Hold Her

So it's a big adjustment for a two-year-old to have a new baby sister in the house. Lily has done pretty well though. She is very gentle around Amelia, and she loves giving her kisses. She does not, however, like it when I go to another room to feed her; it will take awhile for her to get used to sharing me with Amelia. One way she copes though is asking (rather, telling) me to have Bama "hold her" (meaning hold Amelia) when I come back in the room, so she and I can play together. Well, today Lily walked over while Amelia was lying on the couch next to me fussing a little bit and wanted to pick her and "hold her." We decided to give it a try. We had her sit on the couch and put the Boppy pillow around her. Then, I laid Amelia across her lap; she really didn't have to support her because the pillow did that. Amelia was crying though (it was time to eat) which Lily didn't seem to like or understand. I am attaching some pictures of Lily getting ready to hold her and then the two of them together; it was absolutely precious to see.

Speaking Whale

Lily has picked up the funniest little bit recently. You know she LOVES the movie Finding Nemo. One of the parts she likes the best is when Dori "talks" to a whale. She has learned to talk like a whale herself. So now if you ask her to speak in whale she will say "Hel-looooo Daaaad-ddddy." And then she cracks up. She loves it if you speak to her in whale too. It's really funny to hear and watch. Lily was thrilled when Bama surprised her with a stuffed Nemo the other day. She has been sleeping with it, helping him swim around the room and generally having a great time with him. It's so cute to watch.

I am also attaching a sweet little picture of Lily from school last Monday. One of the teachers was able to get her to sit still long enough to "fix" her hair in this little braid. I was amazed she let her do that because anytime I try to play with her hair, she screams bloody murder. Anyway, I thought it was cute and thought you might like to see it too.

Amelia has Arrived!

We are so blessed to announce the safe and healthy arrival of Amelia Mary Hooks on November 18, 2008, at 11:44 AM. Ryan and I received a call from Northside Hospital last night that we could come in for inducement at 5:00 AM this morning. It was an early morning, but well worth it! They started me on potossin at 7:30, and they gave me an epidural (the most wonderful invention ever) at 10:00. Ryan's dad flew down and arrived just before 11:00. Ryan went out to talk to him and other family members who had come by, and he came back in the room at 11:30. A few minutes after he came back, Patty the nurse and Libby the midwife agreed "she was ready to walk out" so I gave 1.5 pushes and out she came. I have to say, this was a much easier experience than with Lily!

Lily came up to meet Amelia after her nap this afternoon. Ryan brought her in and she just looked at Amelia. She didn't say anything; just was taking it all in. However, Amelia had bought some presents to give Lily which made her very excited; two new books, a puzzle and an electronic game. That made Lily very happy! After she opened the presents, she just wanted to sit by me and play with them which was fine. Our families were here, so they enjoyed getting to hold Amelia while Lily and I hung out. This has been a great day!

Below are a few pictures of our sweet baby; I'm sure more will come out soon.

Calling Out

There is typically one time each night that Lily cries out for a few seconds and then she rolls over and goes right back to sleep. I'm really not sure if she is having a bad dream or if she is awake because it's usually just a little cry. Last night about 11 as Ryan and I were getting ready for bed, we heard over the monitor a little cry then "Meme! Mommy! Nemo!" So, what does this mean? Was she going in order of what comforts her? Was she dreaming about Nemo and wanted Meme or me to help him? Who knows!

Night-Night

While I always think Lily is adorable, she has picked up this little habit that I think is beyond adorable. She received a Little People lift-the-flap book for her birthday that shows the Little People on a farm. The last page of it has a night scene where all the farm animals are going to sleep and all the night animals come out to play. Lily has started lifting each flap and telling each animal "night night." It's so sweet to hear "Night night horse. Night night sheep. Night night mouse" and so forth. The cutest though is "Night night perse" which is her way of saying goodnight to the farmer. She says "perse" for person because she is learning the difference between one person or multiple people. Her sweet little voice makes me want to read this book all the time with her just so I can hear her say good-night to all the animals...so adorable!

Family of Three Outing

We wanted to have one last little family outing with Lily that would be just the three of us. So this morning, we went to the Imagine It! Children's Museum in Atlanta. It was awesome! We had taken Lily in January, and she had a great time then. However, today, she absolutely loved it! It was so much fun to watch her participate in all the activities. This museum is designed for children under 8, so everything is just the right fit for her age; of course, as she gets older, I think she will find other ways to participate in everything and still love it.

Her favorite thing today was to play on the tractor. They had a replica 1959 John Deere tractor to climb and play on. She would play it on for a little while, come down, play with something else, and then want to go back. If there was another child playing, she would wait until "my turn!" I can really see how going to school has helped her learn to take turns and share. She's really doing great with this concept. Anyway, the tractor was a big hit. You can also see she had fun playing in the little farmer's market area (puppets, play food and books), driving the bus, playing with the moon sand, growing flowers and going down the banana slide.

Unfortunately, our camera battery died about half-way through our trip, so you don't see the pictures of her playing in the area specifically for kids under 5. In here, she was able to "go fishing" with a toy rod for plastic fish which she thought was great; it got her soaked (the rain coats they provide were too big for her to wear), but she loved it. They also have a treehouse playground that she thought was awesome, especially the suspension bridge. In the rest of the museum, she was able to play with the plastic balls and watch how the kid-powered machines moved them all around. Bob the Builder was there today, but she didn't care about him since she has never seen his show. We also had lunch at the Chick-fil-a that is inside the museum; they allow you to bring in your own food and we had snacks, but we always enjoy their nuggets.

This was a great place to spend a morning. I think we will probably buy passes in another year once Amelia is on a one-a-day nap schedule too. We could have stayed longer but nap time called. We could see Lily getting tired a little after noon; the time changed has messed her up and she can't seem to get back on track with her sleeping habits. Hopefully that will change soon.

Hairy Times

Lily has a lot of fun playing under a blanket and then jumping out to say "boo!" (see the post below about "Boo!"). We thought it was pretty funny though to see what the blanket was doing to her hair. She didn't seem to mind at all though.















"Whoa, look how my hair stands up!"












Lily received these Mickey Mouse ears when she got her first haircut at Disney World in July. She didn't really want to wear them then though. However, she came across them a few days ago, and now she loves them. She wants to wear them a lot now. I have to say, she looks really cute with them on!

Boo!

Lily has been cracking me up for the last week. Ever since Halloween, she loves to say "Boo! Scare!" Here are two examples that make me laugh. First, she loves to hide in my closet while I'm getting ready. I spend a minute saying "Where's Lily? I wish she were here" and such. Then she throws open the door, smiles really big and says "Boo!" then she just cracks up and says "Scare!" as in "I scared you!" Second, she has a couple of lift-the-flap books that she loves. Well, now she lifts the flap and says "Boo! Scare!" as if she has scared the animal that was under the flap. She's a funny little thing.

We've Got Spirit...

...yes, we do. Christmas spirit that is. That's right, we put up our Christmas tree this evening which is November 1. Normally, we put up the tree and decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. However, I really don't want to worry about putting it up with a newborn and a 2-year-old around, so I asked Ryan if we could go ahead and put it up. Since we both love Christmas, it wasn't too hard to convince him! Ryan and my dad brought the tree up earlier today and put it in our living room. Lily just kept looking at it and going "Wow! Wow!" She loved it; she will be quite surprised when she gets up tomorrow and it has ornaments all over it! For those of you who don't know, Ryan and I collect Christmas ornaments from our travels. We love decorating the tree because it lets us relive a lot of great memories. We will do the rest of the decorations later, but at least the tree is there to get us in the spirit a little early this year!

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.