; it was enough to keep her nearby and hold her trick-or-treat pumpkin, her pirate hat that she didn't want to wear and the little "fire chief" hats the fire department was handing out. I managed to take a few at the park, and I'll try to upload those pretty soon.

Fun at Home

Here are a few pictures of Lily having fun at home and on her playground. You can see she enjoys taking Baby Julie on the playground; she walks her around in the stroller, helps her swing, and tries to get her to use the trapeze (which doesn't work very well). She thinks it is hilarious to send Julie down the slide! In the last picture, she was dusting the baby doll pack and play with Kaylee inside of it. She absolutely loves to use the little broom to sweep things and make them clean! How long do you think that will last?

A Few Favorites

Here are a few of Lily's current favorite things...

1. Meme: Lily absolutely adores her great-grandmother, Meme, who lives down the street from us. She has recently renamed one of her dolls (whose past name was simply "baby") to "Baby Meme." I'm really not sure why because it's not one of the dolls Meme has given her; this new name came out of nowhere in my opinion. Also, she has renamed graham crackers "Meme crackers" because that is the kind Meme gives her every time we visit. It's really funny to me how she associates food with Meme. For instance, I made chicken and dumplings last week for dinner, and I use Grands Biscuits for the dumplings (fyi, this is one of our very favorite meals to eat). When Lily pointed to the dumpling and asked "this?" I told her it was a biscuit to which she immediately replied "Meme?" I told her no, Meme didn't make those biscuits, and then I asked if Meme makes good biscuits. She enthusiastically replied "Yes! Yummy!" Of course, if you have ever eaten any of Meme's food, you would understand that Lily is totally justified in this wonderful association!

2. Fetch: That's right. Just like a dog loves to run and fetch a ball that you throw, so does Lily. She loves it when we sit on the couch and throw her little red ball all the way down the hall; she runs after it and then throws it back to us. I don't know why this is so amusing to her, but currently, she loves it.

3. Baby dolls: She loves all of her baby dolls. At the moment, she is totally connected with Baby Julie which Aunt Kendall gave her for her birthday. She loves to see Julie go down her playground slide and then she gives her a bath using the bath and accessories that came with Julie. She wants to take her everywhere (though she understands that Julie doesn't come out of the car because I don't want her getting left behind anywhere). Today, she insisted on taking her nap with Julie and Julie's shampoo. I truly hope this love of baby dolls will soon translate to love for a real baby!

4. Fruit: Though she hasn't been eating as well since getting sick, Lily has been on a fruit kick for a month or so now. She eats a whole banana almost everyday as an afternoon snack. At lunch or dinner, she loves to have peaches or strawberries. She also loves to snack on grapes, and she loves to split an apple with me. I am thrilled with this love mainly because I love fruit too so it makes a healthy snack for both of us. However, she still isn't much of a vegetable eater (except for corn and carrots) so it makes me happy that she gets some fresh fruits in.

Language Explosion

I had noticed that a lot of Lily's friends who are about the same age as her were starting to make little two word sentence, but Lily wasn't doing that yet. She says a ton of words and even has thought connections, but she wasn't actually making these into sentences; there were always pauses after each word. She still loves to read books, so I feel like she hears complete sentences a lot (not to mention that's how we and the teachers at school talk to her).

We mentioned this at her two year check-up a couple of weeks ago. Dr. White assured us that all kids develop differently, but that she should soon start making little sentences. Well, over the last week, it has been an explosion of the little sentences! It's unbelievable to me how she just suddenly started doing this, and doing it a lot; it's great! My current favorite is "night-night Mommy" though anytime she says "please" (as in "more cookies please" when she wants Fig Newtons) I want to melt. It's just so sweet. It's amazing to watch her little mind grow and learn!

Lake Oconee

We had originally planned on leaving from Disney on Ice and heading over to Reynolds Plantation on Lake Oconee where my parents have a condo for the weekend. However, we decided to go home first so Lily could nap in her bed instead of in the car. Since she slept for just over three hours, that was definitely the right move. So, we left on Friday late afternoon, and got there in time to grab some dinner at Mellow Mushroom and then stop by Publix for a few necessities.

