Lily's Tower and Other Fab Toys

Lily has mega-blocks and she really likes to build towers with them. This is a game her and Daddy do usually every night. This is the tower Lily and I built tonite and our pretty tree is in the background. We went with a fake one this year due to the ease and affordability of it all. I certainly miss the smell of a real tree, plus the experience of getting one, but I do think our tree is very beautiful!! It's hard to tell in the picture, but the lower third of our tree is a little less decorated than the rest of it--while decorating the tree, I explained to Lily that some of the breakable ornaments had to go up high so that the babies, meaning Anna and Kai, didn't get them and hurt themselves with them. Lily took this to mean all ornaments and frequently moves the lower ones up while saying she doesn't want the new baby to get hurt with the ornaments. Isn't she already a sweet big sister? BTW, please ignore what Lily is wearing--she now wants PJs back on for naptime and immediately after naptime, we went to play outside before it got too cold and the outfit is the result of those 2 things.

I've also included Lily playing in her new Tinkerbell tent, which she got from Hanna, Chris and Anna and she absolutely loves. I wish I had taken a video of her when she first opened it, because she stood up in it and raised the tent up off the floor and started spinning around, making Anna laugh--it was very funny and cute!! She also enjoyed hiding in it today--I even got in it with her at one point!

Aunt Mary, Uncle Adam and Allison gave her this super cool mirror kit which she got to decorate herself. We did this tonite and she thought it was pretty awesome.

The Christmas Celebrations Begin!

On Saturday, we had Bryan's mom, sister (Mary), and brother and his family (AKA Chris, Johanna and Anna) over to celebrate Christmas. Bryan's step-dad and brother-in-law and niece couldn't make it, which we were quite disappointed about. We had lunch, made gingerbread houses and opened presents. A great time was had!! Lily and Anna really enjoyed making their gingerbread houses, which I was glad about because I wasn't certain how that would go over. I didn't know if Anna was old enough to get into it, but she LOVED it. She cried when she had to stop putting candy on for a minute so that her Daddy could frost more of the house. She also loved eating the candy, I think! Lily liked telling her Daddy what to put on the house--it had an animal theme and Bryan's artistic talents were tested! Lily is certainly old enough to know how great it is to open presents and so she enjoyed that perhaps most of all! We have told her what a lucky girl she is to have so many wonderful family members who have spoiled her with all of these presents. One of her favorite presents was Disney princess make-up, which she then proceeded to put ALL over her face, my face, and her Grandma's face. She also did all of our nails...about 3 times.

Lily and Daddy--working on the gingerbread house.

The dog and the cat's face---there is a fish on the other side. I got these pre-made gingerbread houses at Walmart on sale and the kit included the frosting and candy, though we added in a bit more of our own. The best part about them is that the houses were already put together--I can't imagine most kids waiting patiently for it to dry so they could decorate it and I certainly didn't want to do it myself the night before! The funniest was that after the Dads and daughters creatively decorated the houses, Johanna looked at the box that the gingerbread houses came in and laughed at the house on the box, which was, as you can imagine, perfect with a wreath about the door and snow on the roof. Yeah, ours didn't really come out like that, but I think they are beautiful in their own way!!

My beautiful little glamour girl with purple make-up covering the bottom half of her face.

On Saturday night, we went to see the Lights of Life. This was also a big hit with the shortest member of our family!! In her words, "This is crazy, crazy, crazy!!" She liked everything, but loved the Loch Ness Monster most of all. She asked to go back the whole way home.
This hill was absolutely gorgeous in person, but obviously was difficult to capture on film.

On Sunday evening, we met Bryan's Dad and Step-Mom and Chris, Hanna and Anna for dinner to exchange gifts. Since we are going to Greenville this year for Christmas, we won't get to participate in their traditions like decorating cookies and visiting on Christmas day for gift opening, so we decided to go ahead and meet up with them. Bryan's step-mom (Mimi) and Lily have a special relationship and we certainly wanted to celebrate with them as well. I didn't take any pictures, but they also gave Lily a super-nice gift which she loves--a kid friendly CD player and a CD with her name in all of the songs. Needless to say, we have listened to it repeatedly since getting it and I'll post a video soon!!

