Post overload!

With Christmas, Lilly's Birthday, and the New year right around the corner I am trying to catch up on my blogging now. We are ready for Christmas! All presents have been bought and wrapped. The only thing left to do is help Santa put together a large give Christmas Eve. We have been to the lights on the river at Saluda Shoals. Lilly really enjoyed this drive through light show and kept asking, "Daddy, How does it work?" We took her to the lights at the zoo which she enjoyed as well. I took her to the mall to see Santa. She sat on his lap for all of 30 seconds before deciding she didn't really like him and started crying. All out crying! Thank you to my wonderful friend Sarah for snapping a picture for me before the crying started! Now anytime she sees Santa in person she starts getting upset and says, "I don't like him!!". She does like to see him in books and on TV. She sat through the entire Polar Express movie and still talks about riding the train to see Santa Claus. I am really excited to see her reaction Christmas morning.

One another note... She regressed ALOT with potty training. If figured out the reason why though. My Mom keeps her 2 half days a week and has been keeping my Sister's baby sometimes, too. She sees that the baby gets lots of attention and gets her diaper changed alot... She wants to be a baby, too and have her diaper changed. She completely understands the concept and will even tell me that "pee pee" or "poo poo" is supposed to go in the potty. I gave her (and me) a break and started working with her again yesterday In the morning she was about 50/50, but from nap time on was perfect. Today, she has had 4 or 5 accidents. I will work on it some more tomorrow and hope she gets better. Wouldn't that be a nice Christmas present?!?

One more thing that has been going on in our lives...

Lilly was to become a big sister July 2012, but it turned out that it was not meant to be. We were excited to find out we were pregnant November 1st and had our first appointment scheduled, then Nov. 9th there was some light spotting, but the nurse wasn't, too concerned and just had me come in for blood work Thursday. I prayed that everything would turn out okay, but if it were not meant to be that it wouldn't be a drawn out process and I would have peace about it. Well, the morning of November 11th I was sure it was not meant to be, but kept my appointment for Sat. to do another round of blood work. I took it easy over the weekend and then finally Monday afternoon I got the call that my hcg levels were low and going down. Of course I was upset, but I had been praying about it and was able to get through it without any physical and minimal emotional pain. I know all is in God's hands and when the time is right he will bless us with another child. We will remain hopefull until then...

Oh BROTHER!

no... not another baby yet. A new Brother embroidery machine! My only one had been giving me trouble and really couldn't do what I wanted so instead of having it repaired I got one like I really wanted. I have had a lot of fun playing with it and i have only had it a couple of weeks! I am obssesed with sewing and crafts! I LOVE to make things. It would be even better if I could get some time together to set up a nice facebook page to sell some of the stuff I make... Here are some of the things I have made lately:

TeePee tent that folds up quick and easy and fits in a corner or closet!






Bows and the Outfit

Thanksgiving... delayed...

We had Brendan's family over for a very nice Thanksgiving lunch at our house this year. Everything was very good and Lilly enjoyed seeing her cousin. After we ate Lilly took a nap on the couch while Brendan's parents helped me set up the trees. when she woke up she was very hot so I took her temperature and of course she has a fever! This was the first time she has been sick and she was absolutely miserable! I took her to the Dr. Monday morning and she was tested for STREP, but it came back negative, but positive for a viral throat infection. We just had to wait it out, but by the next morning she was feeling much better. I was glad because we were both dying to get out of the house.

One positive about being stuck at the house was getting all the Christmas decorations up over Thanksgiving weekend. I did go out for some black Friday/ Thursday night shopping with my neighbor. We had lots of fun together and got some GREAT deals! Including a power wheels type car with the 12v battery that looks like a BMW for only $99 for Lilly's birthday! We went out about 9:30pm Thanksgiving night and did not get home until almost 5am! (Belk did not open until 3am and that was our last stop.) We had so much fun that we plan to do it again next year!

Lilly helping set her table... of course she got dressed before anyone came over.

Trick-or-Treat

Lilly has had fun this month! She was Cinderella for Halloween this year and she can even tell you that she is/was Cinderella. We took her to "Boo at the Zoo", a party for Mom's group at a church, The Saluda Shoals event, and of course trick or treating in our neighborhood. Once she learned what trick or treating was she was hooked! She still talks about trick or treating saying "I had fun trick or treating!" We walked around with our next door neighbors and left candy on the porch. I was suprised that the kids did not take too much candy because there was still some left when we were done. Of course we also carved a pumpkin and took Lilly to the SC State Fair. Once as a family and once with my Mom. When we went with my Mom my Dad met us there and we watched the elephant show (for the 3rd time) Lilly was so amazed by the elephants. My Dad got a picture for us with with elephant. Lilly was excited until right before they snapped the picture then she started getting a little nervous, but the picture still came out pretty good. It's not everyday you get to take a picture with an elephant and pet it...

Some of Lilly's favorite things:
Singing... she can sing about any song she hears a few times and loves to sing. Her favorites are "Jesus Loves Me" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"

The Wiggles... We watch Sprout most mornings while she is eating breakfast and I got her a DVD to watch in her play room. She especiall loves the rock a bye your bear song that they do and can sing it and do all the motions.