Saturday was perfect! The weather was absolutely gorgeous. We got to watch lots of college football and go for walks; it was great. You can see in the pictures below how beautiful the weather was. There are also a couple of pictures of Lily and me taking a walk down by the docks; she loved watching the boats so renting one may be in our future next spring. The last picture is Lily enjoying Finding Nemo while Ryan and I enjoyed football. We thought this was going to be another great Fall weekend.






Then 4AM on Sunday morning hit. Ryan and I both woke up sick as we could be. Apparently, whatever bug Lily had caught had been passed along to us. We were both up the rest of the night feeling absolutely miserable. We weren't even sure we would be able to drive home later that day. It's only about 1.5 hours from the house, but we weren't able to go that long without getting sick. It was terrible. Thankfully, Lily loves cartoons, so she was content with her "treat" of getting to watch a lot of cartoons while Ryan and I took turns laying on the couch watching her and sleeping in the back. I called my doctor's office to make sure this wasn't somehow going to hurt Amelia; they said the main risk was dehydration which would lead to cramping and contractions. I really wasn't up to having a baby that day, so I forced myself to drink some Gatorade and eat a few saltines. Finally, around 5PM, after having some medication and more sleep, we felt we could make it home and thankfully we did.

We are both feeling better today after taking the day off; it was nice that Lily went to school for a few hours. We are feeling really weak and tired from lack of sleep and eating though. We're still being mindful of what we eat and drink, but hopefully we'll be back to normal soon. What a weekend!

Disney on Ice

We were so excited at the idea of taking Lily to Disney on Ice on Friday morning! Of course, if you saw the last blog entry, you know she was a very sick little girl on Thursday night/Friday morning, so we weren't sure if we would go or not. However, when she woke up on Friday, she seemed pretty much normal, other than she wasn't very hungry. We decided to go ahead to the show because we thought that would be a fun little family activity.

This particular Disney on Ice was going to feature Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Tinkerbell. We had let Lily watch Cars and The Little Mermaid earlier in the week so she would be a little more familiar with them when they came out. All the way there, she was so excited ("bo boy!" was said many times), and she thought Phillips Arena was pretty neat. We got to our seats, the lights dim and out come Mickey and Minnie; what an excited little girl we had! Of course, she was thrilled when Donald Duck and Goofy came out a minute later. She thought this was great. And then the other shows begin; she wasn't such a fan. She wanted Mickey and Minnie to come back, and then she started saying "out" and pointing to the door. She seemed to enjoy the quieter moments when they were singing, but when they were talking or it got really loud, she really wanted to go. We think a big part of this was the lack of sleep she had from the night before; she had missed out on almost 5 hours of sleep! We decided to leave at intermission because we knew she wouldn't have any idea who Tinkerbell was, and you could see in her eyes that she wanted to go to sleep. Sure enough, we got home and she slept for just over three hours, poor thing. So, it didn't go quiet as well as we had hoped, but it was still enjoyable; I'm sure there will be many more of these in our future!

I put a few pictures from the event below. The first is Lily and me waiting on the show to begin; she was munching on a few saltines to help her tummy. The second is during The Lion King, and the last one is during the best part: Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy (he was on another part of the ice at the moment).

What a Night

Ryan and I had a date night last night while Granna kept Lily. It was wonderful all around. We had a delicious meal at one of our favorite restaurants, Nava, and came home to a sleeping child and a report that said she was (as always!) wonderful. It was 9:30. We were just about to start packing for our weekend getaway to the lake when I heard Lily violently coughing and then crying really hard, so I ran in to her room and the poor girl had thrown up all over herself and her bed. In just over two years, Lily has never thrown up; in fact, she has only been sick one other time in her life and that was over a year ago. So I picked her up to comfort her because you could see she was terrified at what was happening. A minute later, Lily proceeded to throw up on me. I asked Ryan over the monitor to come in to help us, and as soon as he walked in, Lily wanted to go see him. I handed her over, and Ryan was immediately covered in throw up. Of course, it's all over the floor at this point too. Lovely sight.

