Christmas Trees and Horses

Today we went to Ellijay to get our Christmas tree. After we picked our tree Lily and I walked down the road to a fence where 2 horses were being kept. They were way on the other side of the field but when I whistled they came right over. I was pretty surprised since they had a full roll of hay and we had nothing for them. But, Lily was so tickled when they started heading our way. I really really wasn't expecting one of the horses to canter across the field at us! I ripped up some long grass to feed them and Lily really enjoyed watching their mouths/lips move. She did not want to touch them though, and I was fine with that. They did not seem to be the most affectionate of horses so I did not want her touching them anyway. (Turns out- I found out later that one of them bit some man's finger off.) Fortunately I have more experience with horses than the average joe so I knew what NOT to do. But anyway, Lily had so much fun with them coming up to see her and sniff her clothes and such. Not that you are able to tell from the video.... :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lily and her cousin Hazen

Twinkle Toes

Last weekend Lily expressed an interest in my painted toenails. I asked her if she wanted pink toes and she said yes, so off we went to get the polish.
This was her first time at having her toenails painted. She was very very pleased with herself. It has thrown Michael and I off though because every time we see them out of the corner of our eyes we think she is bleeding.
She is getting to be such a big girl. Her vocabulary is expanding every day. Her latest funny words are "gistusting" (disgusting) and "delicious", both of which she picked up from Max & Ruby. She understands their meaning though. She uses them correctly.

Trunk N Treat

Today we took Lily to Trunk N Treat at her grandparents' church. She had a great time! She especially liked throwing/dropping the beanbags in the hole. She was one of the only kids there who were dressed for the weather. I felt really sorry for some of them, especially the little ones. What parent thinks its ok to put their kid in a cheapo nylon/polyester costume without anything under it when its 53 degrees and windy is an idiot. There was one little 3ish year old girl in a pink princess dress that looked absolutely frozen. Lily, on the other hand was completely toasty in her fleece butterfly outfit. I had worried she would be too hot but it was perfect for today's weather. She enjoyed "collecting" candy, although she doesn't eat any of it. Memaw and Pepaw brought her some apple crispers, raisins, and cracker sticks though so she had stuff to snack on.

Pumpkin Hunting 2009

We made another trip to Burt's Pumpkin Farm this year to pick a pumpkin or two. Lily had a great time running between the rows of pumpkins and attempting to lift many.
See album 2 for pictures.

Zoo Atlanta

Today was Educator Appreciation Day at Zoo Atlanta so we decided to take advantage of the price break and take Lily for the first time. We had planned on waiting till she was a little older, but, a free ticket is a free ticket.
First mistake, waiting until noon to go.
Second mistake, not taking the stroller in. That was an awful lot of walking for someone her size. And 27 lbs is awfully heavy to carry when it is as warm as it was today. I took some pictures but not as many as I would have liked. It was fairly crowded and hard to get in a position to get her and the animals in a shot.
Some things Lily thought was funny...the Orangutans... a young one was swinging about and waiting to pounce on its' very large dad. He would swing himself over the edge of a platform and smack his dad and then pull his hair. Then the dad would smack the kid back. Lily laughed a lot at that.
She liked the pandas which were very visable and close up in the glassed in areas. One was eating bamboo and she kept saying "he's eating sticks!" :) (video below)
She also like the lemurs and their antics. They jumped and hung upside down while we were there and she enjoyed watching them.
In the reptile house she was very impressed with the snakes and turtles and laughed at the poison-dart tree frogs (they were hopping).
We figured that she would be more taken with the elephants and giraffes but only one elephant was out in the enclosure and it was farther away than what she would have liked I think. Same with the giraffes and zebras- too far away.
We went into the petting zoo to see the goats and sheep. There were some massively pregnant goats that I felt sorry for. Lily was just not too sure what to think about them. They were big too so I can understand being a bit intimidated by them at her size.

A Happy 2nd Birthday...

