11 Months!!!!!!

Although I still don't believe it, Lilly turned 11 months old on Saturday! So, Lilly-bean..what have you been up to? I believe you are training to be some type of demolitionist. You love to take everything off of a shelf or out of a cabinet. This above picture could be taken any morning because this is what you do to entertain yourself in the bathroom while Mommy gets ready. Mommy discovered that it is easier to let you "explore" and get ready, then pick it all up before we leave the bathroom. Otherwise, you pull at Mommy's legs and want to "help" Mommy get ready...this, as it turns out, is not very helpful.

You are a clapping fool!! It is so funny. We say, "Yay Lilly" and you just giggle and clap. You are also very encouraging and clap for other people, too!

Just the other day you followed Mommy all over the house and clapped for her while she vacuumed. Sometimes it is nice to be so excitedly recognized for household chores!!!!

Just being cute--Lilly, you are just the cutest thing I know about! You crinkle your nose and make funny faces. You fake laugh when other people are laughing. Your daddy and I just can't get enough of you. We rock you before you go to sleep and while I am rocking you and you are cuddling to me, playing with my arm, right before you go to sleep...I think to myself, "this must be some of the greatest moments in life!" I think that a lot when I am spending time with you and your daddy...and soon Reid. The other day you said, "Bubba"--now this has to be coincidental because we have never called him that but it was still so sweet and cute.

You LOVE your paci's!! We put you down at night with one in your mouth and an extra in the crib. In the morning...you like to have them both. One in the mouth, one in the hand. We play hide the paci and you think that is very fun. You also try to share your paci with Mommy and Daddy and frequently try to shove them in our mouths. Silly girl! You like to play games...peek-a-boo, hiding toys, tickle monster, chase, etc. You are extremely interactive.

This is where I put you if I have to shower while you are not napping. You can't be trusted to roam around on your own unsupervised! You are into everything!!! So, you have your morning snack. You feed yourself puffs (and other finger foods) and eat ice through the mesh feeder. You LOVE ice! You also love mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, raviolis, crescent rolls, refried beans, certain kinds of macaroni (NOT the Kraft noodles) and cheese, and a couple other things. You do not like the texture of several foods...we are working on that.

You are a very social girl! You love other people. You get stir crazy in the house just like Mommy does. The above picture is from lunch with Great Grandma Berti. First, we went to the Golden Corral and you loved it because you could eat several different foods there. Second, you visited with every table around us and got very excited when someone new would sit down. Third, you "talked" to everyone. You always do...you are going to be friendly and chatty--just like your daddy. Haha.

You are kind of the center of attention. As in this picture...if you notice I can get you to look at the camera, but the adults in the picture--forget it! I worry about how you will handle sharing the spotlight with a baby brother, but you love other kids so much I think you will enjoy the company. Plus, you are just sooo sweet...I can't imagine you not liking him...and I figure you will still get a good amount of attention. We do kind of like you, you know. (c:

You also "play" with Tank...AKA chase and tackle Tank. We are really working on "being easy" right now. Tank is such a good dog though, he just lets you roll all over him and then calmly walks away...that is where the chasing begins. You are an animal lover of all sorts. You are just fascinated by them all. You are also trying to take first steps, but haven't managed to stay balanced yet (probably because you are on your tippy toes).

For your eleven month birthday, we decided to celebrate and let you have a cupcake. We are in the process of trying to find out which cake you will prefer at your birthday party and that takes actual field research folks!!! (Taste-testing, you know.) Here is a slide show of photos of Miss Priss enjoying the cupcake...so far, chocolate is a thumbs-up choice.

Yay for cupcakes!

Mmmmmm

You are not big on the icing...you did not appreciate it getting you messy.

Ate the cupcake, left the icing.

Messy, messy, messy.....

So it was bath time. You love bath time!

There is always more. I could type for days, but I think this gives a pretty good idea of what you like to do with your days! We love you so much sweet girl and can't believe you are going to be a year old soon. That seems so monumental! We couldn't imagine life without you and love you so very much...we pray for more time with you everyday and hope God gives us so many years to enjoy with you. It is so fun watching you grow and play and learn!