We really weren't sure what to do with her. She was hysterically crying because she was so scared. We decided to take her to our shower to clean her off and put on new pajamas. She usually likes to play in the shower with one of us, but this time she just stood in the back, shivering, so I wrapped a wet, warm towel around her and just held her close which calmed her down. After a few minutes, she played with the cup we keep in there and seemed to perk up a bit. While we were calming down in there, wonderful Ryan was walking around the house cleaning up the mess on the carpets, floor and bed. We got out, put on fresh clothes and held Lily with us under a blanket to try to keep her warm. This was great for about 10 minutes and then it started all over again; throw up everywhere and a very upset little girl.

Ryan called the after-hours line at our doctor's office and they offered some helpful advice. She seemed to feel a little better after each episode, so we decided to just let this run its course and let her body get rid of it all. Finally, around 1 AM and after five episodes like this (which also included three loads of laundry), it appeared all was fine. The last time she had gotten sick there was very little to it, and she was interacting fine with us, so we decided to put her back down to bed. Around 1:30, we found out that was a mistake as we heard the coughing and throwing up over the monitor again. So, we cleaned her up, calmed her down, held her and then went back to bed, hoping and praying for the best. Thankfully she went back to sleep pretty easily, and though she started coughing around 3:30, she didn't get sick again.

She woke up just before 9 this morning and wanted to eat. We are trying to keep her on a very bland diet today. She had some toast, a few saltine crackers and some Pedialyte, but she didn't seem like she wanted much. Not surprisingly, she seems exhausted, but I am hoping for a good long nap today; we'll see. The pediatrician's office called this morning to follow up and she how she is doing; they recommended keeping the bland diet and a little liquid every so often to keep her from becoming dehydrated. How quickly our wonderful evening turned sour! However, we are very thankful that Lily is usually a very healthy girl and that she seems to be on the road to recovery from this little bug.

A Great Fall Weekend

What a great weekend! Ryan's sister, Kendall came to visit from Tuscaloosa which was such a treat. Lily loves to play with Kendall. She especially loved that Kendall brought her surprises for her birthday. She gave Lily an adorable coat that Lily immediately put on and wore around the house. She also gave her a baby doll, two baby doll bottles and cute baby doll bathtime accessories: bath tub, robe, hooded towel, wipes, bubble bath, shampoo, etc. Lily LOVES it. Since receiving this, she has walked around with "Baby Julie" feeding her from the two bottles. One has milk in it and one has juice; they are the cool kind where the beverage disappears as the baby drinks it and then reappears when you turn it upright. Lily has taken them in the car, pushes Julie and the bottles in her the stroller and basically doesn't want to let them out of her site. Kendall left during Lily's nap today, but as soon as she woke up, she started asking about Kendall. Guess that settles it, Kendall will have to come back and visit again soon!

We also had fun at our church's Fall Festival on Saturday afternoon. Several of the kids dressed up in the Halloween costumes, including Lily. She is the cutest little pirate girl you have ever seen! She even kept her bandana and hat on for a long time which I couldn't believe! We saw lots of our friends at the festival which was great. Lily loved riding on the purple polka-dot horse on the carousel. Both times we were in line, we had to wait an extra turn just so she could ride on that specific horse. She has been on quite the purple kick ever since moving into her purple room! We also did one of the inflatable jumpies which Lily actually didn't enjoy very much, probably because there were several bigger kids that she didn't know on it. It was a beautiful day though, so it was wonderful to be outside and enjoy the festival. Check out some of the pictures from the festival below.

Fun in October

Lily was so excited to get a pumpkin at school last week. She was even more excited that they decorated it with stickers. I couldn't get her to turn the pumpkin around so I could take a picture of the sticker face she made because she liked looking at the stickers. She puts this little pumpkin in her baby doll stroller and takes it around with her; she has become very attached to it!













She loves sitting in the chairs that Meme gave her. I used to sit in these chairs at Meme and Pops' house when I was growing up.

















Granna kept Lily for an hour or so last week while I ran some errands. When I got back, Lily had "dressed" herself. She put her pajamas (well, the arms of them at least) on over her outfit and then put on her red Mickey Mouse crocs. She has apparently inherited my fashion sense!













Reading her "Jeez" book in her purple room. She loves to look through her Bible! She points out all the animals and some of the people that she recognizes, such as Jesus and Noah. It's really sweet to see.

Two Favorites

1. Lily's favorite thing right now is the movie Finding Nemo. She loves it! Ryan let her watch it last weekend, and now she asks for it all the time. We constantly hear "Nemo...Nemo...Nemo." It's a great little treat for her to get to watch it.

