Eating with a Spoon

Since last night was bath night, I decided to let Lily try eating some yogurt with a spoon. I think she did pretty well for her first time using a utensil. Obviously we still need to work on it a little bit.





And, because she is so dang cute, here is one from this morning. Daddy wanted a picture of her piggies when she didn't have snot running down her face. I am putting her hair in piggies every day now in an attempt to ward off the swine flu. I think it will work, don't you?

Be Still My Heart

Her First Piggies!







I am not sure I can handle this! She looks so cute and adorable with her hair in piggies. Ignore her snotty nose in a couple of the pictures. I think she may have caught Matt's cold. They aren't the neatest piggies. Lily wasn't the biggest fan of me doing her hair. Hopefully this will be more successful than the equally adorable barrettes and headbands, neither of which she will keep in.

Walking, pigtails, new found attitude. My baby is growing up WAY TOO FAST!!!

My New Loves

Aren't they just beautiful? Our washer and dryer were on their last legs, so we bit the bullet and bought new ones. I don't think I have been this excited since Lily was born! If you aren't totally salivating over these , you either A) don't do ten loads of laundry a week, B) haven't reached the stage in your life where new appliances make you giddy (you will get there, trust me!) or C) don't use cloth diapers.

I do not regret using cloth diapers for even a second, but the washer has a pre-wash and extra rinse cycle, which will streamline my diaper laundry! And these puppies are super quiet. The washer is actually more quiet than the dryer.

She's a Walkin' Fool!

Okay, she isn't a fool, but Lily is definitely walking now. She has pretty much mastered standing up in the middle of the room and not having to pull herself up on something. So right at 13 months, I will call her a walker. She still crawls some, especially if she is tired. But she walks all over the room, carrying her new Elmo (or Ebo, as she calls him) and her Veggie Tales DVD case. For some reason, she loves that DVD case. Lily doesn't really like to be carried any more - she prefers to walk and reaches for my fingers to hold my hand, which is so adorable. Don't get me wrong, she will wander all over, but she does like to hold my hand, which I am sure will only be a good thing. Perhaps I won't have to teach her to hold my hand for crossing the street, in crowds, etc because she will already do it. Or, more likely, she will be over that quickly and want nothing to do with me! It is a bit frustrating at times a)waiting for her to walk wherever we are going and b) trying to keep her where she is supposed to be. If she doesn't want to be carried, she squirms and wiggles and makes it nearly impossible to hold her (at least in a normal manner...yesterday I finally just carried her under my arm like a football...for about a second...Matt yelled at me!)
Lily is just smiley and adorable and so much fun. We are trying to give her more of a run of the house, as opposed to being stuck in the gated off play room. As long as I remember to pick up the dogs' bowls things seem to go pretty well. She loves to look out the sliding glass door.
We also went to our first story time at the library on Friday. I have been meaning to go for about a month, but it is on Friday mornings and three weeks out of the month I have MOPS on Friday mornings. She really seemed to enjoy it, except when one little boy came over to her. She started crying (for about a second). That was the first time I have ever seen anything but a positive reaction to a new person. I wonder if she is finally starting to get a little stranger anxiety.
And for your viewing pleasure, here are a couple recent pictures:

At the Arboretum, she loved looking in this big reflective ball in the Children's Garden.


At the zoo with Mommy. She really was intrigued by the enormous mechanical dinosaur for Brookfield's dino exhibit.


Watching Elmo's Being Green DVD. Lily love, love, LOVES! Elmo and calls him "ebo" and can pick him out anywhere, even if he isn't red.


I don't know if she could be any cuter!


She hasn't let go of this doll since we bought it yesterday.




Going to see Daddy!

