projects

It's that time of year again, and I have been busy completing projects for Christmas gifts on Snapfish.  I have already made a Florida and Topsail album so now I am working on calendars for the grandparents.   As I am choosing pictures for the calendar I am also deleting and editing the photos from the past year.  I have a tendency to just upload pictures but not edit or delete.  Tonight while going through May pictures I stumbled upon this neat one that Lily took:

I knew she had my camera but I had no idea she actually took one when I was taking this one:

She's a creative one and a lot of fun.

3 years ago today

about now a baby girl was born
and life has never been the same since.
Happy Birthday Lilybean!

little mommy

Lily in the last few weeks has become a little mommy. She wants to take her baby for walks in the stroller

she wants to wrap the baby up in blankets and put them to bed, during lunch she wants a special sandwich just for baby


















last night we walked to a church playground and I just loved watching Lily with her baby, she pushed her on the swing, had lance drop her down the slide so she can catch her, and she carried her up the rock wall, it was very sweet.



























I am just blown away by how different girls and boys are and how we don't push lily towards babies and playing mommy, but she does it all on her own, just like lance gravitates towards vehicles.

Lily has grown so much this summer and she isn't a baby anymore, which is sad, but so much fun!

sweet girl

last night we went downtown to play, it was a little chilly but that didn't stop us from playing in the fountain/sprayground and when lily was done playing she curled up on the marble bench to get warm and I took her picture because she looked cute all curled up in her bright pink shirt and blue eyes




I love this picture, now I am no photographer, I think it might be a bit out of focus and I don't necessarily know about what makes a good photograph a good photograph, but I love how it captures lily in a quiet moment which is a rare event

what a difference

Lance really didn't start talking until he was 4. He said a few words here and there before there, but I was the only one who really understood him and then last summer sentence were flying out. Lance has come such a long way in the last 9 months, he isn't up to par with most of his peers, but he isn't as far behind as he was.

What blows me away isn't so much what Lance can say, but what Lily can. She blows me away. Lily can say what Lance can at 4 and she talks and talks and talks. It makes me wonder what it would have been like for Lance to talk at 2. I am bit sad I missed what Lance would have said at two, because Lily is pretty darn cute, but then would he be as cute or as talkative? I wonder if Lance had been "normal" and had a lot to say at 2 like Lily, would Lily talk this much now? WIth the exception of the temper tantrums, I am enjoying Lily right now, the things she says and the way she says them are too cute. That girl is going to get away with murder from her cuteness, she is dangerous.

how did this happen?

When did my baby girl get to be such a big girl?

20 months going on 20 years?

so this is normal

Lance has a speech delay.  He has made lots of progress this past year, but he still is not as verbal as a normal almost 4 year old.  We had concerns about his speech when he was 18 months old, but since we had no comparison to what normal was we weren't overly worried, we figured he would talk when he was ready.  With Lily, we had low expectations on her talking, especially since second and third children are normally late talkers, though this isn't the case for her.  Or then again, maybe it is, but since Lance is so delayed her speech seems normal or advanced to us.  Everyday she is saying a new word and though a lot of words sound pretty close the same she is doing something that Lance never did and tries to say new words.  Now with Lily's speech developing so quickly I realize how slow Lance's has been.  I am blown away at her vocabulary at 18 months:
Lily's words:
treat, socks, shoes, booby, nanna (banana), juice, cat, dog, goat, uh-oh, choo-choo, Gigee (name for grandma), Ella (a friend), hi, bye-bye and of course dadda and momma, but she prefers mamma to dadda
I know I am leaving out a few, she is blowing me away with all her words.
At this age Lance could finally say momma, and he said dadda, uh-oh, all gone, bye-bye, what's that, and maybe one or two other words.
Fortunately thanks to speech and preschool Lance's vocabulary has increased to more than 50 words everyday he too has a new word and he is putting more and more words together.  He still has a long way to go, but he is making so much progress.  Hopefully Lily will continue to help Lance with his language development and every day I am blown away by how quickly and Lily says words.  So this is what normal looks like, I had no idea.

