A Couple More Videos

The first video is of one of Lily's favorite pass times, wearing adult shoes! She loves walking around the house in our shoes!
The second is from a couple weeks ago when we had Jon, Becky and Kyan over for dinner. Lily and Kyan were being silly at the dinner table. Lily loves watching this video...she cracks up laughing every time she sees it!

More for your viewing enjoyment

I know I know! I haven't updated the blog in almost a month, and here I am on my third post today! This is a little video from tonight of Lily playing with Sean's typewriter:



I have a few more videos that I want to share, but I think I'll save them for tomorrow, since they take so long to load! Hope you've enjoyed the massive updates to the blog today! :)

Lily's Vocabulary At 18 Months

As promised in her 18 month blog, here's the complete list of word Lily says as of today:

Animals:
Duck, Kitty/cat (meow), Doggy/dog, Puppy, Piggy, Cow (Moo), Mouse, Monkey

Body Parts:
Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Teeth, Cheek, Ear, Toes, Feet/foot, Knee, Elbow, Back, Belly

Food:
Cracker, Cookie, Cheese, Apple, Banana, Berry (for both strawberries and blueberries), Milk, Juice, Peas, Water, Pumpkin, Pancake

Phrases:
I Do, I Know, Thank You, All done, I See You, Ta Da, Uh Oh, Hi Five, Hi/ Hello, Bye bye, No, Yes, Yummy, Ouchy

People:
Mommy, Daddy, Papa, Elmo, Kyan, Becky, Bobby, Ouija

Everyday Objects:
Book, Snow, Bottle, Flower, Ball, Binky, Bubble, Bell

Clothing:
Hat, Socks, Shoes, Shirt

Other:
Happy, Caca, Poopy, Pretty, Itsy, Up, Hot, Cold, Cuddle, Please, More, Eat, Freeze


By my count that is 79 words she says. Yes, a lot of them only Sean and I would know what she is saying, but most are clear as day. At this point she knows so many words, and is picking them up so many every day, it's time I stop recording them :(

We're clearly so proud of her for learning so many words in such a short time! Looking forward to seeing what she says tomorrow! (Still waiting for the elusive "I Love You" though....been trying to teach her that for a while! )

18 Months

Dear Lily,
18 months?! Where did the time go! How are you already a year and a half? Sometimes I feel like it was just yesterday you were still in my belly and we were begging you to make your entrance. Then there are other days, like yesterday, where you show off all you've learned in life so far! You've come so far in this past month, it's amazing! So many new things!

First off, if I thought your vocabulary had exploded last month, I was surely mistaken, because this month you must have doubled the words you know and say! Last night Daddy and I were testing you to see what you knew, and you surprised us with a few new ones that we had no idea you knew how to say, or identify. You said shirt, back and cheek all for the first time while we were identifying body parts with you ( a game we play all the time now! You love pointing out eyes, nose, mouth, and toes!) That's 3 new words in one day!!! We've been seeing you learn 2-3 new words a day this past week! I started writing them all down the other day so I would remember, I got to around 70 words already! I'll list them all in another post so we'll have that as a record for you. After this though, I think you are learning new words so quickly that I have to stop keeping track of it now!

You abandoned "Itsy Bity Spider" this month as you favorite rhyme, and replaced it with "This Little Piggy". You LOVE when we do this finger play game with you! You will come up to either Mommy or Daddy, hold up you foot to us and say"piggy?"! Then after we finish the rhyme, you hold up your other foot for us to say the rhyme with! You will sit there and have us do the rhyme 6 times in a row, and get very frustrated and mad if we stop!! You still love "Itsy Bitsy", but you definitely have a new favorite game!

Not everything this month has been perfect though. You did go through a period of time where you were on a food strike, and wouldn't eat anything Mommy made you. There were a few days in a row where you would refuse to eat anything but cheese and raisins (always with close supervision of course!) You wouldn't even eat old favorites like macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets! Then there was also the week long milk strike. Luckily these strikes didn't over lap, and you are eating and drinking like normal again! I was pleased to see you eat a whole plate full of peas last night (identifying each one as you went of course. "Pea! Pea!! Pea!!!")

