Week of Visitors

We are blessed to have lots of visitors coming by the house this week! My dad brought Meme over after church on Sunday since it had been awhile since she had seen the girls. Lily had a great time throwing a ball with her and showing off her toys. At one point, she was standing behind Meme a little bit trying to show her a toy; it was difficult for Meme to turn around in the chair to see her, so Lily walked around in front of her and said "Stand over here. Meme see better." She then proceeded to tell Meme all about her toy. Amelia kept smiling and cooing at Meme the whole time, so that was precious to see too.

On Tuesday, Grandpops was in town from Chicago on business, so he came by in the late afternoon to spend the evening with us. Lily is always a little shy at first, but once he agreed to go outside to her playground, she wouldn't leave him alone! They had a great time playing together, and Lily was constantly talking to him, playing games with him and pulling him into other rooms by the finger. We heard "C'mon Grandpops!" many times that night, but I don't think David minded! We were able to get several great pictures of him with the girls, but I haven't had time to upload them yet; hopefully I can do that soon.

Bama is coming over from Birmingham tomorrow night to spend the weekend with us. Lily always loves getting this visit, so I know she is very excited about the weekend. I bet she probably won't believe how much Amelia has grown since she last saw her a few weeks ago!

Of course, Granna and Kim have been here each day this week too watching the girls while Ryan and I are at work. They are both such huge blessings! This morning, Amelia and I went to my friend Kristin's house and hung out with her and her 1 year old son for awhile while Lily was at school. It was wonderful to just take a break from tax season for a couple of hours and enjoy spending time with a friend.

Life can get so hectic sometimes, but that is especially true during tax season. It has been great to see lots of different faces this week! Hopefully we'll see all of you reading this sometime soon!

Friday Morning

I am having so much fun playing with Lily this morning. Amelia has been asleep for about an hour, so Lily and I have been playing. We finished eating some breakfast (where I was again applauded for not spilling my juice). I asked Lily what she wanted to next. She started counting on her fingers again as she rattled off this list..."Ride Dusty (that's her horse), hop, build tall tower, read books, do puzzle. Let's go!" Per her instructions, we stuck to the list through read books, but then she decided we should play in her room instead of doing a puzzle.

I didn't sleep well last night, so I am tired this morning. Since we were in her room, I laid down on her bed. She climbed up next to me and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Then she said "Night night Mommy. Stay in bed hear music. Sticker surprise." This is because we tell her each night to stay in her bed until she hears her music play the next morning. If she stays, she gets a sticker and after several stickers she gets a little surprise; it works pretty well. She then climbed off the bed, turned on the humidifier and closed the door as she walked out the door. I wondered if she planned on leaving me there, but about 30 seconds later, she came back in and said "Nap over! Let's play!"

We came back out to the den where I have the solid gold oldies music station playing on tv. The Beatles song "Penny Lane" was on. At one point a bell rings in the song. She stopped building with the blocks, looked up and said "Ding dong bell!" I didn't think she really paid attention to the music, but I guess I was wrong. At least she has good taste in music!

We are having such a great time together today. Now we're off to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while I feed Amelia; it's the only way to get her to sit still for 20 minutes! Hope your Friday is off to a good start too. Have a great weekend!

New Nickname

When I picked Lily up from school today, one of her teachers came over to the car and said "Lily earned a new nickname today." A look of fear must have come across my face because then she said "Don't worry. It's a good one. I'll let her tell you." When another teacher brought Lily out to the car I asked her what her new nickname was. She said "Cooze Rector" which made me look to the teacher for help interpreting. The teacher said "She is our new Cruise Director! She kept trying to get the other kids to play a game today. She would say C'mon everybody! C'mon!" I'm going back and forth on if this is just the teacher's very nice way of telling us we have a bossy little 2-year-old on our hands!

In the car on the way home, I asked Lily what she had done at school. She rattled off the usual list of reading books, singing, etc., but then she said "Build tall tower blocks." She loves to build with her blocks at home, so I said "Oh you built a tall tower with blocks?" She said "Uh-huh. Build tall tower. Big blocks and little blocks build tall tower. David helped build tall tower." I repeated, "David helped you build a tall tower?" and she said "Yes."

I am so proud of Lily and how far she has come since starting school! She learns something new everyday, and appears to be learning important people skills too. She has really started to blossom into quite the amazing little girl!

On another note, today marks Amelia's 3-month birthday...where does the time go?!

Just Like Mommy

I realized awhile ago Lily likes to imitate some of my mannerisms and sayings. Here are a couple of examples...

