Lilly amazes us everyday with something new that she does or says. It's so remarkable how quickly she learns new things. She likes to repeat everything that we say now and it is SO CUTE!!!! Here are a few of my most recent favorites...
She says...bye bye and has started to wave too :)
She says...cookie and it is SO SWEET! (We call just about every sweet a cookie!) Her favorite cookies are Little Debbie pumpkin pie cakes and graham crackers. She also really loves the strawberry wafers. We had some leftover from her birthday party.:))
She loves opening all of the cabinets and drawers...in the kitchen she pulls out the same things from each cabinet...ice cube trays...lid to the glass bowl...cups...wafer candles from the bottom drawer in the kitchen and her bibs from the drawer above that one. She loves to run over to the refrigerator when it opens and I have some empty bottles on the bottom two shelves for her to play with. She grabs the ranch and mayonnaise bottles and walks around the kitchen holding them. She has started putting things in other places and it is so funny to find where she puts things. In the bathroom she likes to take my lotion bottles and face cream out of the bottom drawer and walk around with them.
She loves to grab our shoes if they are sitting around the house and she walks around holding them. She likes to get the same Christmas t-shirt out of Nick's dresser drawer and walk around with it. It was so funny a few weeks ago...my aunt got Lilly a onesie that says "My First Christmas" it is 18 months, so it is her size, but this will be Lilly's second Christmas. ;) I put the onesie in Lilly's diaper bag for daycare. I was going to see if anyone there was wearing that size and would be celebrating their first Christmas. Well I forgot to tell her teachers why I put it in her bag. So when I got there to pick Lilly up that day she was walking around her daycare room wearing that shirt. She was messy at snack time and got banana all over her outfit, so her teacher put that onesie on her! I just had to laugh! Not to mention it was Christmas picture day at Lilly's daycare and there she was walking around wearing that onesie! Too funny!!:):)
Lilly loves to say "uh-oh"....it always fits when something drops or anything else happens and is an 'uh-oh'...but she also loves to drop things on purpose and then look at us and say 'uh-oh'! She especially loves to do this when she is in a buggy in a store. She pulls things out of the cart and drops them as we are rolling around the store.
She loves to close the doors and she will be in our bedroom and if we are in the kitchen and we will hear our door shut and she she will cry because she can't get out. Nick has to go over to the door and push it open so he can get her out. It is too funny!!
She loves dogs and she loves to say "dog"...here recently she has been saying "dog-a"...we think she is either trying to say "doggie" or she is combining Jonah with dog. Either way it is just too cute!!:):) Jonah seems to be getting more use to her. She will run around the kitchen acting like he is chasing her, but really he is just trying to get away from her. It is soo cute though because she squeals and gets so excited! She has found his dog bone box in the pantry and she likes to get one out and give it to him. He loves that of course! She wants to keep giving him them over and over!! He also likes to hang out near her highchair and wait for some "uhohs" when food accidentally falls on the floor or she will stick her hand out and he will lick her fingers. She thinks that is just too much fun!
She is trying to say "poppy" now..sometimes it comes out "pop pop" or "bop bop". It makes Nick's dad so happy when she is saying it.:)
She is also trying to say "jojo"...most of the time it sounds more like "dodo" but it is too sweet!
She tries to say "grana" for my mom...but mostly it comes out 'nana'...but my mom just eats it up!!
She also is trying to say 'mimi' for Nick's mom...she gets a little confused with that and "mimmie"...but she sounds precious when she is saying it.
She still loves to say 'ball' and play with balls wherever we go. She looks at anything that is a sphere and calls it a ball...fruit...and anything else that has that shape.:)
She eats just about anything now...
for breakfast her favorites are...muffins...I usually make her some in the morning to have with her milk when she wakes up. She likes the triple berry, blueberry, and triple berry. She loves eating eggs in the morning, too. She also really likes oatmeal...I usually share a bowl of my Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal with her. She loves eating a 'nana' anytime of the day. She has eaten pancakes for breakfast, too when we go eat at Strawberry Hill. We are convinced she is a BIG carbs fan!