Not Much Going On

I haven't posted in a bit. There is no real reason, other than not much has been going on. Matt was out of town last week, which made it a very long week. There were shenanigans with his flight home, which just makes it par for the course as far as his travels seem to go. Lily is really walking all over the place now, though I hesitate to say she is actually walking. If she falls, she is just as - if not more - likely to crawl to her destination. She still can't stand up in the middle of the room and needs to pull herself up on something. I think that is the only thing keeping her from running all over the place. She has her two bottom molars. I was really hoping all four would come in at the same time since they seemed to cause her some trouble, but alas, the top two haven't broken through yet. And I am officially done nursing. She wasn't nursing much as it was, so it was actually very easy to completely wean her, both for her and me physically. We have taken a lot of walks lately. Basically if it is above 50 and sunny, or even warmer and not so sunny, we will take at least one walk. Last Thursday we took two! We went to the arboretum on Friday to see the daffodils. Surprisingly, very few had bloomed. Saturday we went to the zoo for a short time. It was silly busy. I am very happy we bought a membership. We can go for a couple hours and then not feel like we have to stay if it is too crowded, or if the weather turns icky. I had a nice night out on Saturday with some girls I used to work with. Sunday we bought a new washing machine and dryer. I am sooooo excited. I am sure that am officially a nerd (as if anyone ever doubted I was!) because I am so excited. But when you do ten loads of laundry a week, more efficient machines are needed. While we need the dryer more than the washing machine, I am more excited for the washer. It is a front loading, high efficiency machine. I can set it to pre-wash and extra rinse, which will make washing diapers just that much easier. I won't have to remember to go in an set another rinse, etc, because I can program all that when I throw the load in. They could have delivered them on Monday, but Matt wants to be home when they deliver them, which means they won't be here until Saturday. Boo! Other than that, nothing too exciting has been happening. My life can pretty much be summed up these days by taking walks and reading books. It seems that I have spawned a little book worm, which doesn't surprise me in the least! And cleaning the kitchen. I swear I do that at least five times a day!

Happy Easter!

Today was Lily's first Easter. She was supposed to be here for Easter last year - she was due the day before - but she had other ideas. Our Easter celebration actually started last night. Matt had to catch a flight this afternoon to Wyoming (for work...he is really not happy about it!) so we had our Easter dinner with his family last night. Ham, cheesy potatoes, aspargus, rolls and salad. It was quite a yummy feast. Lily had everything but the salad. She has never had the cheesy potatoes before, but as soon as I put some on her plate to cool before transferring them to her high chair tray, she started squirming and pointing and signing more. As a side note, I think teaching her to sign "more" is starting to bite me in the rear. She thinks it means I want and if she does it we will give her whatever she wants. She gets really mad if we don't immediately give her what she is pointing at. She does this in the store, when we are eating, pretty much everywhere. Anyway, she devoured probably an adult size meal. This morning we got up and Lily found the plastic eggs the Easter Bunny had hid in her play room, and then her Easter basket. The Easter bunny sure did spoil her! She got an adorable diaper with daisies on it, some hair accessories, a book, a DVD, some baby legs, some animal crackers, a swim suit, some sun glasses, and a board book of bible stories for kids. Normally she wouldn't be so spoiled, but I kept finding cute things and deciding they would be her Easter present. And the DVD, Wall-E, is probably more for me and Matt. But we are saying it is for her. We got ready and went to a beautiful church service. Unfortunately it was pretty much at nap time, so Lily was quite squirmy. I stood at the back of church with her for most of the service, which was actually kind of nice because I was near the open window and it was very warm in the church. We then headed over to Matt's parent's for a quick bite to eat and then Matt had to leave for the airport. Lily and I took a nice walk with Great Aunt Laurie and then headed home ourselves. The rest of the afternoon has been pretty low key. Lily is in her playroom right now, practicing standing up in the middle of the room. I think once she has that down, she will be walking all over. She can walk across the room if she wants to, but still chooses to mostly crawl. I think once she can stand up anywhere, as opposed to having to pull herself up, she will be more inclined to walk.

Crashed out after church...it was a brief nap.


Lily in her adorable Easter dress...I really tried to get a better picture, but you may have read my previous post about my stupid camera.


Lily with Daddy...she was looking when I started taking the picture...again, stupid camera!