50 Fun Things to See and Do in Atlanta... (cont.)

#32--Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta


Well, we did another super-fun one on the list...but again I was a bad blogger and a bad mommy and didn't bring my camera. This time, I just forgot to put in my bag, remembered shortly after leaving the house, but decided against going back for it since I was worried about running late due to the rain. Oh well!! It's the experience that counts, right?!?


Lily and I went to Imagine It--the Children's Museum and had a wonderful time!! We met Heather and Kai there and arrived just in time for the show that was starting, which included lots of singing and dancing, 2 of Lily's favorite things. We then played with all of the exhibits--a mini grocery store, a little fishing game where the kids actually put on rain coats and fish with magnetic fishing rods and magnetic plastic fish, the Curious George exhibits and too many others to name. Lily's favorite was the painting one--the kids put on aprons and get a little paint palette and brush and paint on a piece of plastic--Lily went through 3 palettes of paint--she loved that one the most. She also really loved the giant stand up sand box--she used the shapes to make lots of things. It was a super fun time!!

As I posted before, we've been to the children's museum in Gainesville before and I'd heard they were very similar. However, I found them to be very different and it's hard to say if one was better than the other. They both had something that the other didn't have that Lily loved. The Atlanta one had some exhibits which Lily loved so much, such as the paint one and the sandbox, but the Gainesville one had more pretend exhibits and real dress-up clothes as well as the real cars, trucks, etc. The Atlanta one was definitely more crowded, but Heather, who has been there numerous times, feels that's because we went during a week day and there were so many school groups there. She's been before on a weekend and said there was no one there. I certainly think that both museums are worth going to. Heather and I have decided on a Dad's day to take the kids there in January while Heather and I go to get pedi's!!

Back to Bethlehem

On Friday night, Bryan, Lily and I went Back to Bethlehem!! Here is a website with a description, for those who aren't familiar with it...

http://www.backtobethlehem.com/

We were not familiar with it, but Aunt Johanna told us they had been and how much fun it was, so we had to check it out...it was fabulous!! The brief description is that it is a recreation of the city of Bethlehem on the night Jesus was born--they had a whole marketplace set up and a llama, a camel, chickens, a goat, a sheep and a horse for the kids to pet. Lily loved the animals and the living nativity most of all! What a fun, free Christmas activity!

My little girl...all bundled up! She loves her mittens most of all...and I love to hear her say the word. She enunciates it and it is adorable.

Lily's Christmas Play

Tuesday night, Lily had her Christmas play at school and I willed myself to be well for it despite the sickness that seems to be intent on premeating our household. I was so excited--Lily has been singing 3 of the songs around the house and in the car for the past few weeks. I knew they were practicing at school and she was very excited to wear her red Christmas "jumpy-er" and get her hair curled. I think most of you parents reading this know the end to this story...sure, she marched in and stood there with her class...and didn't sing a single word. Not one. She maybe did 4 hand motions the whole time. She did, however, suck on her probably germ-covered jingle bell the entire time. Once she spotted me, she seemed to feel a little better and then did do some more motions...with her back to me. I had to giggle!! It's just so typical of a kid!
A video of what she did pretty much the entire time...

This is when Lily spots me for the first time...also giving some love to her teacher again, Miss Linda--Let me say again how thrilled I am that she has a teacher that she loves so much!!

Very excited before the play!! First time with her hair in rollers. Unfortunately, between the rain and the fact she inherited her my hair, the curls didn't actually stay in very well. Hopefully, we'll do better next time.

Very happy after the play--eating treats. Santa was there, and though Lily loves to look at him from about 5 feet away, she has absolutely no interest in sitting on his lap and talking to him. Since the line to meet Santa was to the door, I didn't argue!

Monkey Joe's!!