2. My favorite thing Lily says right now is "oh boy" when she is really excited about something (like getting to watch Nemo). However, she says it "bo boy" and it is absolutely adorable. I love hearing it!

Three Quick Updates

There isn't a whole lot to report from the last few days, but I did want to give you three updates.

1. Lily is doing GREAT in school now. It took her a little time to adjust, but now she is doing fantastic, and several teachers have commented on how much she has improved and what a joy she is to have. She gets so excited when you talk about school now. Most mornings she asks while I'm getting her dressed if she's going to school. If I say "no, it's not a school day" she asks if we're going to church. Does she think we don't get dressed if we're just hanging out at home? She eats her snack and lunch everyday which is a wonderful relief for me; she loves seeing what is inside her blue lunchbag. You can see how much she is learning at school too. She sings new songs (well, more like specific words in songs and we have to figure out which song she has learned), says lots of new words and does lots of motions (she loves marching these days) that I know we haven't taught her. Also, when we read books together, if she sits across from me instead of next to me or in my lap, she will look at the page, say some of the things she sees and then turns the book around for me to see; it's easy to see that it's how the teacher holds the book for the kids to see. I love that she now loves school, and I hope this helps foster a lifetime love of learning.

2. She is doing great in her big girl bed at night. She has gotten to where she pretty much goes down at night without a peep; even with the monitor on, we don't hear her until about 8 or 8:30 in the morning. At naptime, she still cries out for a few minutes and sits at the end of her bed, but then she falls asleep, all without trying to escape. She typically only sleeps about 1.5 hours, but that's okay; hopefully she will go back to the 2 to 2.5 hours sometime soon. All in all, this transition has gone great!

3. As of today, I am 35 weeks pregnant which I can't believe; there is still so much to do before Amelia's arrival! I went to the doctor's office this week (though I actually use a midwife instead of a doctor), and she said everything is looking great. I am very fortunate that both of my pregnancies seem to be textbook perfect. I asked if she could estimate just by my measurements how big Amelia is. She is estimating about 5 pounds right now, so if I go full term that would mean about a 9 pound baby (Lily was 8 pounds, 6 ounces). She has said we can possibly talk about inducing a little closer to time which I'm all for! I don't go for a visit next week, but maybe I'll know a little more at my visit the week after that. I'll be sure to let you know.

Big Girl Bed Part 2

So I told you about the beginning of Lily's transition to her big girl bed in the last post. She slept pretty well Wednesday night but had some issues going down for her nap on Thursday afternoon. Here's what has been happening since then...

Thursday night: She went to sleep with no problems at all...not even a peep. We have been sleeping with the monitor sound up at night since we can't hear her in the next room anymore. So, at 5:30 on Friday morning, we are awoken to a little voice from the big girl bed saying "Mom-my?" (wait 2 seconds) "Mom-my?" (wait 2 more seconds) "Mom-my?" Are you getting the picture? We let her do this for about 25 minutes hoping she would go back to sleep since she was just laying there. She didn't. I went in and held her for a few minutes, then I told her it was still night-night time, Mommy and Daddy were sleeping, and she needed to go back to sleep for a little longer. I put her back in the bed and walked out. I hadn't even closed the door before she started crying. It took 2 or 3 minutes, but then she stopped crying, and a few minutes later, she was asleep. She slept until about 9 on Friday morning.

Friday afternoon: Since she hadn't slept great the night before, she was tired all day. About 12:40 (a little earlier than her usual 1:00 nap), she put Baby Kaylee in her baby doll pack and play and said "night-night." Then she walked over to me, held up her hands and said "nap?" We went back to her room, I put her in bed and walked out...she started to cry. It only lasted about a minute though, much to my relief. She fell asleep and slept for about 2.5 hours; yea! When I got her out of bed after the nap, I told her proud I was that she slept so great, and she was so excited, clapping for herself, smiling so big and saying "YEA!"

Friday night: We had dinner with the Hendersons so were running a little late getting home and getting her to bed. She was tired when we put her down at 8:30. She fell fast asleep with no problems and slept until about 8:30 which is her typical wake-up time.