Babies! Especially her baby dolls. She talks to them just like she is a little Mommy and feeds them, rocks them, and puts them to bed. My Mom was keeping her and her baby cousin Tinsley this week and my Mom was rocking her to get her to sleep and Lilly said she wanted to rock, too. So my Mom was going to attempt to fit her in the chair too, but Lilly said "No!" and went and got her little rocking chair and started rocking her baby doll. She even put her baby to bed when she was done.

blocks... she can entertain herself with her mega bloks for a long time building "castles". This comes in very hand in the evenings if there is a show on we want to watch without her getting into trouble.

ABC's... She sings them all the time and can identify at least half of the letters now. She likes to watch "Super Why" because they do a lot with letters.

Cooking... pretend cooking of course. She doesn't even have to have anything buy her imagination to cook a waffle for someone and take it to them. So Santa Claus has ordered her a kitchen set that came in last week and some food that she can "cut" and put back together. I think she is going to love it!

Here are some pictures from this month:

Boo at the Zoo


Cinderella with "Cinderella's Mommy" (what Lilly said I was)


Lilly and her friend next door before Trick or Treating



Lilly modeling her new outfit I made her.

Overdue Updates

It has been over a month since I have updated! Lilly has been growing up so fast! Both in size and in smarts. She speaks in full sentences most of the time now and loves to sing. She can sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", "Jesus Loves Me", "ABC's", "Wheels on the Bus", "Patty Cake", and at least parts of a few others. She has even learned the hand motions for some of her songs. She still likes Barney, but she has also decided she likes some other shows just as much. Like "Calliou", "The Wiggles", and "Chloe's Closet". She says "Ninny!" when she sees Chloe because she looks like a cartoon version of herself and we told her she looks like Lilly. She can count to about 14 or 15 before all the numbers start sounding the same. A lot of times we call her little boss because she can be very bossy and will ask for exactly what she wants, when she wants it. Her little friend next door can be the same way, so it is funny when they try to boss each other around and it doesn't work. They do play really well together and my neighbor and I love to listen to their conversations with each other.

We have been trying out a new church for several weeks now. I went to a Mom's program at the church last year (and again starting this school year) so Lilly is familiar with the nursery rooms. That is the reason we started visiting this church over others. She cries when I drop her off, but when we pick her up she is playing and doesn't even realize we are there until we talk to her. This past Sunday her teacher told us we couldn't take Lilly. Of course she was only kidding and went on to say that Lilly was a mess! Lilly is probably one of the older kids in her class and she talks nonstop so I am sure they got an earful from her. When I was dropping her off in the nursery this past Thursday for the Mom's group she told me she had to go potty or actually "I need to go poo-poo". Which can also mean she has to pee, but she had just peed so I figured she really did have to go since she hadn't been yet that morning. So I went into her classroom with her to the little bathroom and she just tricked me! She knew that way I would stay with her longer.

We are still working on potty training... She has lots of days now where she only has 2 accidents and she is very capable of holding it when she wants to. Like when we are in the grocery store she will go before we start shopping and then again afterwards before we go home. We took her to the Greek festival Saturday and she didn't have a single accident while we were there. I took her to the potty about every hour to hour and a half and she held it between. When we are home is a whole different story. She is very inconsistant then. Sometimes she tells me and sometimes she will go use the potty by herself without even telling me. Brendan was shocked when the other night she walked over to her potty, lifted the lid, sat down, and peed! She does that all the time when I am there. I think he didn't really get that she knows exactly what to do, she is just not doing it every time. The worst is when she is getting tired. She puts no effort into using the potty then and actually refuses to sit on the potty only to have and accident 2 minutes later. She does keep dry some nights and during most all her naps now so I will just keep working with her...

My little artist loves to paint and color!


She was trying to put my make up on while I was getting ready, so I figured I would help... we went for an over the top Toddlers and Tiaras look. Haha!


At the USC scrimage practice before the season started.


Lilly looking like a big girl! Daddy had a hard time with this!

Tinsley Ava

My niece, Tinsley Ava was born last night around 9:45pm. My sister went to the hospital Thursday night and the Pitocin was started about 7am yesterday morning. Tinsley weighed 7 lbs and is 20 in. long. Mom and baby are healthy. We were there last night, but we left about 11pm because Lilly was past ready for bed and we didn't know how much longer it would be before they brought her back to the room. We did get to see her weighed and measured. We took Lilly to see her this morning. Lilly loved seeing Tinsley and talked nonstop about "baby". She didn't want anyone to hold Tinsley except for me and insisted on being right beside her. We did let her sit by Allison in the bed while Allison had Tinsley. Lilly cried and cried when anyone else held her, but eventually calmed down when she realized that we were going to let her sit in the bed with Tinsley. My Mom reached to pick Tinsley up and Lilly said, "NO! NO NOMA!" and pushed my Mom's arm away as hard as she could! When my Mom picked her up anyways she started crying so hard and saying, "I want my baby!". I had to walk her out in the hall and talk to her. The only way to get her to stop crying was to take her back to see "baby". She even sang "twinkle, twinkle little star" over and over to her without anyone telling her to! Looks like she will make a good Mother in the future. I can only imagine how she would act if it was her brother or sister!

Here are some pictures:

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