5 Years and Counting!!

On Friday, Matt and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! I can't believe it has been 5 years some days and some days I feel like we have been married longer. We laughed as we were talking about moments in our marriage and had such a hard time thinking of things before Lilly. Haha. How life has changed in just one year...much less since we got married 5 years ago. Anyway, for our 5 year anniversary we had planned on going back to Kauai where we honeymooned, but with all these babies around here----that just wasn't a possibility. So, we decided to head to Eureka Springs and stayed at the best BedandBreakfast . There is dessert waiting for you when you check in and they deliver breakfast to your room in the morning....at the time you choose!! It was the BEST food too. I forgot my camera so all of these pictures I borrowed from their website.

This is the suite we stayed in....notice the jacuzzi tub in the corner. I sat in the jacuzzi and watched an entire movie! Heaven on Earth...I really miss our big bath tub, but this made me appreciate and enjoy this one even more! Again, it was so nice. They have snacks and drinks that are all included set up for you too and there are also movies you can watch....like a two page list of movies to choose from.

This is the view of the outside of our suite. Matt and I got to Eureka early Friday evening and checked in. We ate the DELICIOUS dessert waiting for us (so delicious in fact that I bought the recipe book it was in), relaxed a little while, picked out a couple movies for later, and headed to dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant called Ermilio's--it was really good, too. We had to wait a little while so we went upstairs and they had all of these board games. While waiting we played Battle Ship, Connect Four, and Guess Who. Good times. We actually did have a lot of fun. Then, we headed back to the room and watched one of our favorite movies....Notting Hill. LOVE it. On Saturday, we got around, ate lunch, and headed back home where we had set up a couple's massage! Oh, how I love a massage!!!! It was so nice and relaxing. As soon as we were finished with the massage, we raced to meet up with our little Lilly for dinner!!!!! We had such a great time, but of course we missed our baby!

What was Lilly doing while we were off gallivanting around Eureka Springs?? She was spending some quality bonding time with DeDe!

They played and played and Lilly even got to learn how to do some of DeDe's physical therapy! Haha. I couldn't get the picture of her stretching the band as far as she could with her arms, but trust me--she was really getting a work out!

They had a great time together.

We are so blessed to have somebody to care for our sweet girl so we could spend some couple time together before we have yet another baby..haha. Matt, these have seriously been the best 5 years of my life and I couldn't ask for anyone better to spend my life with. I hope God gives us so many more years together and I love you so much!!! Happy Anniversary!

Too Cute!!

Okay, so we had a wonderful whirlwind weekend. Friday was Matt and I's 5 year anniversary. Saturday Lilly turned 11 months old (OMGosh). Then, Sunday was Reid's Baby Shower. What a weekend. Each one of those deserves it's own post!! So, tonight I am just going to post a couple of things that I custom ordered for Lilly and Reid that I got to see for the first time this weekend. They both turned out better than perfect!!!! First, I ordered these toy tins from WhimsyTin -she is sooo talented! I sent her pictures of Lilly's room and she matched it perfectly. The green zebra print at the top matches a rug in Lilly's room and the circles and colors match Lilly's bedding. This turned out sooo cute and I just love it. I will post a picture of it in her room. This is the front!

And, this is the back. Lilly has enjoyed taking the toys out of it and getting into it herself. Haha. She is really enjoying both hers and Reid's. Jamie--they are perfect....we can't tell you how much we LOVE them both!

This is Reid's. I thought his turned out super-amazing because she had to draw all of the animals! Again, I just sent a picture of Reid's bedding and said we were doing some zoo animals and this is what she came up with! AWESOME! This is the front.

And this is the back! LOVE it!!!

Then, I ordered Miss Priss a tutu and tees set with matching bows for two special events from APrincessCanPlayToo . The tutu goes with two tees. One has Lilly's name and a big One on it for her first birthday!!!! And, the other has "Reid's Big Sister" on it. I got this for the hospital, but then when I saw it I was like, "She HAS to wear this to the shower!!" This is our sweet girl from the back!

The front of the shirt. Although it is too stinking cute in this picture, pictures really don't do it justice!

A close up of Miss Thang and her big frilly bow. LOVE it!!

She loves it too!!

