The funny things of Lily

Sweet little Lily does many things that sometimes make me want to pull my hair out and other things that make me want to just freeze time and snuggle with her forever. I have to record some of the things that make us say "oh Liiiiiilllllyyyyy" as well as the things that make us say "awwww Lily!!!" cause I do not want to forget this phase!!

1. She tries to eat of the trashcan. I have caught her red-handed numerous times pulling things out of the trash to eat.

2. Her teeth continue to come in in the strangest order- she is getting her bottom molars and she still only has her two middle bottom teeth!

3. She completely understands everything we tell her. Doing it is a totally different matter. When she is feeling compliant, she will bring toys to her brother, take the veggies I have cut up and put them in the salad bowl, and fold her hands to pray. When she is feeling stubborn, she will stand up in her high chair, turn around and scream, climb up onto Tripp's bed and jump like it's a trampoline, and run away from me when I try to give her medicine.

4. She loves her baby dolls! She takes care of them, has us hold and feed them, takes them back to take care of them herself.

5. If you need one of the best kisses in the world, ask Lily. Ok don't cause then I might have to hurt you. But maybe if you are allowed, she will give you the best, biggest open mouth kiss ever. So sweet!

6. She can figure almost anything out. Which is a problem at this age, but I see this as being an incredible asset later on. She also does not give up. She gets frustrated but perseveres.

7. She "talks" to pictures. If she is quiet, all you have to do is show her any picture in a frame, and she will just start babbling non-stop. She'll point to any picture in any frame and just start babbling for minutes on end. It is incredibly cute!!

8. She refuses most medicine. We had a good thing going with ibuprofen but then I switched to the children's version instead of infant because of her weight, and now she refuses it. She also refuses our Tylenol so going through this teething process is a little interesting.

9. I think the explanation for #8 is that she does not have a sweet tooth of any kind. So I am pretty sure the medicine is just way too sweet and fake flavored. So we will have to figure something out. But back to the no sweet tooth- I gave her a chocolate donut the other day, she had maybe two bites and that was all. Cake- same thing. She did eat some ice cream the other day but not much! I guess I should be thankful for this?!? I guess the apple fell really far from the tree on this one.

10. Last, but certainly not least, today Lily's shoe went missing. And later today, this is where I found it.

I am not sure this would happen to any other person. Only Lily!

Lily is Walking!

In true second child style, Lily started walking a month ago and I am just now getting around to posting about it. This has basically become her baby book since I have only written on the first page of her actual book, so I need to be more faithful about updating! I am not actually sure when she started walking, but it was around Christmas that she could really do it and just within the last week or so that she actually prefers it to crawling. Today I noticed that for the majority of times, she stood up again after falling down as opposed to just going back to crawling. She still walks like Frankenstein, but day by day, her base of support gets more and more normal and she is getting really good at getting up on her own, bending over and picking things up, walking sideways, doing back flips, etc. (That last one was a joke to see if you were still reading). Anyway- all this to say, happy walking Lily! 

I wish this picture was not blurry- it is such a good snapshot of Lily as of late- covered in food, stealing her brother's drinks, hair getting long and crazy, and random outfits most of the time. Man how I love that little girl!!

Better late than never!

Since it is almost a month since Christmas, it seemed only appropriate to finally do a post about Christmas. I am not really that late though cause we just took down the last of our decorations today. We spent Christmas in Dallas and had a wonderful time. It was a little crazy getting everyone and everything ready to go (mostly because I worked the three days right before we left so my time to do laundry, wrap presents, etc was rather limited). But my parents took the kids the night before we left so we were able to get everything all together relatively easily. Both kids continue to do well on long car rides so that makes life so much easier. We also entertain them with as many movies as they want to watch many great activities in the car, so it makes the 10 hours go by a lot faster. We just really need Tripp to learn how to switch out the DVD on his own pick out books on his own, and then we will be good to go. 

On Christmas Eve, Tripp got to open some special books and the kids got their matching pajamas. Maybe one day Tripp will learn to smile with his eyes open!

Tripp also dictated (and then signed) his first note to Santa and even sprinkled some special reindeer food on the front lawn. 

Christmas day was very special- lots of fun and exciting presents to open, cousins who loved every moment of being together and then an hour and half long temper tantrum from Tripp over a piece of ham.

Lily figured out how to walk (more on that to come) thanks to her new walker toy and stroller from Nana and Bop. She probably would have figured it out earlier had they remembered to give her the walker for her birthday, but that is a whole other story (You guys know I am kidding right?!?).

We even managed to get two great entire family pictures. I unfortunately did not get the other one on my camera and thus do not have it on the computer, but if you are really interested in seeing it, it is on Facebook and we are all wearing orange. 

I feel incredibly blessed just by thinking back to this week. It was really wonderful!

13 in 2013

I am not one to make traditional New Year's resolutions, but after hearing my sister-in-law talk about some of the things she did in the last year and her plans for this coming year, I thought it would be helpful for me to live a little more intentionally and make some goals for myself. I all too often get caught up in the day-to-day busyness- meals to cook, kids to change, floors to vacuum (ha!), that when it comes time to relax at the end of the day, I find myself wanting to do nothing but watch TV. To quote my pastor "do not hear what I am not saying-" I have nothing, nothing, nothing at all against watching TV. But unless I have some real goals, I find it a little too easy to not accomplish anything. Call me lazy or maybe "just" a busy mom, but I want to stop making excuses and start getting things done. So here we go- 13 goals for 2013 (in no particular order):

1. Read 10 books. Since I am starting at my current zero complete reads from last year, I think 10 is totally appropriate.
2. Spend 60 minutes of uninterrupted time with each child, each day. Now, I am pretty sure the fact that I even have to set that as a goal makes me a pretty bad mom, but I find myself easily distracted these days- by text messages, laundry, dishes, etc. So I mean totally uninterrupted minutes. Just pure playing. That's all.
3. Tell Nelson what I am actually feeling right away. This is big for me because I tend to give him the silent treatment. Or the "I will talk to you but I am really just mad at you still from last night" treatment. Cause, you know, I need to teach him a lesson. And that has worked real well...
4. Pray continually, about everything. I tend to be a "big thing" prayer. I think I just made that term up. In case you do not speak fluent "Emilyese" that means that I pray for the big things in life and am done. I am pretty sure that is not the way prayer is meant to work. Hence goal #4.
5. Run four times a week. 3 days during the week, 1 on the weekend. That's doable and reasonable. Second part of that goal- give myself grace for weeks when that just can not happen.
6. Run ten races. I am already signed up for two in February, so I am already off to a good start on that one.
7. Clean the house weekly. Seriously, who needs a goal for this? Apparently I do. As witnessed by the fact that there are piles of dust along every floorboard in this house. And the hand prints/milk stains/dried crusties all over the cabinets, fridge and dishwasher. Since I can not justify a maid in the budget, I think I will have to start doing some of those chores myself.
8. Get a dog. Cause some goals should be fun, right?
9. Eat dessert. Cause some goals should be easy to accomplish, right?
10. Never wear my sweatpants/pajama pants out in public. Again, probably sad that I even have to set a goal for this. Thankfully Nelson got me a really cute pair of black, work-out pants that instead of using to work out in, I will use them as my "not pajamas but just as comfortable" pants. And then I can go out in public. Thanks babe! :)

And as I was writing, I decided it would be a good ideal to stop at 10. Cause I realized that if I keep up with this goal-writing business, next year I would have to 14, the following year 15, etc. And that would be too much work. So 10 each year seems good to me.