Lily's Camera

Lily received a camera for Christmas, and she loves it. Here is a cute one she took of Mia.
It also has lots of fun settings to enhance the pictures. Lily has a good time adding these in. Pretty cute, right?

While these are all pictures of Lily (and one of Mia), I just want to include this entry to document Lily's love of taking pictures. She has so much fun with it! She's a lot like her Daddy that way!

A Girl and Her Shoes

Mia makes me laugh when we're getting her dressed. She will squirm and wiggle and make getting dressed pretty difficult. However, when you sit her up, she holds one sweet little foot at a time up because she loves to put on socks and shoes. Yesterday I decided to try a pair of sandals on her her, and they looked adorable. Mia wasn't so sure though. She resisted putting the shoes on, and I really think it's because we didn't put socks on first. We finally got them on her, and she started whining and holding her foot up to me to change it. She sat herself down on the floor and tried to take them off herself. For about 20 minutes (at home and then in the car), she just kept pointing to them, and we would say "I like your new sandals; they are so pretty." It was so funny to me that she was so unsure of these sandals! This morning, we put regular socks and shoes back on her because she was going to school, and again, she sat still and put them on with no problems. She's so particular; I wonder who she picked that trait up from...?

Different Girls

It amazes me and makes me laugh when I think about how different Lily and Amelia are from one another. Both are precious little girls who we love more than we ever imagined was possible, but they are so different from one another. We often ask ourselves how is this even possible? Two girls right at two years apart from one another from the same parents...how does this happen?

We have recently noticed this especially when they are eating. Lily has always LOVED pasta with alfredo sauce. She asks for it often when we're out to eat. You would think "Great! That's something they can easily share." Nope. Mia spits it right back out at you. While Lily happily munches away on penne alfredo, Mia prefers my turkey/swiss/gorgonzola-walnut panini, or Bama's spaghetti with mushroom sauce. Tonight while eating at Carrabbas, Lily asked for a cheese pizza with no bubbles; she doesn't like the air bubbles that pizza crusts sometimes have. Mia enjoyed a few bites of it, but then preferred Ryan's and mine's entrees: pollo rosa maria (chicken with prosciutto and fontina cheese) and chicken bryan (grilled chicken with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes). She was eating the sundried tomatoes like they were going out of style! How does an almost 17-month-old even develop a taste for goat cheese and sundried tomatoes! Mia will eat fruit, especially bananas and peaches, all day; Lily pretty much sticks to apples and maybe a few strawberries or grapes now and then. Lily loves carrots; Mia won't touch them. They can both agree on quesidillas, grilled cheese and ice cream but that's about it!

It's also fun to watch them learn. Lily has always loved to read books, and she has something of a photographic memory once she sees a picture of it in a book or on tv. Mia needs to see it in action so she can repeat and imitate. When she sees us do something (like wipe off the table for crumbs), she tries to do the same thing. While it's been pretty easy to teach things like colors, numbers and ABCs to Lily, it will be interesting to see how Mia will learn these things. We'll figure it out as we go.

Of course, their personalities are very different too. At dinner again tonight, a waiter stopped at our table to comment on Mia's eyes; she smiled at him and blew him a kiss. He turned his attention to Lily who immediately buried her head into my arm. Earlier today, Bama took the girls to Centennial Park to play. Mia wanted to try out a new slide and the water fountains; she had no problem playing with the big kids on it too. Lily prefers to stay back and watch the action. Lily often says she wants to be shy for a little while when we first arrive somewhere while Mia will run right into the middle of the action.

It is so fascinating to me to watch our girls. I can really understand now what people mean when they say you have to be a student of your kids to figure how to best teach them and meet their needs. As different as they are from one another, they both are so loving and sweet. They make us laugh every single day and bring us more joy than we thought possible. We are so blessed by these two, and we look forward to all the adventures that are before us!

Easter Weekend

This was a beautiful Easter weekend. We had such a fun time together. Here are some (okay, a lot) of pictures for you to see too.

A picture of the girls' baskets. Do you like the frosted egg cookie that Ryan made for them? Mia received four little books, some fish pool toys, a light-up spinner and a Hermie DVD while Lily received a Minnie Mouse/Daisy Duck cup, a light-up spinner, sunglasses, Princess tambourine, two little puzzles, a coloring book and a WordWorld DVD. They were both so excited to see their baskets! The little bunny decorations are the same ones my Mom used for Wayne and me growing up. I wouldn't advise eating the candy in any of them; it's the same candy eggs she used too! Saturday morning after breakfast, we got ready to color eggs. This is something I love to do. I have lots of great memories of coloring eggs each Easter at Meme and Pop's house, so it's a fun tradition to carry on with my kids. We decided Mia isn't quite ready to color them, but Lily thinks it is great fun. Here she is (still in pjs) helping to get the dyes ready.

We had 10 different colors to choose from. Here's Lily putting the first round of eggs in.
Bama showed Mia what we were doing. We didn't exactly trust Mia around all these eggs and dyes!

Lily and Mommy having fun!

Ryan said this picture pretty much sums up our girls. Lily is sitting quietly with an activity talking with me while we are barely able to catch Mia in a picture she is running by so quickly!

Concentrating on picking up the egg.

So excited to see the egg come up!

She loved the pink eggs because "pink is my favorite color."

Having fun!

Mia was having fun too!

Trying to get Mia and Bama in on the action.