Saturday afternoon: I had a baby shower to attend Saturday morning, so Ryan and Lily played together that morning. Unfortunately, she caught about a 10 minute nap in the car on their way home. I warn anyone who keeps Lily around naptime not to let her fall asleep in the car because if she gets 5 or more minutes of sleep in the car, she will have a hard time with a nap. Sure enough, Lily when Ryan tried to put her down about 1, she started crying. She went to the end of the bed and started saying "Dad-dy? Mom-my? Door?" then she started looking at the space that isn't covered by a bed rail at the end of the bed; we don't want her to realize that she can slide off the bed at this space. Ryan went into her room before she tried to slide off the bed and put her back up at the head of the bed. He told she needed to rest because it was naptime and walked out. She started crying, but she stayed right where she was, and finally, about 2:00, she fell asleep and stayed asleep for two hours.

Saturday night: Again, Lily went to sleep without any problems. Around 7 AM on Sunday morning we heard her cry out for a second and then roll over. We had to get her up shortly thereafter to get ready for church (we have to leave by 8) so this wasn't a big deal.

Sunday afternoon: I think she was almost too tired to nap well today. We put her down about 1, she cried and moved back to the end of the bed like yesterday. Ryan went in and did the same thing...put her back at the head of the bed and told her she had to rest. She laid there for a few minutes before falling asleep; she took about a 1.5 hour nap.

Sunday night: Down with no problems. We'll see what time she wakes up tomorrow morning.

So, all this to say...it seems like nighttime is working pretty well. She knows her routine of bathtime, Bible story and bed. I don't think she is getting as restful of sleep though because I see her yawning more during the morning. I don't know if the mattress just isn't as comfortable for her, or if it's still just a time of adjustment. I'm going to give it a few more weeks before I start considering a new mattress though.

Unfortunately, naptime is not going quite as well as bedtime which I fully expected. She is taking longer to get to sleep and then not sleeping for as long as she did before. However, she has not yet realized she can climb out of bed if she wanted to, and I am hoping she doesn't discover this anytime soon!

Overall though, Lily is adjusting pretty well to her new bed and room. I am hoping that within a couple more weeks, she will be completely used to it and getting good, restful sleep. I'm sure at some point we will have to deal with her getting out of bed and either playing or coming into our room, but so far, we're doing good!

Big Girl Bed

We have officially moved Lily from her crib into her "big girl" room and bed! We wanted to move her before Amelia's arrival to try to give her time to adjust. We have been talking it up to her for several days now, and she has seemed very excited about this. So, after bath time last night, we got her dressed and read her Bible to her in her new room. I gave her a kiss, said I love you (to which she always replies "too;" talk about precious), turned out the light and left Ryan to put her in bed.

Like always, they said their prayers and talked for a few minutes before he put her down. She waited a minute after he left and then started crying which is very unusual; she usually goes right to sleep in her crib. We thought maybe the pillow was bothering her because it's a little thick, so Ryan went in, removed the pillow and calmed her down. He walked out again, and she started crying again. However, after only a minute or so, she calmed down and just looked around. For about 20 minutes or so, she looked around and occasionally called out, but then she fell fast asleep!

We heard her twice during the night (only because we had turned the monitor up) but she immediately went back to sleep after a couple of seconds; we never had to go in to check on her. I watched the monitor from 8 until 9 this morning and she appeared to be asleep. At 9 I saw her playing with her socks so I went in before she started to fuss. I told her how proud I was of her and what a great job she did sleeping in her bed all night. She would say "Yea!" or "Yes!" and we clapped for her. She was so proud of herself! Hopefully she will continue to do so great at bedtime!

As I suspected, nap time today was a different story. Lily doesn't like to quit playing for a nap and she usually cries for about 5 minutes when I put her in the crib. However, today I said "it's time for a nap in your big girl bed!" and she readily agreed. When we got in there though, she started crying. I put her in bed and in wiping her eyes (a sure sign she's tired), she poked herself so I went back in to make sure her eye wasn't bleeding (she was screaming "EYE!"). After a minute, I put her back down, and she immediately started crying...hard. I went to our room to get the monitor, and when I looked at it, she was walking on her bed to the end of it by the door! I went running back in there because I didn't want her to fall over the end of the bed trying to get to the door, and I didn't want her to realize she can easily slide off the end of the bed where the railing leaves an opening. When I opened the door though, she had already laid back down. I tried calming her down but she kept saying "out!" so I picked her up and we looked through her Bible (she only likes Ryan to read it to her; she likes for me to show her the pictures). After a minute, I told her it was time to nap and put her back down. She spent the next 25 minutes crying, screaming ("MOMMMMMMMMY!") and kicking the wall. Finally, probably out of pure exhaustion, she fell asleep. We'll see how well the nap goes.