I think every parent in the Atlanta area is familiar with Monkey Joe's--one of those indoor bounce places--a great activity to do when it's exceptionally hot or cold outside. Lily is sort of not-so-hot about the one closest to our house--she doesn't love the toddler area and the big slide is WAY too high for her to do alone, but being quite pregnant, I can't do that with her. However, we went recently to one in another area of Atlanta for a friend's birthday party and Lily really liked that Monkey Joe's a lot more. So much so, that she has now requested to have her own birthday party there as well. She likes the toddler area a lot more and the big slide is a lot shorter so it doesn't scare her like ours does.

Gainesville Children's Museum

Several weeks ago, Lily and I drove to Gainesville to do a sort of impromptu visit with one of my college roommates. She has a little girl, Sarah, who is 5 years old and a one year old boy named Will and we thought it would be fun to meet, play, and check out their museum. We had the BEST time!! Lily LOVED Sarah, who is so into princesses and dressing up and all of the good girly stuff that Lily also loves. Plus, Sarah has had a few more years to accumulate things and so Lily loved her selection of dress-up clothes and shoes!! We started the day at the museum and had a blast!! They have a great museum with a mini grocery store, dentist's office, hospital, restaurant, bank, etc. They have a stage with tons of dress-up clothes as well as a real full-sized airplane, police car, and firetruck and a fake choo-choo train that the kids can play in. There is so much more than that as well, but it's really too much to list. We just had so much fun. I had a lot of fun seeing an old friend as well--Beth and I met freshman year in college and became good friends. It is always nice to hang out with someone who is so relaxed and easy to be around. I see more trips to Gainesville in our future!!

Lily checking out at the grocery store. The kids actually go behind the counter and "ring up" the items as well--Lily enjoyed selecting them and putting them in the cart much more than ringing them up.

Baby Will--a great layed-back second child--sort of what we are hoping for this time around!!!

Miss Sarah--she was so sweet to play with Lily all day long.

Lily wearing a chef's hat, but pretending to be a server and bring us food at the mini restaurant. It was great!

Lily in scrubs--I know this is a weird face she is making, but Lily in scrubs was just so cute that I had to put it on here and this is the only picture I got. She was moving so fast this day and into everything, that I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked.

Lily and Sarah playing dress-up at the museum. Lily is wearing what she refers to as a wedding dress, which is, by Lily's definition, any pretty gown. Sarah is a pink cat.

31 Week Update

Wow!! I cannot believe it's been so long since my last post! I guess we've been alternatingly too busy and too sick to get much else done around here but the basics. I am now almost 31 weeks pregnant and looking every bit of it!! This baby is a big mover and shaker and Bryan feels the baby moving all of the time now. Lily doesn't have the patience for it, but she does like to talk to the baby through my belly. We had another ultrasound at 30 weeks, just because the doctor wanted to check on positioning and size--I actually called the cancel this appointment the day before because I thought it was totally stupid and unnecessary, but they sort of guilted me into coming since I delivered early last time and they wanted to check on the baby's size. So we went and saw a cute baby face with chubby cheeks and all!! We still didn't see the gender, despite the temptation! I am certainly looking forward to finding out...in the delivery room. We are sort of waiting to do the nursery fully until we have the baby and know the sex because I want to do gender-specific paint this time around, but I have set up pack-n-plays, ordered bottles and bedding, washed clothes, etc. We are ready to bring baby home and then will just have to find the time to get really organized after that--I will be enlisting help, for those of you wondering when I'll find the time!! Depending on what happens, we could be bringing home baby in a little more than a month, if this baby is a ninja like Lily, or anywhere up to 2 months, which would be better. We'll just have to wait and see! I am going to the doctor every 2 weeks now and everything is going well. Maybe one of these days I'll post some profile pics...or maybe not!!

Baby Betting Pool

Please leave a comment with your guess on the stats of our Baby...if you select "Anonymous" be sure to write your name at the bottom of your comment so that we can know who wins. You can cut and paste the following information into your comment if you would like and then just fill it in that way. Winner gets the glory of winning and that's it!!

Gender of the Baby:___________________ (25 points)

Date of Birth:________________________(35 points)
Tip: My due date is Feb 10. Lily was born 4 weeks early for no known reason.