The four of us having fun.

Mia and Ryan had lots of fun playing in the driveway while Lily and I were in the garage.

Showing Lily how to use the crayon to color the eggs before they go in. She wasn't a big fan of this because she couldn't see the white show up on the egg; she kept saying the crayon wasn't working. Mia always loves a good shoulder ride!

Lily showing me what the dyes did to her hands. She didn't mind being messy!

Showing off the egg I made for her.

Deciding which stickers to put on her eggs after they were all colored.

After decorating, she put some of the eggs in her basket and some into Mia's basket to share with her.

I asked Lily to help me take the eggs out of the baskets and back into the cartons so we could store them in the fridge. By herself, she matched five rows of colors together, and then took my suggestion to put pink eggs on the outside edge since there was pink on the other end. Otherwise, this was her idea. I wonder where she gets her love of all things being symmetrical...

After we colored eggs and Mia napped, we all got dressed to go to an egg hunt. First Baptist Church of Chattahoochee is the church I grew up in and Mom and Dad still attend. They put on a huge hunt for the local area. It's at the Whittier Mill Village where my Dad grew up. It's a humongous open field with a playground; they also set up lots of easy games to play, the Easter bunny is there to meet, there are animals (goats and rabbits) to pet and horses to ride before the hunt. It's a lot of fun. I also enjoy going to see lots of old friends. It was the most beautiful day to be outside too.

Mia really enjoyed the slide. She always love to go down slides!

Lily was a little shy at first, so we got a lollipop from one of the games and sat down to take everything in for a few minutes. This was the first of three lollipops which made for one sticky mess but one very happy Lily.

Here is Mia riding the small horse (they had another full size one for bigger kids). Lily refused to go near the horses, but Mia did pretty well. She started to get upset near the end of the ride, but I was proud of her for giving it a try.

I tried to convince Mia to pet the little goat which is something she loves every time we go to the petting zoo. She wasn't so sure today though.

Lily was excited to get a balloon and start the hunt!

Bama helped Mia with her basket, so she could pick up the eggs. We didn't even think about practicing with Mia beforehand, so she would know what to do with the eggs, but she figured it out pretty quickly. She really loved it too!

Hey, I think I see more over there!

Helping the girls go through their eggs when the hunt was over.

We played for a little while more after the hunt. Here's Mia enjoying the slide again.

She also had fun on the swings.

Lily and Molly enjoyed the slides too.

Bama and the girls.

Bama tried to introduce Mia to the Easter Bunny. Lily would have no part whatsoever with this. Mia wasn't too sure either.

Ryan and Mia had fun holding and petting the little bunnies. Ryan had to explain the idea of "gentle" after Mia pulled on his ears!

This was a lot of fun. As we were leaving, Lily summed it all up by saying "Mommy, that was great!"

On Sunday afternoon, we upheld our tradition of going to my cousins, Judy and Robert's, house. It's always nice to catch up with everyone. It was such a gorgeous day that we were all able to sit outside on their big porch and just relax and talk to one another. Of course, we enjoyed a fantastic meal together. Boy can my family cook!

Here's a picture of all the great-grandkids in attendance before the hunt. We were missing about 6 or 7, but this is a good summary! Madi (who was the flower girl in our wedding over 8 years ago!) was nice enough to hold Mia to try to keep her from squirming away; they are on the back row second from the left. We were so proud of Lily for sitting calmly this year too; she is also on the back row, third from the right. I guess telling her there would be no egg hunt until a picture was taken worked. Afterwards I told her I was proud of her for sitting up there for the picture. She grinned really big and said "Yeah, I sat with the big girls!" as she referred to Averie Ann and Ella who were next to her.

They let the youngest kids get a head start, so Mia was off to the races! Thankfully Granna was available to help Mia.

Checking out the rest of the action in the yard. It was a little chaotic!

Lily had fun hunting too. Two things about that. First, all day Lily had said she wanted one purple egg and ten yellow eggs which is what she had picked up at Saturday's hunt. I just kind of agreed and didn't think much about it because I knew there would be lots of colors to choose from. However, when the hunt started, she walked right past a lot of eggs, and when I pointed them out she replied "Mommy, I am looking for one purple and ten yellow eggs." So, that's what she collected. Once she was satisfied that she had found those, I asked again if she wanted to pick up other eggs too, and she agreed saying "I'll share them with Mia." After the hunt, she started opening all the eggs to see what was inside (see the picture below). She got really excited about ones with candy inside, but several eggs had coins in. She liked these too because of the rattling sound they made when she shook them. She would empty these into my hands. When they were all empty, she looked at my hand and said "Mommy, now we have enough to go to the museum!" Granted, we collected $4.49 in change, but that's not quite enough for the museum's admission charge! I thought it was funny though that she connected we had to pay to go to the museum, and she believed we now had enough. What a cutie.

Sharing her loot with me.

Mia wanted to try carrying both baskets full of eggs.

Mia loved the candy bracelet that was inside one of the eggs. Don't you love her little Pebbles-style ponytail? I do!

Both girls enjoyed playing inside the playhouse.

Lily loved pretending she had a dog inside the house with her. Don't get any ideas anytime soon kiddo.

It was a tiring day and both girls missed their afternoon naps. They were both out within a few minutes of being in the car.

There's nothing like seeing your kids sleep to remind you of what precious little angels they are.