1. We were picking out an outfit from her closet on Saturday, and she asked for her Tigger & Pooh vitamins (she loves these!). I reminded her that we had to get dressed first. She held up her hand and started counting on her fingers as she rattled off the list of things to do before getting her vitamins. "Jump on bed. Fall down. Change diaper. Change clothes. Brush hair. TIGGER AND POOH VITAMINS!" I told this to Ryan who commented "I wonder where she gets a love of detailed lists from..." It's so true. I love to make a to-do list and cross things off as I go; it gives me great satisfaction to feel like I am accomplishing something. How funny though that Lily counted "fall down" on her bed as something to do before getting her vitamins!

2. This morning I was drinking some orange juice, and Lily kept asking for some. She loves to share my drinks with me. She had just finished her second yogurt cup (she loves Yo-Baby yogurt), and was about to share an oatmeal breakfast cookie with me, so I thought OJ would be fine. Since I wasn't feeling well yesterday though, I didn't want to share my cup with her. I decided to give her a juice glass with a little bit in it; keep in mind she typically drinks milk (or any other drink for that matter) in her sippy cup, not in a real glass because I really don't like cleaning up spilled drink messes. The first thing she did was dip the cookie into the OJ (she sees her daddy dip cookies into milk when we have those). Then she decided to take a sip of the OJ, and miraculously, she didn't spill any of it. I smiled at her and said "Good job Lily!" She then asked (ok, told) me to drink my OJ which I did. She smiled really big, clapped her hands and said "Good job Mommy!" Apparently, she was impressed that I didn't spill my drink too!

I think two-years-old is such a fun age!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day today. We started our day a little earlier than usual. Unfortunately, Lily was a little sick yesterday. She threw up her breakfast and lunch and only had a few crackers for dinner. We weren't surprised when she came in hungry at 6:30 this morning; she has been sleeping until 7 for several days. Ryan went to Chick-fil-a to get us a Valentine's breakfast treat while Lily and I watched cartoons. When we came to the breakfast table, Lily saw the new pajamas that we had bought as presents for her and Mia; she wasn't impressed. She prefers presents to be of the toy, book or puzzle variety instead of clothes! I, however, think new pajamas on Valentine's might become a tradition...we'll see.

After breakfast, Mia woke up, so it was time for her to eat. While I was feeding her, our doorbell rang. We were pleasantly surprised to see a floral delivery man standing at the door. Great-Grandpa Hooks and Lois sent each of the girls a half-dozen roses; Lily's were white and Mia's were red. They were beautiful! Lily loved them and kept saying "Look Mia!" She loves to share things with her baby sister, at least for now.

After breakfast I had to go into work for several hours (it's tax season you know, and I am adjusting to owning two firms), so Ryan hung out with the girls. Both of them seemed a little off and not themselves, but as always, he did a great job. He is such a wonderful dad, and the girls are so lucky to have him.

After coming home, we played for a little bit, and then Ryan grilled steaks for us to have for dinner which were delicious. We thought we would try to have a family movie night as a special treat for Lily, but she wasn't interested in "Ratatouille." We thought it was pretty cute though.

As I was nursing Amelia just before we ate, Lily came into Amelia's room to talk; a lot of the time, she will stand right next to the rocking chair and have little conversations with me. This time though, she picked up the quilt on the floor and was trying to put it inside Amelia's crib which was a little difficult since the side is a lot taller than Lily. I asked her what she was doing, and she replied "Put blanket in Mia's bed." I replied "I see that, but why are you putting the blanket in Mia's bed?" She said "Mia sleep on it" to which I replied "No, Mia won't sleep on that." She said "Lily sleep on it," so I replied "No, you can't get in Mia's bed" (we don't allow her to climb into the crib because we don't want her falling on Mia as she catapults over or pulling down the mobile). Just then she got the quilt inside the crib, so she turned around, smiled at me and said "Well, I tried" and then walked off. She cracks me up! You should hear her say "well" too; she has the most drawn-out Southern drawl when she says it. A lot of time, if you ask her something she doesn't know, she gets a certain thoughtful look on her face and will say "well..." Then when you tell her answer she'll say "well of course!" What a funny little girl.

Overall, an uneventful day which is nice right now. FYI, my favorite thing about Valentine's Day is that it is exactly one month from my birthday!

Sweet Lily

I can't help it, I think Lily is precious! She has learned a new trick that I adore. She points to herself, gives herself a hug and then points to whomever she is talking to as she says "I love you!" She learned this at school on Monday because they are learning about Valentine's Day.