We ate at Wade's a few weeks ago and I just knew she would fall in love with all of the delicious veggies and the turkey and dressing and love it as much as I do...but I was wrong. She pretty much turned her nose up at everything but the yeast rolls!! She of course loved the tea too! We ate at Fuddruckers the other night and she loved their raspberry tea!:)
For lunch and dinner she usually eats chicken nuggets, a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich (LOVES IT!!) or Smucker's PB&J...one of those 'main dishes' along with veggies (green beans or carrots...we have tried lima beans, peas, and yams, but she is NOT a fan!..she has fruit with each of her meals too. Her most favorite is Mandarian Oranges but they give her a diaper rash so she doesn't have those often. She also likes mangos, pears, and peaches. She tried pineapple, but didn't seem to like it too much. We also feed her what we are having when we are eating and she is willing to try anything and doesn't seem to be picky, but she will say 'no' if you try to give her something and she doesn't like it or want it. :) She LOVES White Grape Juice and guzzles it down so fast...I only let her have juice once a day. Other times she has milk or water. When she first wakes up in the morning she has a cup of milk and watches cartoons with her daddy while I finish getting ready, fixing her breakfast and lunch for daycare and fixing my lunch and then I load the car for us to go. She normally has muffins or eggs or oatmeal while they watch cartoons. On our ride to school she will play in her car seat or she talks...we sing songs sometimes and I always pray for our day asking God to keep us safe and well and to give her teachers love, compassion, patience, guidance, knowledge, and wisdom to take care of Lilly and the other children. I dread it when we make it to daycare because I know 'byebye' is not far off. I carry her in and we put her cooler bag in the fridge and her diaper bag in her cubby...we stop by the window to look at how pretty she looks and then we head to the room that I drop her off in. I put her down and she normally does pretty well with me leaving...but some days it's not as easy. Her teacher...Ms. Carrie holds her and walks her over to the door that looks outside. I walk out the other door, but as I am pulling away I see her looking at me as I get in my car and pull off. It breaks my heart because right now she doesn't understand that I HAVE to leave her to go to work. It is not a choice I want to make, but I have to make. I count the hours that she has to stay there and is under someone else's supervision. Her teachers have all been so kind and sweet and loving and Lilly does seem happy there...so that is somewhat of a relief. But. Still. My heart misses her and I add up those hours we are apart and what all we would be doing if we were together. I've tried to set 4:00 as my late time to leave work this year. Most days I get out of there by 4. A few days I have been closer to 5....and I hate it. I get so mad at myself for leaving her there so long. We only have a small window to play if I get her late because she goes to bed around 7 every night. When I get there to pick her up she is so excited. She starts saying 'bye bye' right away. She is ready to go with her mommy. We get her things and I carry her to the car...giving her hugs and telling her how much I have missed her. I tell her we are going home to see daddy and Jonah and she says "dada" and "ruff ruff"...it is the sweetest! She giggles when I put her in her car seat...because she knows. We talk on our ride home. I ask her about her day and I ask her about things that she can respond back to like what does a cow say? Sometimes she talks to my mom on the phone as we drive home. She is so happy when we pull into our garage. She hears Jonah barking and she says "dog"...Nick sometimes runs out the door to the garage and gets her from the car because he is so anxious to see her. We spend our few hours playing. watching cartoons, dancing to "The Hot Dog Song", eating supper....then around 7 it's time for bath...jammies...milk and a bible story...prayers with daddy then kiss him good night and off she and I go to her room...I hold her in my arms and rock her to sleep. I sing to her and pray over her again. Sometimes I just tell her over and over how much I love her and in those moments my heart knows who I thank...I say with a heart full of abundance and gratitude..."thank you God'. She is so tired most nights and will fall right asleep in my arms...I kiss her forehead and lay her in her crib. Off to dream land she goes. It is rare that she wakes up in the night. For a few weeks she was waking up screaming (about a month or so ago). I would jump out of bed and run to her nursery and she would be standing in her crib screaming so loud and crying out 'mama'. I scooped her in my arms and carried her to bed with us. I could not leave her in there. Those nights I don't sleep. At all. She tosses and turns and tosses and turns. But I would rather have her where she feels safe, and warm,and loved...so I don't care. An extra cup of coffee the next morning will do the trick.;)
Her most recent sweetest thing is running up to someone and giving them a BIG hug!! It is SOOO PRECIOUS to see her do that and it is even more precious when she runs up to me and wraps her arms around me and hugs me so tight! I don't ever want her to let go.