18 months

We are celebrating Lily's half birthday today.
I can't believe my baby girl is 18 months old. She has grown up so fast.

She loves her blanket and is obsessed with keys, probably because that is one word she can say.

She is incredibly inquisitive and  investigates everything.

She is also very adventurous and tries to climb in or onto everything, including the dining room table.

 

She loves her big brother and wants to be just like him.

 

She is very silly

and very sweet

and growing up too fast, though her hair seems to be growing very, very slowly.

I am so thankful for her and have enjoyed watching her grow from sweet baby to toddler.

i torture small children

not really.  . .
somehow lily fell into lance's bucket and got stuck and i tortured her by getting a picture before coming to her rescue

she looks so pitiful with breakfast crumbs around her mouth and swollen eyes thanks to round 2 of pink eye
then she got mad and big brother came to her rescue and pulled her out

stuck in a bucket, who would have thought it was possible

15 Months

Ms. Lily is now 15 months old. 
She is getting so big so fast.
She is extremely mobile.
She can say bye-bye, uh-oh, momma, dadda, all aboard, and seems like she is on the verge to saying a whole lot more.
She loves to dance,
play with lance,
clean and pick up as well as make a big mess,
she keeps me on my toes and is a joy.

I am so thankful for my sweet baby girl and enjoying watching her grow.

Lily, the adventurer

Lily is so different than Lance, she is my little adventurer. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.
I know that all children are different, and learned in Human Growth and Development that usually two siblings are polar opposites, but my children seem to be from different sides of the universe!
Lily can be a terror! She won't sit in a high chair, she hates to be put in her car seat. She never sits still. She is fearless. She is not afraid of strangers or new places and will walk away from me and doesn't care if I am no longer in sight (Lance always keeps me in view and freaks out if I am not). I thought girls were calmer, laid back, not mine. This morning at the library she was on a mission to pull off as many books off the shelves as humanly possible. In trying to escape from me she ran behind the circulation desk. She is a walking tornado destroying everything in her path. Yesterday afternoon there was a huge crane down the street moving a shed from the back of a truck to someone's yard. Lil' was constantly climbing out of the stroller, trying to walk into the road. and was generally all over the place. I hope this hyperactivity is just a stage and will pass because when she can't fit in the sling anymore I won't be able to take her anywhere in public. Speaking of sling, she is figuring out how to wiggle her way out of it. I wish I knew where she got all of her energy because I could really use some.

Lily's first year

Happy Birthday Lily!

I can't believe a whole year has gone by. My baby has grown and changed so much in the last year. It makes me a little sad to look at the pictures of her as a tiny little newborn, I miss that little baby, she grew up way too fast. I do enjoy her now so much, she dances, walks everywhere, thinks her big brother is the coolest, and loves to cuddle up with her blanket and momma.

Lily's year in pictures:

meeting big brother for the first time- a little more than 12 hours old

2 days old-my sweet baby girl

4 days old

1 weeks old

3 weeks old

September- 1 month old

1 month old

October

November

December

January- our first road trip, she was quite a trooper

February

March

April

May

June

July

August- figured out walking super fast

last week

Last week was jam packed. Naps were done in the car or skipped, eating out was done daily (we had 3 picnics!), and lily is walking everywhere! Here's what happened:

monday-pictures and the lake
First thing Monday morning we had Lily's picture taken since she will be 1 very soon, it was quite the ordeal. It was at this moment when she decided she was done with crawling and walking was how she was going to go places and walk all over the studio she did. I even tried to get a picture of both kids, but neither one would sit, it was crazy, fortunately we did get some cute pictures. Afterwards we headed out to the state park to enjoy a picnic and swimming at the lake. It was nice because there were not many people there and it is shallow so Lance has a HUGE area to play in.