This evening I put her down to bed because Ryan was working late. She climbed out of bed a few minutes later, just after Ryan got home. He came back and told her good night while I took her back to her room. The door was open, so she pointed out and said "Daddy home." I said "Yes, Daddy's home. He came to tell you night-night, and he loves you." She pointed to herself, hugged herself and pointed out the door as she said "I love you too Daddy!" So precious!

A Lovely Sunday

We had a wonderful day today. Lily and Amelia both did well in the nursery, while Ryan and I enjoyed working in the nursery at 8:30 and then Sunday School at 10. We feel so lucky to have found such a great church. Johnson Ferry is committed to loving Christ and trying to share His love with as many people as possible. Last Sunday, they decided to have "spontaneous baptisms" in each of the 5 services. Over 220 people came forward during the services! Many were people accepting Christ as their Savior for the first time while the others were those who had previously accepted Christ but had not yet followed his command to be baptized. It was amazing to see the Holy Spirit at work!

After church, we had a quick lunch at Zaxby's and then headed home. Lily went down for her nap, I fed Amelia and played with her for awhile and then put her down. For about 45 minutes, we were all napping which was wonderful! Once Lily woke up, she watched Mickey Mouse and Little Einsteins while I continued to rest. About 4:30, I fed Amelia again then we all went outside to play on Lily's playground. It was a beautiful day! We stayed out for a bit, and then Ryan had the great idea to have a picnic dinner in the living room (mainly so we could see the Pro Bowl, but Lily thought that sounded like fun). We had quesadillas, clementines and pretzels on our picnic blanket. Lily brought her Little People princess, carriage, horse and picnic basket onto the blanket to enjoy the meal with her. It was a lot fun, and Lily had a great time. She was laughing, dancing and cracking us up. After dinner, we told stories; Lily loves to climb into our lap and hear stories about our vacations, trips to the zoo, etc. I love carrying on a conversation with her! After story time, she and I took a shower where we colored and played with the wall stickers. We put her to bed then gave Amelia her bath and put her down. Now we're just relaxing, and it's great. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday!

Pictures

A few recent pictures for you...

This is Amelia in a dress that I used to wear when I was a little baby.

Lily loved giving Mia her bottle!
Lily now enjoys wearing her hair in a ponytail. Two sweet girls!

Loving her new pigtails!

Beginning of February

I can't believe it is already February...where does the time go?!

Just a little update on the girls...Amelia is awesome. She is now 11 weeks old which I cannot believe. She has been cooing and smiling for a couple of weeks now, and I fall more in love with her every time she does. She is precious. She is also a champ at sleeping which I greatly appreciate. For a few weeks now, we have been putting her down about 10 each night, and she sleeps until about 8 plus she takes really good naps during the day (especially if she is in her swing). We're about to start working on pulling that bedtime back a little bit each night, so we'll see how that goes.

Lily is doing great too. She makes me laugh (almost) all the time. The girl loves to sing; here's hoping she inherited her daddy's abilities in that area. Apparently they were singing "I'm A Little Teapot" in Sunday school this past week because she now loves to say "Here's spout...TIP me over and pour out!" It's adorable especially when she leans to the side as she tips. She also loves to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (and "play" it on her alligator piano/xylophone) and "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" (with motions). She loves to do Daisy's dance from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ("jump forward, jump backwards, march, march, march, clap, clap, clap, slide to this side, slide to the other side"). She can do it really well. I caught it on my cell phone the other day, but I have no idea how to get the video onto the blog from there. She's always on the go these days. She will finish doing an activity and then look at me, raise her arms up and say "Now what do?" She amazes me everyday with something she says. For instance, on Sunday, I picked her and Mia up from the nursery and then we went to meet Ryan. She saw him and said "What's up Daddy?" Hilarious! The teachers at her school tell me every time I pick her up how amazed they are at her attention span and listening skills. That must be a school thing because I'm not sure I could say the same thing about those skills being demonstrated at home; she definitely has "terrible two" moments now and then! She is into a "Me do it!" stage, so we are learning to pick our battles.

Truly, we have been blessed with these two wonderful, healthy and beautiful girls. We can't imagine life without them!

The Thinker

For about a month now, if you ask Lily something and she does not know the answer, she will cross her arms across her chest, then tap her forehead and say "Hmmm, think, think, think." Those of you who happen to watch "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" realize this comes from their song "Now's the time to think, think, think..." It cracks me up though, and each time she does it, it makes me think of the famous statue "The Thinker" by Rodin.