Time of Birth:________________________(10 points)

Weight:____________________________(20 points)
Tip: Lily was 6 lbs 7 oz. Susan was 7 lbs 6 oz . Bryan was 7 lbs 1 oz.

Length:____________________________(10 points)
Tip: Lily was 19 inches. Susan was 19 inches. Bryan was 21 inches.

Name Suggestions:

Thanksgiving Play at School

OMG!! That is all I can say about this. It was, perhaps, the cutest thing ever! All of the kids were in it--and they were all dressed as Pilgrims, Native Americans or Turkeys. Lily was a pilgrim but ditched her hat shortly after walking in. They danced along to a man singing songs and then we meet afterwards for the feast! It was a lot of fun. Plus, I got to meet the 2 boys that she always talks about--Lincoln and Davis. Okay, actually, she talks about Lincoln the most--she'll lay in her bed at night and sing to herself when she can't get to sleep, usually singing her ABCs or something else along those lines, but sometimes she'll sing "Lincoln is a bad boy!" over and over. I thought Lincoln was her true love. However, her teacher told me today that Davis is sort of her boyfriend--they play together a lot and Davis likes to put his arm around Lily. She said Lily only plays with one girl--Vivi--because Vivi will play babies with her, but other than that, she's with the boys. Her teacher also said Lily is the "mother" of the class and will pat or rub the other kid's backs when they are upset. It's so fun to see this side of her that I don't get to see when we are at home with just the two of us.

This is right after walking in--Lily got teary to see me sitting in the pew and not be with me. I ignored her, like any good mother would :), and her teacher distracted her quickly. How cute is she in that pilgrim hat?!? By the way, her "boyfriend", Davis, is the boy in the orange striped shirt in front of her.

Video of the kids walking in--she had to come and give me a quick hug and kiss, which I am always happy to get! I know my days of her doing that willingly are limited! You can see Davis walking next to her here as well. Vivi, who she plays babies with is the little girl in the polka dot dress in front. I think Vivi and Lily might have similiar personalities because during the play Vivi was antagonizing the little girl in the pink shirt that the teacher has to pick up in this video. The little girl didn't want to be touched, so Vivi kept poking her leg, not hard, but enough to cause the pink pant girl to have a meltdown--SO something that Lily would do!

Lily and her favorite teacher, Miss Linda. It makes me happy that Lily likes one of her teachers so much! It's good to know she's well taken care of when she's at school.

Lily dancing during the play. She loves to dance and Miss Linda says she loves it just as much at school.

UPDATE: I had to add one more video of Lily dancing. Also, in this one, you can see Lincoln, the boy we thought was the boyfriend, who turned out to have gotten stuck in the "friend zone." He is the little blonde boy with the curls that you can see briefly at the beginning of the video.

26 Weeks

I'll be 27 weeks on Wednesday and things are moving right along. Feeling lots of baby movement, etc. We have started to get things ready around the house and I have even already packed my bags for the hospital!!

When Lily arrived 4 weeks early, the only thing I hadn't done was pack my bags--we finally decided we didn't really need any of the 30 things on the list that the doctor's office gives you, grabbed my purse, camera and pillow and headed to the hospital. And, of course, I still catch flack for the fact that I also grabbed my work stuff and pager since I happened to be on-call for the entire hospital that night--we stopped by the Case Managment office on our way into Labor and Delivery so that I could leave notes with information for my co-worker and then proceeded to keep my pager on the whole time I was in labor, just in case!! Anyway, even though I really didn't need anything other than what I brought with Lily, I decided to go ahead and start packing so I'd be ready this time around. Of course, I have absolutely no bottles for the baby, so if he or she decided they want to eat something, then we have a problem! I guess I still have some getting ready to do...

Anyway, here is a short video of the type of movement that's going on in there--you can see the remote sort of bounce while it's sitting on my belly because the baby is moving so much. Excuse the background noise--I was watching Parks and Recreation.

What holiday is it?!?