As I have always said, I will handle anything during the day as long as I can sleep at night. Hopefully she will continue to sleep well at night and will soon learn to accept nap time too. I'll let you know!

2 Year Check-Up

Lily had her two-year-old check-up this morning, and she received another great report! She is a healthy, growing girl. She is 34.5 inches tall (60th percentile), 26 pounds, 7.5 ounces (50th percentile) and has a head circumference of 18.75 (50th percentile). All of these are right in line with where she has been at the last several check-ups which is great because that means she is growing a good rate. She wasn't terribly happy to be checked out by the doctor, so there were some tears, but for the most part, she did very well. She got the flu-mist nasal vaccine and a toe-prick to check her lead level (since we live in a house that was built before 1978 and had recently been painted), but no shots; yea! They put a Daffy Duck band aide on her toe which she was fascinated by. I guess she has never really had to wear a band aide before; she didn't want to take it off. She kept saying "toe" and "ducks" and showing it to me. I asked if she wanted to take it off and put her shoes on, but she was very certain that answer was "NO." All in all, a good visit.

While Lily doesn't have to go back to Dr. White for a whole year, we'll be back within a couple of months with Amelia!

"Cute"

I forgot to tell this sweet story from Saturday morning. I got Lily dressed and ready for her party, and then went to get myself ready while she played. After a few minutes she walked into our room, and said "Cute!" so I replied "Yes, you look very cute." She walked over to me, tugged on my shirt and said "Mommy." I asked "Mommy looks cute?" to which she enthusiastically replied "Yes!" I think she liked my black shirt with the big white dots (or bubbles as she calls them), but I told her thank you and that she made me feel really good. At 34 weeks pregnant, "cute" is about the last thing I feel these days!

Lily's Birthday Fun

Saturday, October 4, was Lily's 2nd birthday! We had a wonderful couple of days celebrating too. Our big present for Lily was a playground that was delivered on Wednesday. She has been having a great time playing on it and showing it to everyone who comes by the house. On Thursday, Meme brought over several child-size tables and chairs. Lily loved these! She kept saying they were her "prise" from Meme; she can't say "surprise" yet. She really like the little wooden ones, and she would put them in different positions around the living room/play area and then sit and read her books to herself or her baby dolls. It was so cute to see!

Lily was very excited on Friday morning to wake up and find Ryan's family had come over from Birmingham. They had the tough job of keeping Lily occupied while Ryan and I went to work and then set about getting the house ready for the birthday party. They took her to a children's clothing store called Chocolate Soup and found some beautiful dresses for her (and a few things for Amelia too!). They said Lily had a great time modeling the dresses for the ladies working at the store as they ohhed and ahhed over how adorable she is. Lily had a great time playing with them all day, and it was such a huge help for Ryan and me to have them here.

We let Lily open her presents from them on Friday evening. She opened the Mrs. Potato Head first and had such a great time playing with it that it took a little coaxing to get her to open anything else! However, she was very excited to open up a new book (Max Lucado's "John 3:16" for kids) and two sing-along DVD's that I know she will love. Then Lily was thrilled to see a new baby doll stroller. It's adorable! It's part of a set that actually has a baby doll pack and play, play gym, diaper bag and bouncy seat, but we decided to spread those out over a few weeks and just give her the stroller for the moment. She loved putting Baby Kaylee or Mrs. Potato Head in the stroller and walking them around. She has hardly stopped playing with this since getting it!