I believe she is talking about how cute she looks.

Isn't she just a doll? I know I am partial, but I am pretty sure she is just the best thing ever!! Amber, we LOVE the whole set!!! You did such a great job! Again, it is just perfect! I will post a picture of her birthday onesie this week too. I can't believe it is already time to buy her a birthday outfit!!!!!

Videos

This is a video of Lilly clapping. I tried to get her to wave too--and she thinks about it, but she ends up just clapping.

This is a short little video of Lilly with her toothbrush.

Who let the dog out??

Lilly did!! Yesterday, Lilly managed to let Tank out of his kennel...apparently she was ready to play. I was eating my cereal when Tank walked by...I did a double-take and Lilly was by his kennel with the door open...smiling really big and giggling.

Such a mess. She has also started clapping. I got it on video and will post it tomorrow (Thursday), but videos take a while to upload and I am ready to go to bed! On Monday she got her 10 month photos taken--I can't wait to see them. She had her hands in her mouth a lot (yes, still teething) so we will see if he was able to get any pictures of her without her hands shoved in her mouth. We went to the doctor to check on Reid today--everything looks great. I go back weekly now until he gets here! Time is flying during this pregnancy. We also got his crib in so hopefully this weekend after his baby shower (so excited!!) we can get his area all set up! I feel like I need to get ready for him to be here. This is a crazy busy week for us, but I should have plenty of time to get all nested and ready after this weekend.

Wild Weekend

Ok so "wild weekend" might be overselling it! On Friday afternoon, I called Lilly's Great Grandma Odie to see if she would be interested in fixing us breakfast Saturday morning. To my great delight, she did!! So, Saturday morning Lilly got to try GG's famous biscuits and gravy and boy did she LOVE them! Yummy! Lilly is also a "big girl" bather. She doesn't have any baby tubs during bath time now.

Man does she move all over the bath tub...and everywhere else for that matter.

On a funny/gross note. She got an early bath tonight because she decided to play with the water in the toilet! It was clean water....as clean as toilet water can be I guess. I was in her room and Matt was in the living room and she kept going back and forth down the hallway between us. So, I thought she was with him and he thought she was in the room with me and all of the sudden we realized she wasn't with either of us. Apparently on the way in between us, she saw the toilet seat up and decided it was time to play in the water. Nasty! We stripped her down and gave her a bath immediately. Silly girl. As I keep saying, she is into everything!!!

We bought this faucet cover this weekend to prevent Matt from going into cardiac arrest while she was in the bathtub. Any time she was in falling distance of the faucet he would get all tense and jumpy! The frog has worked out very nicely--love it!

As mentioned in the previous post, Lilly is teething. She has one tooth completely through and the other one is right under the gum. Well, she LOVES the electric toothbrush. She had Daddy's toothbrush for like 20 minutes both yesterday and today. For those of you without a 10 and a half month old...it takes something pretty special to keep attention for that long!

"This feels soooo good on my sore gums!"

She got my headbands out while we were getting ready this morning. So, daddy put one on her and she kept it on! She just played and played with the headband on! Such a cutie!!

Today we had lunch with our friend Roxane at Abuelos. We ran into a fellow blogger--Kelly from Kelly's Korner--if you remember about 6 months ago I asked for prayer for her little girl who was born and had to be in the NICU for a while...that is her. Her daughter Harper is doing great and she is really adorable! Anyway, they were seated at the table right behind us so Lilly and Harper had a little conversation. Small world!!!! After lunch, we went to Target to walk around for a little while. I think you can tell that Lilly enjoys a little shopping.

Those bottom teeth shining through and her hair is getting a little wild! It is growing in thick everywhere, but it only seems to be getting longer right on the sides. I think she is getting sideburns. Haha.

While at Target, we got Miss Priss her own electric toothbrush so we didn't have to share germs anymore. It kept her entertained all throughout Target! Plus, she has used it several times since we've been home. This was a good cheap investment.

All in all we had a great weekend! Lilly took her first toy-assisted steps this weekend. She has a little shopping cart and she went all over the living room walking behind and holding on to the shopping cart. She also held onto her walker and took a few steps behind it in the kitchen today too!