Saturday, September 5th we had a family cookout up at Amicalola Falls State Park. Max & Ruby were the main decor, even though you can't buy any of their stuff in the US (except videos). So, Mommy worked some magic with the overhead projector at school and made some large cut outs for decoration. I also made a cake that featured Max and Ruby's house.

We cooked out, watched Lily open presents and had cake. Lily got in the creek afterwards which she really enjoyed even though it was extremely cold water.

She seemed to finally "get" present opening this year. Although, she drove Daddy crazy by tearing off teeny bits at a time. :) She oooo'd and ahhhh'd over the tissue paper and the final reveal of the gifts. That was pretty funny.

Her favorite gift this year seems to be the Fisher Price pretend camera that Hannah and Jimmy got her. She stopped after each gift to "take a picture" of the item. :)

Sunday we went to Toys R Us to pick up some furniture for the My First Dollhouse. We also ended up getting an expansion pack for her Thomas The Train set. That stuff NEVER goes on sale so we took advantage of the surprising find.

Today, her actual birthday, has been pretty low key. We took her out to lunch where she ended the meal by petting a lobster (after much coaxing). Other than that, not much has been going on. Just lots of playing with her new toys and scooting around on her giant ladybug.

All of the pictures that I have so far are in Album 2. Jimmy took a bunch and when I get them I will post them as well.

There is another kid who comes into the picture but I kept recording to watch Lily's reaction. :)

Birthday post to come soon!

5 days later...

She has suddenly decided "6" is ok to say. Now we can count 1-10 in its entirety.

6 is the loneliest number....

Lily can count to 10 now but she never says "6". Ever. I have tried to get her on camera counting but she won't do it if she knows the camera is out. So, the picture on this is rather pointless since I am hiding it behind stuff on the table... but its cute to listen to. Notice how long she can draw out the Niiiiiiiiinnnnne. :) I don't know if it really that impressive that she can alternate numbers or not, but as her mother I think so.
She can identify triangles, stars, hearts, circles, and squares with her shape toys/puzzles and will say ABCD. When you sing the ABCs she looks like she wants to sing along but all the pieces just aren't connecting yet. Soon. Her colors are coming along. She will id some of them correctly sometimes but not consistently.
She likes for us to sing "enkle star" (Twinkle Twinkle) and "spider" (EtsyBitsy). I recently downloaded a few songs off of itunes that I remember fondly from being very young and she smiles when she hears them in the car. (6 Little Ducks, The Little White Duck- Burl Ives sings a great version)
Not too shabby for a 23 month old. We are approaching 2 so fast! I cannot believe she is already this big. It so funny to hear the next thing that comes out of her mouth. Its in the last blog post too, but last weekend when she reached up and tickled the sky was just great. Then there are other moments when we can't do much else than shake our head. While I was changing clothes in the bath house area at Fort Yargo's swimming beach she found a deep puddle from the shower run off.... The next thing I heard was a series of smacking splash noises.... the t-shoes had to go in the washer that night. She jumped and jumped and jumped in the puddle. She was having a good time though and I could change clothes in peace so it wasn't so bad. (And no, the water was not nasty.)

Enjoy the video...

Oh, and I uploaded the Fort Yargo pictures into album2.

Trip up to Fort Yargo State Park

The last weekend of freedom we took an afternoon trip up to Winder to Fort Yargo State Park. We cooked out, threw pinecones, and went swimming. Lily enjoyed the still water that she could walk into and out of, and of course the sand.

At one point while we were eating she looked up at the sky and said "sky" and then she reached up with her fingers and said "tickle tickle sky". It was so cute and funny. I tried to get it on video in case she repeated herself, but of course she did not.

Everyone still has all fingers...

Today was Lily's first visit with a dentist. I took her to a pediatric dentist that a coworker had suggested. She had a great time till we went back to the cleaning area. The lady asked if I thought Lily would let her "tickle" her teeth. I told her I highly doubted it unless she had a pretty amazing trick up her sleeve. Sure enough, Lily was having none of it. So we changed plans to option #2 which is what they do with most toddlers. She sat in my lap facing me and lay her head back on the dentist's legs. He, Dr. BonJovi (no I am not kidding), brushed her teeth well with flouride stuff and then looked them over. No problems noted, aside from the crying toddler laying in his lap (which is the norm I was told). She got to pick a sticker, a prize, and a balloon as we left. She did pretty well I guess. As well as I figured she would do anyway...

This is what childhood should look like...

Yesterday evening we met up with my mom (birthday 7/21), Hannah and Jimmy (birthday 7/23) and celebrated the big birthday week - Michael (7/22)- with a cookout at Amicalola Falls State Park.

Lily and I played in the creek while charcoal got ready and food was prepared. She had a perfect spot to throw rocks and splash around. The temperature was perfect with a slight breeze and few bugs. She spent at least an hour in the water, which was pretty chilly. I had to drag her out though.

I tried to take pictures without the flash but it was so dim by that time of the evening it was needed. So, it may appear that she is playing in the dark, but she wasn't...

More pictures in album #2.

Cousins

This is from our recent visit with David, Britta and Hazen. I finally got around to condensing it for the web. Lily was very taken with Hazen's little feet and belly button...

4th of July with a bang...or "bling" rather....

This year we went camping up near Franklin, NC with Hannah and Jimmy. My brother recommended a campground that he had stayed at before while surveying. All of this coincided with a visit from my Aunt and Uncle from Huntsville, AL who were visiting with David and Britta to meet Hazen. So, we all met up in Dillsboro for dinner and visiting late into the night (at least by some people's standards).Although the campsite/campground was not exactly what we had expected, it was still a nice quiet break from things down here. Lily and I stomped around in the river some and plopped rocks. Michael got the giant tent put up, which wasn't so giant with an airbed in it. I have discovered that camping is worlds better with an airbed- UNLESS it is about 50 degrees. In which case, the air IN the airbed is that cold as well. Even with a down comforter (yes I know, some camper I have ended up being) I was still chilly. I was sharing the comforter/mattress with Lily so I couldn't very well roll up like a burrito, which is what I wanted to do. Lily had her fleece jammies so she was ahead of the game.

Anyway, she was up until about 11pm Friday night, visiting and running us ragged at the hotel Aunt Janie and Uncle John were staying at on the river in Dillsboro. She passed out

in the car on the way back to Franklin. Fortunately we were able to get her dressed for bed without waking her. She looked completely unconscious though so I am not sure she would have woken up anyway. I wanted to take a picture of her but I knew the flash would wake

her for sure. We figured she would sleep pretty late considering her late night. Oh no.... 7:30am she was up... we had a hard time getting going, especially with the cold.

She ate a banana and sat around in the tent for awhile, poking into things.

Michael and I enjoyed speculating on

what retirement in a "retirement RV village" was like...we soon found out. By 8am the retirees' coffee had kicked in and they were up and about shrill-ly calling out

"GOOOOOD MORNING!" and "HAPPY FOURTH!" to one another as they busied about their RVs decorating and getting ready for the big "parade" later in the morning.

We walked down to make sure Hannah and Jimmy, who were located in a much more scenic area, were awake to enjoy it all too.

Later in the morning Lily and I watched the "parade" go around the gravel road that snakes through the campground. It consisted of a golf cart with the 2 Grand Marshalls, who no joke were wrapped in star garland. Following the gold cart were about a dozen walking "seniors" and 2 "hover-round" chairs (also decorated). All of these revelers were banging pots and pans, wind chimes, bike horns, whistles, and other loud items. Several had

their little purse dogs with them. It was quite a sight to see. Lily was just not sure what to make of it. She stared as it went by, then walked out onto the gravel to watch it go down the hill and around the bend.

After eating a bite, we decided to try to find a scenic area out near Highlands. I knew of a particular place that is just gorgeous but it turns out it was closed for updating the parking area, stairs, and walkways. So we ended up pulling over to see about a trail that went off into the woods. Jimmy and Hannah went to size up the situation....or so Hannah thought.

While on this mini-hike Jimmy proposed and Hannah came back sporting a lovely ring on her left hand.

After all of that commotion we went into Highlands for pizza. Highlands is very very different from the way I remember it 10-12 years ago. None of us had a high enough income to park along the main parking area....ha. It was pretty snooty.

We spent the rest of the day hanging around at the campground with David, Britta, and Hazen. After dinner we left and headed home. Lily had pretty much had it by that point, and so had we. She lasted about 4 miles and was out for the night.

Fortunately for us, I had thought to bring a 2nd set of jammies to put her in for the ride home. So, straight from the carseat to the crib once we were back at home.

Please go to album #2 for all the pictures we took.

Father's Day 2009

Howdy to all...Today we drove up to Fannin County to see my Dad and spend the afternoon with him. We decided to go swimming down on the Taccoa River. My siblings and I grew up playing on the banks and rocks of that river (along with the shores of Lake Blue Ridge) so it was nice to take my little Lily to a place we enjoyed so much as kids. She did not get quite as much out of it as we did back then, but she's young yet.

We picked up a life vest for her since it IS the river and all. You just never know what can happen so we felt it best to be on the safe side of course.
She had a really good time glopping her feet in the sandy mud at the bank and plopping rocks down into the water a few feet out. She fell over a few times but, thats what the vest was for! Only one scary moment when she took off out from the bank and got past watchful eyes before we realized what she was doing and then launched herself out into deeper water to follow me and her Uncle Adrian who were swimming across to the other side. She got a mouthful or two of water but she was ok.

You may notice in other pictures/videos that I neglected to put a swim diaper on her- she has not gained a massive amount of weight in the bottom- its just absorbent gel doing its job. Actually, it started to look as though her bathing suit was stretching out badly, so I took it off after a little while!

*see album 2 for photos

Happy Father's Day to all the dads and dad-like folks out there....

Gymboree videos

As mentioned before, Lily is doing Gymboree this summer and although I did not have my film crew (daddy) with me today, I took some quick videos after class was over. Sorry for the odd shots at times. Its hard to "spot" for a toddler and keep the camera pointed in the right direction.

On the 2nd video, you will notice that she is stepping on the big toe of her opposite foot...she tells me, "It's stuck!" :) I thought it was funny. She also frequently tells me "careful!" (wonder who she has heard that from). Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds lately and sometimes will repeat a whole sentence that we have just said which serves as a warning to us!

Also, on a different note, I have let some of you know but I will let everyone know that it turns out I will be going to court at the end of June. The offer that I received this week was greatly lacking- about a tenth of what should have been offered.

Water water everywhere...

Lily LOVES water. We started by getting her a water table to play in but after watching her dump buckets of water on herself from it, we decided to go with a big girl pool. That may have been a bit much since she really just gets in and gets back out, with some splashing in between.

*Pictures in album 2.

An elephant in the room...

Michael does a great elephant impression that has always entertained Lily. Now she tries to mimic him but just does not have the lung power to put behind her lips.  So, it just comes out as...well, you will see. :)

Planting flowers

Potting soil was fun this morning.... She did a good job, although when we were done she wanted to move all the dirt BACK.

Hazen Oren Marine...

New nephew!

Say Hello to H.O.M.

We don't know his name yet, but those are his initials...we'll know the rest this weekend.

Born- 4/29

10:15 pm

7 lbs, 3 oz

Tunnels and tents...

Today I went to a large consignment sale and found this tent and tunnels for Lily to play in this summer. For now, we will play with it in the living room on rainy days.

Forks and Sandboxes

This post is a conglomeration of various items. Lily has (finally) been getting interested in using a fork. Up until now she has been perfectly content to use her hands for everything. I have not pushed it though and now she seems to be enjoying stabbing at food. We act impressed and wow'ed when she does it and I think that also helps. We are not making much progress with using a real cup, but honestly, I don't care. She won't go to Kindergarten using a sippy cup I promise.

We have gotten a sandbox for her this past week and she is enjoying being able to dig in something. Unfortunately it has been raining all weekend so we have not been able to get in it in a few days... maybe Tuesday.

Not much else is going on here. School has been more stressful lately due to layoffs for next year. My county notified about 100 teachers that they would not have a position next year. So far, I am in the clear... but I don't know that it is over yet. The county still has not decided about pay cuts on top of the layoffs. Things are going to get worse before they get better in the field of teaching/education. When your job/pay depends on the tax digest, forclosures and families moving away cause major problems. Still nothing for Michael...

I can't get the sandbox video to load so I will have to try it separately later.

Finally!

  

 Finally, on March 1st, we get some snow! Better late than never... As of 4:30pm we have a good 3 inches in our yard. I am assuming we are not going to school tomorrow since there is slush on the road and it is supposed to freeze solid tonight at 23 degrees. There are more pictures in album #2 and I will upload some more tomorrow I imagine...

I had to go to Kroger around 1:00 this afternoon and was not too surprised to find that people in Gwinnett county do not know that you are supposed to turn on your lights when it is snowing. Idiots.

Let's Go Fly a Kite....

Sunday afternoon we decided to take our new kite up to the park and let Lily see it fly. She was not enormously impressed, but would watch it for a little while. Mostly she liked running to it and staring at it when it fell to the ground.

The funny part of the experience was with the "chicken legs". As it was flying around I commented to Michael how odd it was that it had plastic things hanging down under it that looked just like floppy chicken legs. He agreed and we laughed about it. Then as it swooped around it looked more like a bird of prey about to swoop down and grab one of us. All of which was funny considering it was a nonthreatening looking butterfly. After it fell to the ground I went over and looked more closely to discover that it was actually the TAILS that were folded up and rubberbanded that had been looked over when we assembled it. HA 

There are more pictures in album #2.

Belly button....

Big girl picture

Doesn't she look like a "big girl" in this picture? :( Where is the baby going? 

Different things...

Today we drove up to Gainesville to meet up with my mom, sister, brother and sister in law. We went out to lunch together and got to visit as one big group. The three of us (siblings) have not been together at one time since Thanksgiving of last year at my mom's house. David and his wife, Britta, are expecting a baby at the beginning of May. They are waiting to find out what it is though so we will all have to live with the suspense of it. If it is a girl, they will be set on clothes.

Not much else is going on on the moment. School has started back, and with it, the early morning drives north to Hall Co. Lily is doing or saying something new almost every day it seems. Her sleeping is FINALLY getting back to normal. All of the breathing treatment medications had really interrupted her sleep- and therefore- our sleep.

As you can see in the photos in album #2 (January stuff) she loves her books. It is a nightly ritual now. She will pull out all her books and sit wallowing in them while she flips pages. Her favorites are the "peek-a-boo" books, animal books, and books that have pictures of stuff in them, foods, toys, cars, animals, clothes...

Below is a video clip of Lily "roaring" like a lion. Daddy taught her that.

Smile, its 2009!

I cannot believe this is the same baby girl who made her web debut a year ago. I looked back and saw her photo from New Years Eve last year and was so surprised. Below is a video of her showing off some of her words. Her vocabulary has been growing almost daily the past week or two. Sometimes the word "sticks" and sometimes its just repeating what we tell her it is but she sure is trying... Earlier in the week she repeated "yellow" and we are working on associating it with the color. She also has learned "hush" (for the dogs ) and is working on a hand full of others. Her list includes: mama, daddy, bad dog, doggie, puppy, wufwuf, kitty, meow, tree, hot, oww!, uh-oh, WOW, woah, eye, keys, mine, itsy (for itsy bitsy spider), baby, awww, nightnight, ball, yellow, bye, hey, "boobahs" (I'll let you figure that one out), belly, juice, cheese, apple, banana and "all done". Thats all I can think of offhand. 

She has her own little variations of her way of saying train, "Thomas" (the train), milk, teeth, bottle, shoes, flower, book and (believe it or not), "touch down".