Here a picture of Lily wearing Christmas PJs while standing with our Thanksgiving/Fall scarecrow. She first wore these PJs because they were the only fleece pair we owned in her size when we had that unexpected freezing week in October. However, now she loves them and would prefer to wear them over any other pair we own. (She has suddenly started caring very much about what I put on her, particularly in relation to shoes. I don't like it...I want to go back to the time when she had no opinion on matters like that.) Anyway, she also loves the scarecrow a lot and actually asked me to take her picture with him. As I've said before, how can I say no to that?!?

Softball Game Fun

We thoroughly enjoy going to Bryan and Uncle Chris's softball games in the evenings. So, when they had a game on Friday and Bryan was out of town, Lily and I still went to cheer on Uncle Chris, which translated means talk to the other player's wives. Here is a cute pic of the girls that Johanna's Dad took while at the game.

50 Fun Things to See and Do in Atlanta... (cont.)

Today we did #50, Zoo Atlanta!! If you are just tuning in, we are not going in order, so by no means does this mean that we are done, but I'm happy to be able to cross another one off the list. Today, Lily and I went to the zoo with some friends. I am a bad blogger and a bad mother, because I didn't take a single picture, which is particularly awful because this was both of our first times to the Atlanta zoo. I actually looked frantically for my camera before leaving, couldn't find it, went without it and found it when we got home in the diaper bag that I had with me the whole time. Ugh. Pregnancy brain will get you every time. We were at the zoo for about 4 hours and saw almost everything. Lily enjoyed most of the animals, some were a little scary to her, but liked the pandas best--I did too! The mommy panda was nursing her baby while we were there, so that was special to see. Second best on Lily's list was the playground, which was super cool! However, it was a long drive and a lot of money and I'm not sure we'll be re-visiting the zoo anytime soon. My friends live close to the zoo, have season passes, and frequently pop in for an hour or so to kill time--that would be nice!! I'm glad we've done it, but I think we are done there for a while.

I also get to check #5 off the list--The Falcons at the Georgia Dome. I'd forgotten that Bryan and I have both been to Falcons games before. So...2 more down and only 37 to go!!

Happy Halloween!!

Okay...I promise that this is my last Halloween post. I know there have been a significant number of them between the pumpkin patch trips and the numerous fall festivals, but what can I say...I love this holiday!! You should all just be glad that I had to work on the day of her school party or that would have been another Halloween post. Today is actually Halloween and we went to Kids Fest in the downtown city park with Hanna, Chris and Anna and Ramsey, Robin and Marley. Unfortunately, it started to rain right when we got there. Lily played in the bounce house some, got her face painted, got a balloon animal, played the fishin' game and danced some and then we left. We all came back to our house to eat pizza and go trick-or-treating. Well, everyone went but Robin and I--we stayed behind to pass out candy, which was a job in itself--I didn't expect quite so many trick-or-treaters...we would have run out of candy if the kids hadn't come back when they did so I could steal some of theirs to hand out. Everyone said the kids had a great time trick-or-treating--all 3 girls would go to the doors and actually say "Trick or treat!" Lily has been looking forward to this for weeks so I'm glad she had a great time! The first thing she said when she got up this morning was that she wanted to go trick-or-treating!

As you saw in my previous post, the costume that I bought for Lily is a super cute witch costume. However, she has a princess dress in her dress-up basket that was $2 at Garden Ridge that she really wanted to wear for Halloween. So of course, we let her and she was very happy to be a "princa" as she pronounces "princess".

At Kids Fest, in the rain.

To stay dry (and because Lily loves to dance) we went under the gazebo for a bit to dance. Lily loved it until a kid in a very scary zombi-ish costume showed up to dance as well. Lily didn't like his costume one bit and wanted nothing to do with him. I can't say I blamed her.

Playing at the Park

We had such fab weather some days this past week, that we got to make a park trip with Hanna and Anna. Lily was very proud of herself for climbing this rock wall!