Big Sister Love

Lily really seems to love being a big sister (most of the time anyway). She is always checking on Amelia and asking "where's Mia?" when she doesn't see her close-by. This weekend, while the grandparents were keeping the girls, Amelia started crying. Lily immediately started saying "Lily here Mia!" because she hears me saying "Mommy and Lily are right here Mia" if we're nearby when she starts getting fussy. Also, Ryan went to get Amelia from her crib to eat on Saturday, and when he returned to the living room, Lily was sitting in a chair with the Boppy pillow around her waist holding Mia's bottle and saying "Me do it." Ryan put Amelia on the pillow, and Lily proceeded to give her the entire bottle while she watched Mickey Mouse! Ryan got some really cute pictures while Bama took an adorable video. Hopefully I will get some of those up soon. Lily has also learned that she is the big sister while Mia is the little sister. For awhile she would walk up to Mia and say "Hi big little sister!" but now she properly says "Hi little sister!" She also likes to come up to her and say "Awww" and gently touch her hair. She is such a sweet little girl, and I am so proud of how she loves on Amelia.

2 Month Check-up

Ryan and I took Amelia to see Dr. White this morning for her two month check-up. We can't believe that it has already been two months; time if flying by! As expected, she got a great report. Dr. White said she is hitting all the milestones (smiling, cooing, holding head well) and that she has beautiful skin. She also said Amelia seemed happier and perkier than she would expect a 2-month-old which is great. She is certainly a growing girl too. She now weighs 11 pounds, 6.5 ounces which moved her up to the 75th percentile; I had told Ryan I thought she hit a growth spurt last week. It also made me realize though that she is about to outgrow all her newborn clothes; they go up to 12 pounds! She is about to be in the 3-6 month clothes which I just can't believe! Amelia also jumped up to the 75th percentile in height at 23 inches. She actually went down to the 25th percentile for head size which is 15 inches, but that isn't anything to worry about.

Amelia also received her first round of vaccines today. She gets the rotavirus one by mouth which isn't bad, but she had to get three shots in her leg. One of those shots contains the vaccine for three diseases, so she ended up with a total of six vaccines this morning, including the oral one. She was a happy little girl until those shots went in; it was so sad to watch her little face as you could see the pain and bewilderment set in. She cried with big tears for a few minutes, but Daddy helped soothe her. Though she normally hates her car seat, she was asleep within just a minute of being put in it; it is almost like a small trauma sleep.

We also asked Dr. White about Lily's behavior. We never know if the way she is acting is because of jealousy over Amelia or if it is just normal 2-year-old behavior. Of course, it is probably a combination of the two. Her main suggestion that we are going to try our best to do is to emphasize to Lily having time alone each day with both of us. We try to do this anyway, but she suggested making it a big deal in Lily's eyes that this is one-on-one time, and the other parent will handle anything Amelia needs while we have that time. We can see a huge difference in Lily's behavior on days when she has spent some of her day playing with us instead of just playing while we cook dinner or letting her watch Mickey Mouse. Becoming a big sister and being a two-year-old is a tough transition for her sometimes!

Name Change

Ryan and I had not planned on giving Amelia a nickname; we really like that name and assumed that is what we would call her. We knew we were going to go with the nickname Lily instead of her given name of Lillian, but we thought we would stick with Amelia. However, we have grown really fond of "Mia" which is the nickname Lily has given to Amelia. We still really like Amelia and will often call her that, but if you hear us talking about Mia, you'll know now who we mean!

Pictures to Share

I wanted to share a few pictures from the last couple of weeks...

Amelia is ready for her first day at church.

We were so glad to have Grandpops visit from Chicago. He treated us to a wonderful dinner at The Capital Grille; thank you!
Grandpops and Amelia.
Amelia is really starting to smile and coo a lot which is absolutely adorable. She loves her baths, and we have fun "talking" to one another.Look at those sweet feet!

Is that smile precious or what?

Checking herself out in the mirror.

Lily is such a big girl these days!

Amelia and Macey Henderson are only 5 days apart. I'm sure they will be great friends!

Lily and Parker Henderson had a great time playing together. Thanks to Brian and Jill for bringing the kids over, cooking dinner and hanging out with us; we had a great time and look forward to doing this again soon!

I don't know how in the world she can be comfortable, but she slept for just over 2 hours like this in her swing.

Papa and Meme came by to visit for a little bit. They always enjoy getting to hold Amelia.

Lily loves riding her rocking horse that Granna and Popa gave her at Christmas. Ryan tried to name the horse Roxanne while I tried to name it Cinnamon. Finally, we asked Lily what the horse's name was and she said "Umm, Dusty." Dusty it is!
Bama loves getting to hold Amelia. She has some kind of magic in her that calms Amelia down every time!

