Look at These Big Girls

Gabby has asked me for years to come see my office so this weekend as we went for a mother-daughter swim, I stopped off and let her take a spin in my chair. Her first question "But what kind of work do you do here?" followed by, "This is boring, can we go now?" But she got to see where I work and I think that is important for kids to know where you go when you "go to work".

Maddy is just getting too wiggly for the bumbo. I put her in the high chair today and she loved it...Lilly did not. Lilly did not think sharing her chair was fun, but she only sits in her chair for breakfast and to color. Maddy is feeling better and that is good news, we need to get on the healthy train again!

Caught in Action

I thought these were too cute and so I thought I'd share…Lilly loves to sing. We are not sure what she is saying exactly but we catch the tune. It is usually ABC song, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle or the song from Dinosaur Train. 

Lillian's Birthday Celebration…Yes Another One!

We celebrated Lilly's birthday for the third time at the farm with a good portion of her cousins. Lilly had a blast. She rode horses all morning (and no, she would not share Morning Glory), then had a delicious prime rib lunch fixed by Grandma Debi and Uncle Matt and then opened a few presents. She is still not really "into" opening presents. She likes to open presents that are not hers but if she has a pile in front of her, she is not interested. Lilly finished it all off with a yummy ice cream sundae - what more could a 2 year old ask for? Lilly has filled our lives with fire and mystery - we never know what is going to happen next but we are pretty sure it will be exciting! We thank our lucky stars each and every day for our beautiful Lillybug!

Now that Lilly is 2....It's Potty Training Time!

Santa brought Lilly some underwear as our next big task is to get her potty trained so that she can go to shcool! Well...I thought I would let her try them on. She danced around for us and thought she was funny, then went to the corner and went pee, THEN proceeded to run to the potty saying she had to go. It was only a matter of 3-5 minutes! I am not sure I'm up for this task but it has to happen soon. Lilly needs to go to school and be with other kids, she is ready. So, ready or not, now is the time!

Christmas Morning Mayhem

Christmas Eve, Santa showed up in style! Below is our tree, house and fun decorations for the holidays. Gabby helped me to hang the stockings by the fireplace. Christmas morning was full of fun times. We opened stockings, had waffles, eggs, bacon and sausage. Then we opened presents. It took a while since Lilly was more interested in dancing on the mat so Gabby opened all the gifts! We had 4 wardrobe changes but we survived! The day was then full of purging....we had to clean out the old to make room for the new. It is a strange way to spend Christmas but we got organized and were able to bless other people with lots of things that are not getting used in our home. We are so fortunate and feel very blessed to have such a wonderful family and love. Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Trip to the Zoo and the Beach

We had a last minute weekend getaway to San Diego. We love the zoo at Christmas time and so we took a trip for Lilly's birthday to the zoo. We had no traffic and made it to San Diego in exactly 3 hours! We checked right into our hotel, had breakfast and discovered the best room in the hotel is room 101! We then headed to the zoo to see all of our favorite animals. We had a blast. The weather was great and the girls were needing a trip to the zoo. We then hit the beach for some fun in the sand. Lilly really is enjoying the waves and the sand much more now. Both girls love the swings at the beach. We then went and saw the lights at the zoo and I don't have a picture to show but we had an amazing Lion sighting. The girls love to walk around the zoo together and we are lucky to have girls that like each other!  One of the favorite things that we did was to ride the Skyfari at night. They were all lit up and we could see all the lights below us and the lights of downtown...it was truly magical! We may have found a new Christmas tradition....

Lillian Tunrs 2!

Lillian is 2! I can hardly believe that she is already 2...feels like just yesterday that she as my baby! We celebrated her actual birthday at home with just our family. We got cupcakes from Sweet Surrender and she blew out her candle....after telliing us several times that it was hot (she has learned about hot and fire!). She got a white horse for her birthday and she and Gabby played all evening together with their horses. They have since been named, Ella and Penelope. We tried to get her to wear her hat but she wanted no part of it. Maybe when we celebrate with the whole family on Saturday she will be up for it!

December 19th

Ann and Russ came over on the evening of December 19 to celebrate Lillian's birthday. She was totally spoiled! Lots of fun new toys. The girls enjoyed tackling Grandfather and it was a fun evening.

The Time has Come

We have been noticing that Lilly has gone thorugh a growth spurt recently (which is a good thing) but now Lilly has figured out how to climb out of her crib! I knew the time was coming....and am lucky we lasted this long. At nap time, she got out of her crib 3 times and finally Ashlynn made a deal with her and let her sleep in her big girl bed (see below). I've never seen Lilly sleep with covers so that is another first! She did sleep in the crib last night but was coming out to join us this morning on her own. Good thing Gordon has this shift :)

Hanging With Dad

This is maddy in her Christmas gear. She stayed home this weekend with Gordon and got some good Daddy Time. Maddy is moving and up on all 4's. It won't be long before she crawls. She is like a spinning top, she can rotate so fast. She is eating well and growing. I can't believe she is 7 mos!

Winter on the Farm

We headed to the farm this weekend for Aunt Kalli's Christmas Party and Caroling. The girls had a wonderful afternoon at the farm. Gabby rode Morning Glory all by herself and I did not help one bit. In fact, I was on Milly with Lillybug. Gabby did a great job of steering and using the reins as well as she learned how to make her trot. Gabby loves to ride! When we got back up to Winnie's, Uncle Jack and Uncle Tom were feeding the animals so the girls wanted to help. They hopped on the back of the quad trailer and headed out to the pasture with the horse and cattle to feed. They had a great time climbing on haystacks, feeding the cows and chasing the rooster.

Then we changed and got ready for the party. Both girls looked great (Maddy stayed home with dad due to a runny nose) and were in good spitits. Lilly thought Aunt Kalli's house was a playgroundw ith all the fun things on the ground. I unfortunately could not keep up with her and Lilly learned the very painful lesson of what a wood burning stove was....Her hand is in recovery but it is very painful. Once she touched the stove, she and I made a quick exit from the party - she was not going to settle down. Her hand has blistered on the inside and is between a 2nd and 3rd degree burn. She now understands what we mean when we say "Hot" and she walks around showing us her hand saying "hot" followed by "ouch" and then she cries. It is very funny acutally. We are hoping to avoid infection but one of the bigger blisters has popped. It was a fun day - and a wonderful party!

Christmas 2013 at LRSH

Gabby had her Christmas Program at LRSH yesterday.  They did Frosty the Snowman and then signed to White Christmas. Gabby was in the front row and added some movement and spice to the program. After the program, Gabby had a lot of fun with her classmates. When it comes to taking pictures - all the kids wanted to be in the picture :) The picture at the bottom are Gabby's peeps at school, Left to right, Emily, Miami and Sinai. The other group picture has Gabbys friends Sabir and Mustafa with her. So proud of our little girl!