You were so cute yesterday morning! After Little Gym we took you to the book store for story time, where they read one of the "When you Give a Mouse a Cookie" books. After the story mouse from the story came out to visit with everyone (for the adults reading, they had a costumed character come out to meet the kids) and the second you saw him, your eyes lit up! You got up and pushed your way through all the older kids to get to him, and once there you gave him a big high five! You followed him around the whole story while he was visiting with kids, and gave him 2 giant hugs! We weren't sure why you loved him so much, maybe it was the giant cookie in his hands, or maybe you thought he looked very friendly, but either way, we couldn't get you away from him! You cried when he had to leave! I wish we had brought the camera with us, you were so cute! Maybe they will have someone visiting story time next week too!

Another new game we've started playing this month is sitting face to face making funny faces at each other. I go through all the emotions with you, happy, sad, angry, and surprised. You think angry face is so funny, and love to make that face back to us. You put on your angriest face, hold it for a few seconds, then start laughing! It's so fun to play this game with you, we just sit and laugh the whole time together!

Another new thing this month, which we LOVE, is you've really taken an interest in books! You could sit for hours with us just reading! Once we finish one book, you jump up to grab us another book to start! "Goodnight Goon" (Parody version of "Goodnight Moon") is your favorite! You could read that book over and over! You also love books where you can identify objects. You even have started sitting by yourself with a book "reading" to yourself out loud! And as I'm typing this, I can hear you running around down stairs with daddy saying "Book, Book, Book!" We are so happy that you love to read!

Your interest in baby dolls have continued this month. You love to carry them around, give them hugs and kisses, and put them to bed. Your new obsession with the dolls is undressing and then redressing them! You also like to try putting on their shoes on your feet! You get SO angery when your foot doesn't fit in the tiny shoes!

We are so proud of how much you've learned this month. I know I'm probably looking through my Mommy goggles here, but we really think you are a wonderful and a very talented and intelligent kid! Everyday you surprise me with something you say or do! Just today you surprised us with saying snow when we were out playing in it! I can't wait to see what new things you do next month! We love you baby girl!

Love,
Mommy

Here are some pictures from the whole month. I know I've been bad about keeping up with the blog this month. The computer is now in a room I don't go in often, so I've been seriously behind on putting pictures on the computer and editing them! Here is a set of pictures I took for Valentines day this year:


Lily helping me Shovel on a warm day:


She tasted the ice and made this "yuck" face. I tried to tell her it would be yucky!

Playing with her viking hat and little gym medal yesterday:

She loves putting on hats now:



Outside today enjoying the snow:

Unfortunately because of the snow I wasn't able to do our 18 month photo shoot today because it was overcast. Will hopefully be back tomorrow with that, depending on the weather!

Little Gym

This is a couple weeks late, but finally I'm sharing the pictures from our last Little Gym class of the last session. The last class is all about showing off, which Lily was very good at!

Getting ready to do her forward rolls:

Taking a ride on the giant parachute with her friends Kayla, Robert and Avery:

Walking over the obstacles with confidence:

Oops, little balance check on the high beam:


She recovered quickly:

Hanging from the bar with Ms. Lori's help:

Pushing herself up on the low beam by herself:

Standing up on the low beam all by herself:

We are so grateful that we have the little gym in our lives! Over the past semester we've watched Lily's confidence grow as she concurs each new obstacle set up. She started the class shy and unsure. I remember the first few classes Lily would just cry if we put her down on the big red mat to do warm up. Even after she started to get comfortable with the surroundings and the routine, she still was very wary of the other kids and Ms. Lori. I remember very clearly the day she broke out of her shell though...It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so there were only a few families at class, and Lily just walked up to Ms. Lori and started to tell her a big story, and then lead the way into the class room. We all couldn't get over how confident she suddenly was! Ever since then she's been a ham at class. She started interacting with the other kids, sharing her bells and balls with them and their parents. She always makes the class laugh by yelling every time the music says "freeze" (she just making sure we all follow the direction!).

We're also seen her develop so much physically since we started taking her. It took her a few weeks to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other to walk on the beam. After she learned that, there was a long while where we had to support her from both sides so she would stay balanced. Then suddenly a few weeks ago lily started to get very good at the beam. She started trying to stand up on the small beam by herself, and on the high beam she started practically running, and only holding onto our one hand for balance. Then suddenly 2 weeks ago she stood up on the beam all by herself, with nothing to hold onto for balance! Lily is the only kid in our class that I've seen to this! We're so proud!

We've also seen her grow cognitively from this class. Over the course of the semester Lily has learned to listen and follow direction very well. I don't know if that's something she would have learned anyway at this age, but I do attribute part of that skill to following directions at little gym.