How adorable are they in their matching outfits from Bama?! Lily loves her paint with water Mickey Mouse book that Santa brought her.

Potty Training?

So I can't decide what to do about potty-training Lily. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to have her out of diapers. However, I am absolutely dreading the actual "training" part. I hate cleaning up messes and this kind of "accident" will drive me crazy. Also, now that tax season is picking up, I am out of the house a lot more which means I would be pawning off the training to my mom and Kim the nanny (maybe this isn't so bad after all...).

Lily seems to have other thoughts though. Ever since moving up a class at school, she seems very interested in the potty. She usually tells us when she is about to have a poopy diaper by saying her tummy hurts, but she doesn't say anything if she is about to wet it. Also, she is now constantly trying to take her diaper off. In fact, the four of us were all taking naps this afternoon (what a nice treat!). We always hear Lily when she gets up because she loudly shuts the hallway door behind her; today she did not shut the door so we didn't wake up immediately. She actually walked through our bedroom into our bathroom, took off her diaper and put it in the toilet; we woke up to the sound of our toilet flushing and Lily was standing next to Ryan with her pants around her ankles. Thankfully the diaper didn't flush or clog up the toilet. Several other times today she will suddenly stop what she is doing, pull her pants down and attempt to take her diaper off.

I had planned on attempting potty training after tax season when I will be home more and the weather will be warmer which means she can run around without pants on a little more comfortably, but now I'm not so sure. I don't have the first clue how to go about training though. I would love to hear thoughts on this from other parents. Any suggestions on how to successfully train a little girl to use the potty?

Thank you girls!

We finally got a good night's sleep last night! You know that Lily has been having some sleep issues ever since we brought Amelia home from the hospital. Last night though, we put her down at 8 and she slept until a few minutes past 7 this morning; yea! Also, we put Amelia down about 10:30, and she slept without making a peep until 7:30 this morning. Ryan and I definitely needed this rest; it's amazing how much better we felt all day. Here's hoping this will continue!

7 Years!

Yesterday, January 12, was our 7 year wedding anniversary. It brought back lots of wonderful memories from our wedding day which is still the best day of my life. Are you curious to know where we spent our anniversary? After work, we met at Chuck E Cheese. That's right, the kids' pizza and play place. However, we did that because Lily has been staying in bed until she hears her music CD in the morning, and we promised her a big surprise after she had done that so many times; she gets stickers each morning to remind her how close she is to her surprise. She was thrilled because she got two new puzzles that morning and dinner at Chuck E Cheese! We had a fun time, it's just not how we ever really expected to spend our anniversary. After Lily went to bed and Amelia was asleep in the swing, Ryan cooked us a couple of filets (they were stuffed with garlic and herb boursin cheese and wrapped in pancetta - absolutely delicious!) which was a great way to celebrate.

We have definitely been blessed to have such a wonderful marriage. We have made so many great memories over these years, and we look forward to the years to come together!

Thanks guys

The last couple of mornings, Lily has stayed in her bed until she hears her music alarm go off at 6:45; yea! Then she comes into our room, turns on the tv and comes over to me so I can pick her up and put her in bed with us. Once she's in between us, I'll ask if she wants under the covers which she almost always does. She gets in and says "Thanks guys!" It's so funny to hear!

Counting and You

Lily counts EVERYTHING these days. For instance, she looked at the computer as I finished writing the last blog entry a moment ago...she counted the words. She walked up to our tv, saw the word "sony" and counted the letters. She takes her goldfish out of her snack bowl to count them. She counts the animals she has lined up on her Noah's Ark. She counts the picture frames lined up on our buffet. You get the picture. Usually, she counts to ten correctly and then will start counting from one again; however, if she's being silly she will skip numbers and look at me to see if I'll correct her. Also, she occasionally will say "...eight, nine, one ten" because she is learning that the number ten starts with a one.

She has also started referring to herself as "you" a lot of the time. It started when she would see baby pictures of herself which is probably because I would say "that was you as a little baby." Now, when she sees any picture of herself that's what she calls herself. For example, she will see our family picture and when you ask who is in, she'll say "Mommy, Daddy, You, Mia!"

So Considerate

Meme came by to visit and see the girls a little while ago. She always enjoys holding sweet little Amelia and talking to Lily. When she was ready to go, Lily walked over to the door and tried to open it for her; of course, our handles have protectors over them so she can't open them, but it was a nice thought. Anyway, Meme walked onto the doorstep and was about to step down when Lily called out "Watch step Meme!" I guess she is used to hearing us tell people to watch their step as they are leaving!