On Saturday morning, we only had a couple of hours to finish getting ready for the party, but we managed to get it all done in time. Everything was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed since Mickey is Lily's favorite character. Lily was excited to see her friends and cousins: William, Anna Claire, Alexis, Peyton, Britton, McKayla, Molly and Zac. Of course, lots adults were there to help out too! Thankfully it was a perfectly beautiful day outside, so the kids were able to enjoy the new playground and the inflatable bouncy for awhile before lunchtime. We had finger sandwiches (cream cheese & jelly, chicken salad, and my mom's hot ham and cheese), fruit (pineapples, strawberries, blueberries and peaches) with dip, bbq potato chips, sausage balls, goldfish and pigs in a blanket. It all turned out really well. After lunch, we had birthday cupcakes which everyone seemed to enjoy. I had made the cupcakes and then died the frosting either red, blue or yellow and put Mickey character picks in; I must say, they were delicious! Lily was a little unsure about everyone singing to her, and she had me blow out the candles, but she dove right into the cupcake!

After finishing up dessert and playing for a little bit longer, we went inside to open presents. Everyone was so generous and gave her great gifts. She was so excited about each one and just wanted to play with them right then. If there was one in a box, she would say "more?" or "out?" which is how she asks me to take it out of the box, but I had to explain we would take it out later to play with. The girl loves to play and wanted to enjoy them all! After all the presents were opened, it was time for our friends and family to head home, so we gave each child a goodie bag with Mickey bubbles, stickers, blower, straw and M&M's (blue and red ones). I hope they had fun with them!

After all the excitement and sugar of that morning, we weren't sure how Lily would nap, but thankfully it was a nice long one which allowed Ryan and me to rest and clean up. Our parents had helped clean up some before they left, so it didn't take too long; this was a tremendous help, so thank you!

After nap time, we headed over to Wayne and Dianne's house to celebrate Zac's first birthday. This was a lot of fun too; he is such a precious little boy! When we got home, Lily was very excited to see a package had been delivered with more "prises" inside. Grandpops and Grandma Jan had sent her a big box that she couldn't wait to get into. She was so excited to open it up and see two wrapped packages inside. They both had toy food sets for her kitchen which is perfect because she loves her little kitchen but it doesn't have any food with it (except a milk carton, a piece of cheese and a muffin which get a little boring after a few minutes!). Lily loves to cook in her kitchen, so she was thrilled to see this. One of the sets has cutable bread, fruits and vegetables along with a "knife" and cutting board. The other one has an adorable cutable birthday cake with candles, decorations and a cake serving piece. She is going to have so much fun with these for a long time! There was also a cute yellow shirt that says "Someone in Chicago loves me" which we certainly know is true!

This has been such a wonderful birthday for Lily! We can't believe our precious little girl is two now. She has already given us so many fantastic memories, and we cannot wait to see what lies ahead for her.

Birthday Pictures!

We all had a blast celebrating Lily's 2nd birthday!  We planned a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme since she loves these characters so much.  We decked out everything in balloons!

The new bouncy was a hit!  McKayla and Molly had fun jumping with her while Anna Claire Wright looked on.

Lily laughed and smiled the whole time she was in the jumpy.  William Wright enjoyed the new slide.

Alexis Shaffer liked the playground too while McKayla showed us how the trapeze worked.

Fun with Molly!

Lunch all laid out... it was really good!

I was pretty proud of the cupcakes I made!

Singing Happy Birthday

Testing out the cupcakes

Yep, it's good!

Time to open presents!

Happy birthday sweet girl!

An Early Birthday Present

Lily's second birthday is on Saturday; can you believe it?! We decided to get her a playground as a present. We wanted to have it delivered and installed before her party on Saturday morning, so the kids could enjoy it then. We had them bring it today just in case there were any complications. Thankfully, everything went perfectly, and the company did a great job putting it together quickly. This is one of the few times we couldn't wait for Lily to wake up from her nap so we could take her outside; of course, today she slept for almost 3 hours!

When she woke up, I told her she had a surprise while I was putting her shoes on. Her eyes lit up and she kept asking "prise?" Her last surprise was the fair last Saturday, so I don't know if she thought it would be something like that. We went outside where Ryan was waiting to take pictures. She was so excited when she saw the playground! She loves going to our local playground, so to have one in her backyard is just great! She hurried down the stairs and ran over to it. She looked at everything, went for a swing (in both the little and "big girl" swings), tried to figure out the trapeze and then headed up the stairs to the steering wheel and slide. She had a huge smile the whole time and was so excited. It makes us so happy to see her so happy! We think this will provide lots of fun for years to come!