Needless to say, we are very happy we enrolled Lily in her first Little gym class. We were sad to see the semester end, and sad to see some of her friends move up to the next class. But we're happy to say our new semester started last weekend, and Lily still has a few friends in her new class. And then in a few weeks she should be moving up to the next age level, (she has to be 18 months to become a "beast") and there she will be back with her other friends!

17 Months

Dear Lily,
Each month with you just gets crazier and funner Lily! This past month you've become a real ham! You love to laugh and make people laugh by making funny faces and nibbling on toes! You've really perfected what we lovingly call your mad scientist laugh. You can sometimes just break out in the huge laugh that makes everyone around you smile!

You've also learned to be very polite this month. Every time you give us something, or we give you something, you will say "thank you". You've also started saying please when you want something too! It's so nice to see you being so polite! Then just as I'm getting smug that I've taught my daughter to be little miss manners, you'll remind me you're still a toddler by throwing your dinner off the table! (and breaking out into your mad scientist laugh of course!)


This past month you've grown a few more teeth. Now the count is up to 13 with one more just below the surface. You've got 4 in the top front, 4 on the bottom front, and 4 molars (those were hard coming in for you!). And on your 17 month birthday I noticed that one of you're canines had popped through without me even knowing you were teething those. We knew you're 4th molar was coming in at the same time, but you wouldn't let us see the rest of your mouth, so we missed that one coming in entirely! Your other canine on the top is also just under the surface, and should be popping through any day now. Good thing you love to brush your teeth! We can't brush our teeth without you demanding to brush yours too!

As I've said before on the blog, your vocabulary is really starting to blossom this month. You're learning new words faster than I can record them now! New to the list are toes, mouth, nose, belly, eat, water, please, bottle, flower, teeth, cold and Ouija. I'm sure I am forgetting a few too. And of course, most of these would only be understood by Mommy and Daddy...but we know what you mean. For example, for nose you say "no" with the "o" sound drawn out, and pointing to your nose. Mouth is "Maw", while pointing to your mouth. You're also starting to try to copy me when I say words. That's how you learned flower the other day. We were stilling looking through a garden catalog together, and I was pointing out the flowers to you, and you immediately tried to say it with me!


"The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is still you're favorite song. You always give up a round of applause when we sing it to you. You also love "Head, Shoulders. Knees, and Toes" and "Patty Cake". Anything with finger play that you can try to follow along with really! I've also caught you trying to sing yourself lately. The other night in bed I was humming to you, and when I stopped you continued your own song by yourself. I can't wait until we can sing together!

You've become really interested in baby dolls this month. You love to push them around the house in your baby stroller, and put them to bed in your dolls cradle. I've spied you a few times even offering your binky to your favorite doll! Though that doesn't surprise me... you love to share your binky with Daddy and me, and the cats!


You continue to be our sweet little girl who loves to give hugs and kisses! We are so proud of how fast you are growing and learning! I can't wait to see what the next month holds for us! We love you Lily!!

Love,
Mommy

Sledding and Doing Dishes

Over the weekend we took Lily sledding for the first time! We have a great little hill in our side yard, which is perfect for sledding, and after a month and all that snow we finally took advantage of it! Lily had a blast going down the hill with us, and also really got into playing in the snow (again, her first time playing in snow!)

At the bottom of the hill with Daddy:


Tasting the snow:

And just for clarification...yes that is one of my old gloves she is wearing! We couldn't find her other mitten before we went out, so stuck that on her. Wouldn't you know we found the missing mitten as soon as we got inside!

Laughing at Daddy as he went sledding down the hill by himself:


I think she liked it so much that this morning she brought me her coat and hat as if to say she wanted to go outside. So this morning we went out again to play in the snow. No pictures, but she had fun with me pulling her around the yard in her sled!

Later this morning I filled her baby bathtub with water and gave her a few of her plastic dishes and a sponge with a little soap. My goal was for her to play at cleaning dishes (and thus occupying her time by mimicking mommy so I could wash our dishes!) But Lily had other plans...before I knew it lily had climbed into the tub and was sitting in the soapy water! I should have known she would have tried that! Oh well...we had fun anyways...and she still played at washing dishes...she just wanted to sit in the water while she cleaned!

Uh Oh! Mommy caught me in the water:


Having fun rocking the tub back and forth:

Finally helping with the dishes: