Papa!

Lydia Jane loves my Papa and he loves her. Whenever we go visit I hear an almost constant stream of "Papa? Papa. Papa!" She loves my grandpas wife Nana too but she hasn't gotten around to learning "Nana" yet. We are definitely grateful for her as well! My Papa is very much a workaholic even at 75+ and in recent months she has really worked hard to get him to slow down and enjoy his family. I think we have all benefited from his new slightly relaxed way of life. :)


Reading books with Papa. I just love how LJ is sitting in this one!


My grandpa is very territorial about his chair. No one sits in that chair when he is around but him. And now Lydia Jane. :). She made herself right at home.


LJ not cooperating for a picture with Papa and Nana.


Loving the icecream Papa bought just for her. I love this because Papa used to give us little dove miniatures when we were small. We called them "things like Papa eats."

Jesus!

Lydia Jane is now at the age where she actively looks at pictures around her and points out who is in them. Nothing like your 18 month old excidedly saying "mommy!" all over the house to make you realize how many pictures of yourself there are in your home. :) Right now she can recognize Cory, me and of course "baby" in pretty much any photo.
She has a couple pictures of Jesus in her room, neither one in a super prominent place because I am super slack about hanging pictures. One of them is the typical Jesus picture you see everywhere where he is looking straight forward. We have talked about the picture a few times and who Jesus is but she never seemed all that interested so I didn't push it. Her scripture story book is one of her favorites and she gets the concept of prayer so I felt like we were doing pretty well for an eighteen month old. About a week ago when she saw the picture of Jesus in her room she pointed to it and excitedly said "Jesus!"'with the biggest grin on her face. I'll be honest, it made me tear up a little. But that was just the beginning. At church on Sunday, at my friends house, anywhere she sees any picture of Jesus in profile, facing forward, it doesn't matter she now points and excitedly says "Jesus!" I will be the first to admit that it is not all my doing, in fact very little is probably. I am so very grateful for this little girl who has such a wonderful spirit and recognizes her Savior with love and joy. We truly are blessed to have her as part of our family!

18 Months!

It is so crazy to me that my baby is a year and half old!  I am still in denial and counting in months.  Haha. She is such a fun little girl and full
of energy!  Being able to see her learn new things every day is one of the biggest blessings of my life.  

Exhibits of Cuteness A & B:

Right now, babies and animals are her biggest obsessions.  She loves giving her babies
kisses, feeding them bottles, pushing them around in a stroller and then body slamming them.  What can I say?  She is a fickle little thing! J  She loves to point out animals and then make
their sound.  Sometimes she will just randomly start meowing over and over and over.
So weird but also funny.  Asking her what the bunny says is one of my favorite things because she just scrunched up her nose like bunnies do.  Cory's mom was very proud of teaching her to stick her tongue in and out like a lizard a few weeks ago.  LJ now loves giving "lizard kisses."  Whether we love getting them is another story...they are a bit wet.

She folds her arms and says “amen’ when we say family prayer most of the time.  About a month ago we

watched a missionary broadcast at home and the prayer was a little on the long side.  Lydia Jane folded her arms at the beginning, started mumbling to herself and then said “amen” really loudly.  She then did it again.  And again.  Finally she gave up and ran off all while the poor missionary was still saying his prayer.  Apparently she favors the short and sweet variety.

She is a great eater and will eat almost anything, especially fresh fruits and vegetables.  Up until a week or so ago, all fruits and vegetables were apples.  Now she says “pato” for tomato and “peach.”  Those are the two things we got at the farmer’s market last weekend so we will see what she learns this coming week! :)

Cory and I have been promoted from “MaMa” and “DaDa” to “Mommy” and “Daddy.”  She will still call us “MaMa” and “DaDa” if she is stressed or one of us has left the room and she wants us back.  She definitely has the art of the chant down.  Last weekend we went to Chick Fil A to pick up some desserts and left Cory at home cutting the grass.  The entire way there I heard “DaDa, DaDa, DaDa” at gradually increasing volume.  I also hear this for “pato” ”babies” and “puppy.”  That is what I call chanting from the heart.  (Anyone else seen the proposal 20 times like me???)

I must call for Cory frequently because Lydia Jane has now started wandering around the house calling for “Ory.”  When you call for her though, she doesn't make a sound.  She loves to hide in her closet or behind doors and then burst out laughing when we “find” her.

The temper tantrums have already begun.  She will crinkle up her brow, swing her arms down
and even throw herself on the floor if things are really serious.  I haven’t begun to feel badly for laughing
when this happens yet.  The drama of a pouty little girl is just something else.  

My cousins (who are now 15 and 11) cleaned out all their play room recently and gave Lydia Jane a lot of their little girl things.  She absolutely loves the soft Dora chair and strawberry shortcake sleeping bag!  They may even top the two sets of twin babies! The chair folds out into a lounger that conveniently doubles as a wrestling mat for body slamming babies.

There are just so many things to love about our little girl!  I am going to try and get better about writing
them down more often than once every 6 months or more!

Can You Tell???

That I have a toddler on my hands?!  I have virtually disappeared from my blog.  Get it?  Virtually!  Because it's online?  Okay, moving on... Lydia Jane turned one on January 26th and we had a wonderful time celebrating.  She truly is the light or our life! I just wanted to post a few quick stats and highlights before I don't remember them!  She is growing and learning so quickly it is getting hard for me to pinpoint exactly when she learned to do this or that.  It is so much fun!  But on to the stats!
Height: 31in (97%)
Weight: 20lbs 9oz (50%)
Head: 18in (75%)
She can still wear a lot of her nine months clothes but they are starting to get a little short.  The 12 months are long enough but too small in the waist sometimes.  So begins our struggle with clothes fitting the right way!
Things she loves to eat:
Cheese (she literally gobbles it up!)
Any fresh fruit
Green beans (the frozen kind from whole foods, heated with salt.)
Things she loves to say:
 "Uh oh"  "Bye Bye" "Tank yoo" "DaDa" "Pup pup"
We can ask her "What does the pup pup say?" and she responds "woof woof." My mom is very proud to have taught her this.
Since turning one she can now also say:
"ma ma" (yay!) nigh nigh (night night) and will respond with "Meow" when asked what the kitty says.
Things she loves to do:
Dance (to any music she hears: us singing, tv show intros, whatever)
Read(She has started bringing books to us, then turning around and sitting in our lap. She is the cutest!)
Give kisses (she will give a kiss if you ask her and she is in the mood. I LOVE it!)
Cuddle
Ride in her wagon
Take things out of boxes and put them back in
Put her basketball in the goal (and clap for herself afterward)
Wave (like a princess)
Chase mommy and daddy (while laughing hysterically
Eat things off the floor she spots with her eagle eyes (This one may drive me a little nuts.  At least now she is already spitting it out for me when I walk toward her now instead of making me retrieve it from her tightly shut jaws.)
Things she loves to read:
Where is Baby's Belly Button? (10 times a day)
Any of her books that make animal noises
It's Time for Christmas! (A Duck and Goose book, she loves pointing to the duck and goose)
The card she got from my grandparents for her 1st birthday is a new favorite as well
Things she loves to play with:
Cookie jar
all her babies (she got some pretend bottles and a new baby for her birthday and she loves feeding them both to her babies and herself)
Little people princess dolls
Belle baby
picnic basket

We just love this little girl to pieces and are having so much fun watching her learn and grow!

Whew!

Every Friday Lydia Jane and I go shopping.  I don't always need to buy something but the only way I get to see this adorable sight on Friday's is to strap her in the car seat and go for a drive.  If that drive just happens to take us to Target, what can I do? :)
Before going on a drive, I try pretty much everything to get her to sleep.  We rock, sing, nurse and I even try to lay down with her to sleep.  Nothing doing.  She starts to drift off and then pops up ready to go.  For five minutes.  Then she is back to the yawning, eye rubbing, tired little girl I was trying to put to sleep five minutes before.  It may make me a little crazy.  Top that off with a little, or a lot, of co-sleeping (which seems very nice in theory but my back is beginning to hate me) and I think I have finally had enough.  This "I'll do whatever works as long as she will just sleep" approach ends now.  Mommy is getting tough and sleep training.  Someone has got to take charge here and I just hope it's me! :)

When not refusing to sleep, Lydia Jane is busy being the cutest baby ever as you can see in exhibits A and B. :)

A baby in fake glasses! Oh, the hilarity!

Paci smile!

Baby's First Tailgate

My family had been asking us to come tailgate for a USC game ever since the start of the season. I finally said we would come to the Georgia game not realizing that was conference weekend. We only missed one session but it is still not my favorite. Despite that, we had a really great time!  Lydia Jane was wonderful and let everyone hold her.  It helped that all the ladies had on nice shiny necklaces she loves to play with.  There was fantastic food, of course.  My family made Cory and I both our favorites, my great aunts hot dog chili for Cory and cowboy caviar for me.  It was so thoughtful and yummy! The majority of my family went into the game and we stayed to watch the first quarter in the Coop with my Grandad, great aunt Bob, Nance and Lois.  It was so nice to be able to chat with them all and cheer for the gamecocks during one of the best quarters of football I have seen ever. We left at the end of the first quarter because it was Lydia Jane's bed time and I don't like keeping her out any later than 8:30 if I can help it.  As we were walking out of the Coop lot to our car, I noticed an obviously intoxicated man in his 20's noticing us.  He was looking really hard at Cory, who had Lydia Jane in her Ergo baby carrier (which we LOVE by the way) and said in an amazed voice, "I know I see a baby right now."  Cory just laughed and said "yep."  The guy then starts following us exclaiming "You've got a baby in a papoose!" Again, Cory with the laugh and "yep."  By this time I am mental preparing to stab this guy with my car keys if necessary. I do not trust the inebriated.  Drunk guy then says "You're so cool, man. *pause* People are stupid. *pause* I'm not even half as cool as you guys.  You've got a papoose and hot baby."  I'm sort of flabbergasted by the hot baby remark and drunk guy seems to have gotten distracted by something shiny or remembered what he had been doing before spotting the hot papoose baby and wanders off.  Cory and I keep walking quickly away and after a couple of minutes I ask Cory "Did that just guy just say we have a hot baby?"  to which he replies "I think so. I was trying to figure out how I could quickly get her out of this thing to you and take him down if I had to."  We have reached the parking lot where we parked and being wandering around trying to remember exactly where our car is.  We encounter a police officer who at first thinks we are casing the joint and then sees our baby and offers to help us find the car with his spotlight.  ha!  He stayed with us while we loaded up which I honestly appreciated because I was starting to feel like we were the only "normal" people around.  We made it home in no time and watched the rest of game from the comfort of our couch which I have begun to vastly prefer over out and about with the crazies!

Some pictures from our day:

Official Mom Status

The Bad News
After putting Lydia Jane to bed last night, I realized I had forgotten to feed her dinner.  I nursed her, but she also has a jar of baby food that I did not give her.  Yes, I know.  I'm Mom of the Year.  She woke up at 10 though and happily ate her late dinner.

The Worse News
Because of teething, she has lots of gunk running everywhere: out her nose, on her face, down her throat. It's pretty gross but not as gross as the hacking cough she had when she woke up to eat.

The Worst News  
The coughing continued throughout her nursing and eventually was so bad she threw up.  ALL. OVER. ME. That jar of baby food?  Yep, that was now in my lap.

Mommy is not amused after being covered in throw up...

The Good News
While I was cleaning myself up, Cory told Lydia Jane "Look at your Mommy, she's a real mom now." Yay me!?

The Better News
After the throwing up episode, her cough got a lot better.  We turned on the humidifier, read some books and she was able to nurse and fall asleep without coughing.

The Best News
This sweet girls is feeling much better today and is the cutest sleeper ever!  Also, still completely lovable despite her tendency to spit up\rub snot\throw up ect. on me. :)