A Rough Week

Lily has had a rough week this past week. On Wednesday she had what I can only assume was a 24 hour stomach bug. Actually, it was more like a 12 hour bug. It started with her not all that interested in her breakfast. Then we had a not so nice diaper. I am kinda dense though, so I didn't really think anything was wrong. Then we met some friends for lunch. She wasn't all that interested in her lunch, including some goldfish crackers, which normally she can eat her weight of. And then she...erupted...everywhere. In the restaurant. I am so thankful that the women I was out to lunch with also have young kids and therefore did not bat an eye when Lily puked all over. Since it was a beautiful day and we were in Naperville anyway, I wanted to go to the Riverwalk. I decided that since she seemed fine and happy, we would take a little walk, but skip the swings I had also planned. She was fine on the walk and fell asleep on the way home. I had to run into the library to pick up a couple books and she was chatting away, totally normal. Then, the minute I walk into the house, loaded down with the diaper bag, a bag with books, her lunch bag, my purse, and a bag from Target, as well as Lily in my arms, she lets loose again, all over herself, all over me...including down my shirt. I had vomit pooling in my bra. It was gross. I stripped us both right there and put Lily in the bath tub. After a bath and a nap, she seemed good as new. But just in case, I asked Matt to stop and get some Pedialyte on the way home. I thought I would just give her a light dinner. While feeding her applesauce, she once more was sick. I felt so bad for her, but she didn't seem to be all that bothered. She slept fine that night and was back to normal the next morning.
Thursday was another rough day. She fell and busted her lip. Then when I pulled her hair back in a barrette, I noticed a big black and blue bruise on her forehead. No idea when that happened.
Friday I discovered that she is getting her molars. She has one just barely pushed through and the others aren't far behind...at least I think. She has been a bit irritable all weekend. She never had any problems with her other teeth, but I have always heard that molars are the worst. She has just been a bit more whiny and clingy, and she wakes up at night crying, but not her "Hey, I want to get up and play!" cry. It is more like "Mommy, I don't feel good!" It just breaks my heart! Hopefully the teeth will come in quickly and all will be well again!

Slacking...but I blame my camera

I have been a bit of a slacker when it comes to posting. But here's the thing - I don't really like to post if I don't have pictures. I mean, c'mon, be honest, the only reason you tune in is to check out pictures of the most adorable tot around. And in order to post worthy pictures, I need to be able to take awesome shots - or even half way decent ones. My camera, to be blunt, totally sucks. You would think, being a Nikon, it would take decent to excellent pictures, but really, not so much. In order to get a clear shot, I have to have the flash on. And then it has to focus on faces, portrait mode or something, or everything is fuzzy. And I don't know if you know this about babies, but they don't really stay still while a camera auto-focuses and adjusts and does all the other crap that my camera has to do to take a decent picture. Therefore, I have a lot of pictures of the back of Lily's head, or the side of her head, or some part of her face when she has discovered my camera and comes racing toward me. I have had it with this camera. I am about read to fork over a decent sum of money to buy one of those high speed digital cameras just so I don't miss any more of Lily's youth! And lest you think it is only me with the issues, my sister has the same camera, and the same complaints.

Nap Time?

We have had a screwed up schedule today. It started with Lily deciding it was party time about 4 AM. Uh, I don't think so! She played for about an hour, then started crying, then started screaming, so I eventually brought her into our bed. Note to self...STOP doing that! She fell back asleep before 6 and got up about 8. Then we had MOPS. Normally she crashes as soon as we get home at 11:30, but not today. I let her stay in her crib for a while, but it became evident she wasn't going to sleep. I also have the little girl I babysit for this afternoon. Anyway, we were eating lunch about 2 because she had a good snack about 12:15 (after it became evident she wasn't going to nap, but I didn't want to give her lunch just then because I knew I was going to have to give her little buddy lunch...) She was eating nicely, and then I look over and this....

This is the first time she has fallen asleep during a meal. After snapping a quick pic, I picked her up, changed her (rather nasty) diaper, and put her in her crib. Silly chickie!

This Dog!

I mean, come on, seriously?!?! She is curled up on MY pillow, on MY bed, and then has the audacity to give ME that look!! I swear, if she wasn't Lily's favorite toy....



Just kidding, as big of a pain as the dogs can be, we would never get rid of them...I don't think.