She has also started making 'faces' at people. It's almost a face to say "what are you looking at?"...she gets it honest that's for sure! (Bless!!)
She pointed to Nick's Nanny Bob's picture this week (on the credenza in our hallway and she said "Nanny". Neither of us have ever walked her over there and said that to her and she was 5 months old when Nanny Bob passed away. What a sweet hug from God that was for Nick a few days ago when she did that for the first time.
She loves to put toys in different places now and she tells them "bye bye". She was in the bathroom with me this morning and she got my lotion bottles and dropped them in our bathtub telling each one "bye bye".
She also loves putting lids on things and taking the lids off. She gets so frustrated when she puts a lid back on and can't get it back off! It is too funny!!
She got to meet Santa for the first time this week! That was FUN! We took her to the mall on Monday night to see how she would do. Despite his best efforts (bells on his boots, bubble machine, stuffed animals, etc.) she still would not sit on his lap without crying. He told us to walk around for about 20 minutes and come back and walk her to him with our backs to him to distract her then sit her down real quick and they could get a good picture. It didn't work. BUT we did manage to get a picture where she doesn't look too upset. :) Joy bought her a little reindeer named "Alpine" so we could always remember her first time meeting Santa. On Thursday night she got to see Santa again at our photographer's studio. We took some pictures first with him hiding behind a Christmas tree and then he revealed himself to her and she cried. I had stopped to get cookies on the way there so I gave her a cookie to eat. It turned out to be a good idea because she had a sign that said "I ate all of Santa's milk and cookies'...Santa is behind the sign and Lilly was sure enough eating a cookie! Some of the pictures should turn out super cute and I can't wait to see them!!:) She calls him "HoHo". I read her "Twas the Night Before Christmas" today while she was eating her lunch and she loved that story...she was glued to every page!!:):)
This time of year has been more special than ever sharing these 'firsts' with her and seeing her excitement!!!
I wanted this post to highlight some things since it has been awhile since I had a 'wordy' post.:):) Yes I do believe Life is Sweet. So very very sweet.
I am silly with her. I do whatever I can...whatever comes to mind to make her smile and laugh. The worst sound in all the world to me is to hear her cry or see her upset. She reminds me to hold onto her tighter because she's growing up so quickly right before my eyes. I see the evidence of God's grace and love and mercy in her. I prayed so hard for her. And though He didn't have to answer my prayer by giving me Lilly...He did...and my heart wants to jump out of my chest because I am so eternally grateful that His plan was for me to be her mommy. We play pretend and I remember the innocence of being a child and having an imagination that could take me anywhere and make anything come to life. We read books and I change my voice to turn into the characters and I make the book come alive with my facial expressions and dramatic actions. I take the time to savor the tastes of foods that she is trying for the first time as I see her reaction. The newness of things...what I would normally take for granted. Through her eyes...when I look deep into her eyes...I see so much. I see my past. I see my present and I see my future. Her precious eyes looking up at me...her tiny hands touching me so gently...her arms wrapped around me tight. Those moments..I cherish. She reminds me to savor each and every moment with her. She most certainly teaches me what life is all about. She has taught me that life is sweet...so very, very sweet.