(Lily showing off her walking skills)

(me and my little buddy)

(lance enjoying the floatable snake in the lake)

(lance in the lifeguard chair)

(I let lance in lily's float and he LOVED it, he walked and kicked around everywhere, and Lily really enjoyed being held and not set down so it was a win-win for everyone, though i hate this picture because i look like a goof)


tuesday- cleaning, hair, and snowflex
Jeff had a friend and his wife who are a sponsored snowboard and skier come and visit and try out the new snowflex (artificial snow surface creating a year round ski slope) so much of the day was spent cleaning and getting house looking decent for their stay. I did get a chance to get away and get my hair cut and colored, so I enjoyed a couple hours of kid free quietness, which was what nice. I did though have the kids all day (minus hair time), for dinner (went to Chick-fil-a on family night), bath, and bed alone which was hard especially when you know your husband is out having a good time with friends and you are stuck doing all the work. One day, the tables will be reversed, right?


wednesday- we had a playdate and our anniversary
Wednesday morning we had a playdate and then had lunch with Jeff at the new store. That night Jeff and I went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We ate dinner relatively quickly and were going to go window shopping and run a few errands afterwards, but a bad storm was rolling in right when we finished dinner so we headed home since we knew Lance would be freaking out and my mom who was babysitting would have her had full. So we watched the storm, watched Wipe-Out and toasted sparkling lemonade to 9 years and hopefully many more.

thursday- picnic on the parkway
Why is it that you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? We got ready for a picnic and an afternoon in the mountains and headed up to the parkway. It was beautiful, though COLD, at the top of one ridge the car thermometer read 61 degrees. Sixty degrees in August, it was COLD and I was not prepared, we were all in short sleeves and shorts so our time at most overlooks was short lived.

(though you can't really tell from the picture, the clouds were blowing up over the ridge and through the trees, very cool looking)

(we had a mini hike to the overlook and since it was so cold I tried to bundle up Lily with her blanket)

(Lance and our picnic lunch)

(the frog who still has a tail, there were tons of frogs and tadpole/frogs in the lake, finding them was kind of like playing where's waldo because at first we only saw 1 or 2 but the more you looked the you could find)

(sharp top mountain, Jeff and I got married right there by the lake 9 years ago)

(the kids and I on the bridge, I had my picture taken here in my wedding dress)

(we had a picnic lunch by the creek, I had Lance's bathing suit with me because I thought it would be hot and he would enjoy playing in the water, down by the creek it was in the 70's, warmer than the ridge, but not quite hot enough for cold water creek playing)

friday- sprinkler, house for amy, and pizza
Though it wasn't hot outside we finally busted out the new sprinkler and tried it out. Lance and his friend had a good time running around, screaming, and spraying each other. After Lance's friend went home we went and had lunch with Jeff, we are thankful the shop is open, though the kids aren't use to him being gone now all the time, so we have been stopping by frequently. The kids and I then headed home, had naps, and then met my sister and mom to look at a house that was for sale that my sister might be interested in buying. The house was dated, need renovations, but had potential, unfortunately her husband didn't like the sound of it and vetoed it without even seeing it, bummer for Am. After looking at the house and running an errand for Jeff it was dinner time and I was starved so I broke my strict dinner schedule and we all went down to the pizza place down the street and enjoyed dinner out, the food was good, the children's behavior, not so much.

saturday- shopping and had picnic dinner
After a busy week we were going to do nothing on Saturday, but the tax-free holiday (on clothes, shoes, school supplies and diapers) called to me so my mom, the kids and I all headed to Target. We loaded up diapers, got some school supplies to donate to needy kids, and some clothes for Lance. The kids and I then did nothing in the afternoon and then had a picnic dinner with Jeff at the park. We headed home got ready for bed and our day trip to Ikea.


sunday- ikea
Yesterday we headed up to NoVa to go to ikea and to take advantage of the tax-free weekend by getting some fall clothes for the kiddos. We met up with friends for lunch and Ikea shopping, it was good to get together with my friend A and her family. We ran into several people we knew up at Ikea, it was weird being 3 hours away, yet seeing friends. We got some shelves for the new store and a chair for my friend (I love shopping for other people when I don't have any money to spend, I feel like I shopped without spending my own money). We then hit up some stores and found some great outfits for Lily. I saw a couple of things for Lance, but the line in some of the stores was so long and the kids were tired and ready to go, so I will have to go back in a month or so when it won't be so crowded. We made it back safely and I am ready to relax.