Bryan's High School Reunion

We were down in McRae this past weekend visiting Bryan's mom and step-dad and also going to his HS reunion parties--we had a lot of fun! Friday night, we went to his high school's football game. Lily was very interested in the marching band and the cheerleaders. At half-time, the homecoming court was presented and she loved that as well--she thought the girls in their pretty dresses were princesses. It was good she enjoyed herself, because the game was an absolute embarrassment for Bryan's HS--we left at half-time when the score was 36 to 0!! On our way out, we went to meet the "princesses" which Lily stared at with complete awe in her face--some of them clearly thought Lily was big weirdo, but most were nice to my child who was in love with them!! As we were trying to leave, we also had to pass by a fight!! Well, I guess you would call it a fight...some guy was starting trouble, and the cops yelled at him to leave and he did!! However, bad guy #2 refused and got into it with the cops and they slammed him to the ground in front of everyone! He continued to wrestle with him and they had to do it again, this time so close to the cop car that they knocked the mirror off of the car with his body! His mom or aunt or somebody was there and yelling and freaking out and people had to tend to her as well. It was quite exciting! I was, of course, freaking out and though Bryan was trying to help another lady get her car out from all of the hullabaloo, I took Lils and waited in our car. I didn't want us anywhere near there if a riot was about to break out!

Saturday morning, Lily colored on a pumpkin with her Grandma and then we went to the reunion cook-out for lunch. Right next to where the reunion was, there was a playground, which we walked to and played and saw turtles! Also near where we were, was a fall festival, so we also walked down there and played for a bit before heading back to Grandma and Grandaddy's house for naptime. That night, Bryan and I got to go out and leave Lily with her Grandma and Grandaddy to go have some fun at the reunion party. Unfortunately, most people there were not people that Bryan was close with, but we had lots of fun hanging with Ramsey and Robin and seeing the people that were there.

Lily's pumpkin.

At the Saturday lunch cook-out.

At the fall festival that we went to as well.

Getting a "ghostie" on her face at the festival.

My dare-devil of a child--she loves to jump off things!! Her Daddy had been waiting there to catch her, but she made him move out of the way.

Lily's Outfit

I just posted this on Facebook as well, so forgive my redundancy, but nothing shows how big my baby has gotten quite like pictures like these.

Lily as a newborn...

Lily now, holding the outfit above.

Can you believe it?!? I can't. I got out all our old preemie/newborn clothes to wash and get ready for Baby and a lot of memories came out along with those clothes.

MOMS Club Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This was technically a trip with the MOMS Club, but Johanna and I ended up going quite late because of naps and so it really ended up just being Hanna, Anna, Lily and I. It was fine, because we had a great time!!

"Baby Anna" in the picnic area of the pumpkin patch.

Of course, we had to pay another visit to the animals there. Lily and Anna (and probably all kids) both love animals a lot!! This was definitely something they enjoyed about the pumpkin patch.

On the hayride going to the pumpkin patch. Since I never post belly pics, here's some proof that I am indeed gestating! Lily refused to look at the camera for 2 reasons--#1, she just does that sometimes and #2, it was a stranger taking the picture and a man to boot and she didn't want anything to do with him.

Pumpkin Patch!!! Baby Anna was very overjoyed about the pumpkins and kept yelling her word for pumpkin. Very cute!

The crime in progress--Lily pulled Anna off of a pumpkin! I don't think she actually meant it maliciously--Hanna was taking pics of Anna sitting on a pumpkin and Anna wanted to get up, so this was Lily's attempt to keep Anna where Hanna wanted her--of course, Hanna was fine with Anna getting up, but try explaining that to a "helping" 2 year old.

Whenever Anna would fall down in the rough terrain of the pumpkin patch, Lily would help her up and hold her hand to walk along. Again, what a big helper, except that she walked a little too fast for Anna and so it only worked for a little while.

This was the pose Lily picked out!

Lily wanted her picture taken with the scarecrow because we saw it there when we were there before, but couldn't do the picture then. She likes scarecrows ever since they made one on Caillou.

I love this action shot!! Lily loves jumping off of things and having me or Bryan catch her. She has no fear!!

On the hayride back to the picnic area. I love the look she's giving me!

She wanted to take a picture up here, but wanted Anna up there as well--here she is saying "Cheese" to the camera--not a real smile at all....

...and here she is giving the camera the fakest smile ever!

Finally a real smile!

Anna on the tractor!