2nd Birthday Slideshow

Here is a slideshow Ben and I put together for Lydia's birthday. Stephanie does it for her girls and I thought it was such a great idea that I borrowed it for our family!! For me, having a digital camera means lots of pictures get taken and rarely any get printed. I think this is a nice way to make a collection of favorite pictures during a year's time. I hope this will be a tradition that we can keep up for all of our children.

Lydia Turns 2

Well, we've been busy over here during the last couple of weeks. Lydia turned two on June 20th. Here is a picture of the cake we made together! I went round and round trying to decide about how to decorate the cake. She loves Dora but I am not really into creating masterpieces out of icing. So I found an easier way...


We grilled hamburgers and had a family party by the pool at my parent's house. Here she is tasting her "chocick" cake and ice cream. She was pretty excited about the Dora themed cake. And sometime over the course of the weekend she stopped calling Dora "Dadoo"and now pronounces it correctly.

These three girls, although closer in age to Lydia, are my cousins.

I think this might be Lydia's favorite gift -- from Aunt Liz and Uncle Josh. Lydia thinks Kate's car seat is for Pup, so Liz decided to get her her own.

"Bitny" helped my Mom decorate with crepe paper and best of all - bee-woons!!! Lydia loves balloons and notices them everywhere we go - from the grocery store to car dealerships as we drive by.
On her actual birthday, J,L and K came over and we had one of Lydia's favorite meals...becksis - blueberry pancakes, eggs and bacon. She ate about as much as any of us did! We ended the evening with cupcakes and she even managed to blow out her candles all by herself! (She preferred the M&Ms and the cream cheese icing --which she called "butter"-- to the cake part!)
(In the last week Lydia has been saying "Happy Birthday cake...to you!" in a little sing-song voice. It is so cute!) I can't believe my little girl is already two years old. In many ways it does not seem like very long ago when she was just a few days old. I keep trying to talk up being a "big girl" as I remind Lydia that Lauren will be coming soon and she'll be a baby kind of like Kate is. It's hard to say if she "gets" any of this or not, but I'm hoping she will be as interested and in love with her little sister as she is with cousin Kate. Kate seems to have a very easygoing and happy personality. I can't wait to see what Lauren's personality will be like. I have no doubt that Lydia will fall quite easily into the leader/organizer/boss role among the girls! Hopefully that will be balanced by kindness, gentleness and compassion for the younger ones as she grows.

Here we are before church this past Sunday. I am 37+ a few days in this picture.
As I wrote earlier, Lydia loves having a carseat just for Pup. Here she is ready to get in the car to run errands. I thought it would be challenging to fit two carseats into our car...apparently the number is now three!
And finally, my little helper. She always wants to help with the sweeping - indoors or outside. The problem with indoor is that she practically attacks the floor with the broom and thus the long handle is flying all over the place threatening to knock things off the counters or hit me! Several months ago I found this little "mommy's helper" kit with various child-sized cleaning paraphernalia. I decided it was time to bring it out this weekend! She even takes her little dustpan to the trash can to empty her dirt!

This past Saturday I played my last wedding of the summer before Lauren's birth. I subbed with another quartet and it was SO nice not to be in charge of any of the details. All I had to do was show up and play what they told me. I didn't even have to drive there! A nice change.

I'm working on getting the nursery in order. I did buy some diapers and have washed all(and even ironed a few!) of the newborn clothes. I also went ahead and washed all the bedding and all the seat covers for things like bouncy seats, carseat, swing etc. It adds up! It is so nice to have all these baby items already in my possession -- the clothes especially. Yet, knowing I have those baby necessities on hand has kind of made me forget to go through and make sure I actually DO have all the things we'll need. It seems like everyday I think of at least one thing I still need to purchase - mostly just the small stuff though (like the diapers). I also "forgot" how many diapers a newborn goes through in a day!! When you have a toddler who is potty training, those diapers and pull-ups can go even farther! I realized the bag of 40 newborn diapers wasn't even going to last a week!! HA! And they're so much more expensive. I kind of got sticker shock all over again buying the newborn ones. We have used generic ones for Lydia for so long that I forgot Pampers were so pricey!!
I have started wondering what I'll do if the baby comes early! I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for labor and birth and since Lydia was late, it just doesn't really enter my mind that it could be different this time around! So many people I know loved their epidurals (I've even talked to several women who have done it both ways) and I just wonder if I'll have the strength and determination to do it "natural" again this time! I guess we'll see! I ought to read the literature again and remind myself why I chose to do it that way the first time! Since I'm using a midwife this time, things have been somewhat different than they were with the doctor. We're not having those same "discussions" about labor and delivery and that has been nice. I don't feel like I'm always arguing for the other options out there.
Well, I think I'm starting to wander here and I could ramble on and on. Maybe another day... =)

Little Helper

Lydia loves to "help" in the kitchen. Anything from loading/unloading the dishwasher to being involved in making a meal. I have to remind myself to be patient and to include her when possible. Sometimes I don't always appreciate the "help" as it takes more time, makes a bigger mess etc.

We had a Mexican meal this week and Aunt Liz took it to another level by making us homemade tortillas! Lydia LOVED helping her.

Today I baked Lydia's chocolate birthday cake for the family party on Saturday. She really enjoyed stirring and pouring cupfuls of the flour into the batter. As soon as I began creaming the butter she was asking for a taste! Wonder where she got that idea?

The best part =)

She loves to go on bike rides with Daddy. Notice that Pup must go too!

Notice anything similar? We picked up Megan this morning and she watched Lydia while I taught lessons. Lydia chose her own outfit this morning (yes -she had an opinion about her shirt color. I didn't realize we matched until she said, "I wear boo like Mommy!".) Then I laughed when I saw that Megan matched us as well!

Clothing....optional?

I think I've mentioned that Lydia has been in her new room with the twin size bed for several weeks now. The transition was actually painless and quite smooth. She has had no problems sleeping at night and always stays in her bed. Naptime is another matter. She actually sleeps about half the time and I consider this sucessful since even in her crib she would play for sometimes 2 hours before she finally gave up and fell asleep. So somedays she goes up there and just has "quiet time" which I should probably re-name "private play time" since quiet doesn't exactly describe it!! The good thing is that she is happy in this routine and whether she sleeps or not I have the opportunity to get some things done (or maybe get some rest) without interruption.

Yesterday afternoon there was no nap. After a couple of hours, I went in to get her. I wish I had had the camera. She had opened up the rubbermaid box that currently serves as her step up into bed and she was sitting inside it ---shirtless--- playing with Pup and a few other things. As I walked in she grinned at me saying, " I get in Mommy, I get in!". (I didn't know she knew how to get a shirt off...I puzzled about how she managed it until I saw her try it later.)

This morning, I heard her wake up but didn't get her right away. She is usually happy to play for a little while and doesn't get fussy if I don't come in immediately. Well, I guess I waited a little too long today. When I went in I found her sitting at her table in her room ---wearing only her p.j. t-shirt --- having "becksis" (breakfast) with Pup. She was in one chair and Pup was in the other. The wet diaper (thankfully only wet and there were no accidents that I could find in the room) was discarded on the floor by the bed along with the p.j. shorts. She had also gotten into her closet and pulled out an assortment of items and diapers that were within reach. (Unfortunately the closet door doesn't close tightly so now we are going to have to figure out how to keep it shut!) Again, I thought of my camera this morning. I was a bit exasperated but Ben and I had to laugh. She looked so hilarious sitting bare-buns at the table pretending to sip from a cup and eating a plastic hamburger and apple from a frying pan, telling me: "I have becksis and Pup!!"

Discoveries

Lydia absolutely adores her cousin Kate. She talks about her every day and whenever Kate arrives for a visit Lydia practically squirms with delight. It is cute to see. Generally Lydia is very gentle with Kate, but sometimes her "play" gets a little too rough and she has to have some stern reminders about being loving and gentle. She also loves Kate's baby toys and wants to grab them away from Kate at any given moment....and then when she gives them back she sometimes tosses them or shoves them in Kate's face. Thankfully Kate has never been hurt and now that she likes to grab hair - she can inflict a little of her own type of pain on cousin Lydia!
We ventured to the Zoo last week and I think Lydia enjoyed that. She loves animals (in books and on dvds) and thus knows a lot of them by name and sight, but it was kind of hard to point some of them out when they were so far away. It was hard to tell how much she enjoyed the trip while we were there, but during the days following our trip she did ask several times if we could go to the Zoo again. (Yesterday for fun I asked her what she wanted to do that day. Her response - "go to beach" and "go to zoo"!)



The petting zoo was a nice opportunity to get up close to some of the animals. Lydia was tentative at first, but she did get close enough to touch a couple of the goats and sheep...while clutching Liz's hand!

Thankfully there were many helping hands on our trip to the Zoo because she did not want to be in the stroller very long at all! She loves strollers and talks about them every time she sees ours in the garage or anyone using one when we go out. However, she wants to push Pup in the stroller -- not ride in it herself! (The same is true of other baby paraphernalia -- infant carseat, swing, bouncy seat, exersaucer -- in her mind these are things to be used for Kate.... and Pup, of course!)
Lydia is getting very good at recognizing her colors. At first she always answered "yewoh" or "boo" regardless of the color. Now she can recognize red, green, blue, yellow, orange, pink, purple, black, brown and white. As I was dressing her the other morning she pointed out my attire "Mommy wear boo shirt and back pants!" She was particularly delighted when I grabbed her blue shirt and said "I wear boo shirt like Mommy!". And speaking of clothes, she has recently become enamored with dresses and skirts - to her they are all the same. She asks to wear a dress more than one time during the day and always notices if I happen to have on a skirt. Unfortunately none of her play clothes are dresses so she is stuck with shorts! (Sundays are beginning to stand out as special days for all the wrong reasons - she gets to wear her special bracelet AND a dress!!)
Today as she was playing with some sidewalk chalk on the patio in the back, it began to rain. (Thank the Lord - we needed it even if only for 10 minutes!) We went to the front where we could sit outside and watch and still be under the covered porch area. She was totally fascinated and delighted. I guess this was the first time where we have actually been outside when it was raining. There was some very loud thunder ("under" as she was calling it) and although she was startled she didn't get too scared. I took the opportunity to talk about how God sends us the rain from up in the sky and how he makes the thunder very loud and that we need the rain for the trees and grass etc. etc.
Seeing her interest made me realize that I should talk to her more about God's creation and that I should seek out opportunities to do so. Sometimes I feel like I am lapsing into "boring" or "lazy Mommy" mode where I don't take advantage of chances to teach her or to capture her attention and point out new things to her. Even in her play time at home I think I am too often caught up in my own "to-do" lists rather than being available to play with her and stimulate her mind. Personally I find it difficult at times to balance getting things done around the house or accomplishing "my" daily tasks with being available to play with and teach and share in my child's new discoveries.
Ok -enough time spent blogging. Time to get some things done while she is napping!

I karate chopped a fork because I'm cool like that...

My sister-in-law-to-be posted this on her blog and it made me laugh. (Yes friends, you read correctly. My youngest brother Jake proposed to Brittny this weeked!) A lot more could be said but I'll leave you with this for now...

Pick the month you were born:
January------I kicked
February-----I loved
March---------I karate chopped
April---- -------I licked
May-----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August-------I had lunch with
September---I danced with
October------I sang to
November----I yelled at
December----I ran over

Pick the # of the day you were born on:
1 -------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18---- ---a spoon
19------- a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a surfer
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White--------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink----------because I'm NOT crazy.
Red----------because the voices told me to ..
Blue----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green---------because I think I need some serious help.
Purple--------because I'm AWESOME
Gray----------because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow-----because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange-------because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown--------because I can.
Other---------because I'm a Ninja !
None----------because I can't control myself.