Dear Lydia,

Dear Lydia,
You are two years and two weeks old and you bring so much happiness to my little life. I love this age that you are at. I love when you take my hand and say "Mommy - play" when you want me to come play with you.

Today we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. (I love the way you say museum "moosm".) We hadn't explored the climbing area of the Rainforst yet, and I knew that you were going to love it. As soon as you realized that I was leading you to so many stairs you took off running and were so happy. There were a million kids there and I didn't want to lose you so I followed you through the entire thing. You'd look back to make sure I was coming, and hold my hand when you weren't sure how to get through a certain obstacle. We went up the stairs and down the slides again and again - and then you found the net pathways that lead around the ceiling area. You were easily the smallest one, but you absolutely loved climbing through the ropebridge/net pathways. You'd stand on the ledge and hold my hand before stepping off into the net and then when we climbed to the top I'd have to push your bottom up so that you could get up to the top. It was a little bit of hard work, but secretly I was loving every second! I loved that you were loving it so much, I loved being there with you, and I loved having the excuse to climb around in the nets as well. By the third time of climbing up all the net pathways - you didn't need me to hold your hand to get into the net and you didn't need me to push you up to the top. You'd figured out how to climb and pull yourself up. I was so impressed with you and would have gone around the nets a hundred more times if you'd wanted to. However, you'd been looking forward to playing in the water area at Noah's Ark (I even dressed you in a swimming suit under your clothes because you'd been talking about it all day "water 'gain?") so we headed out there. The water was turned off! I was so sad, but you just brushed it off and played in the dry pool bed and giggled everytime the waterfountain close by came on.

I decided to walk through the garden because I thought I remembered a little stream you could play in. As we were walking, you by my side, out of no where you giggled and said "Happy!" My heart almost burst. I asked "Are you happy, Lydia?" and you responded "Yesss."

I could have cried. It was the sweetest, most wonderful thing to hear your little voice identifying the happiness that you were feeling.

I thought about it for the rest of the time at the museum. I thought about it while I was feeding you dinner and while I was getting you ready for bed. I thought about it when I sang you your goodnight song and left you "reading" your books in your crib. And this is what I have to say.

You make me happy. 
I hope that I never neglect to tell you how happy you make me. I hope that I never get too busy to climb around with you on the nets, and never get so caught up in my own life that I forget to experience the joy of your life. Your happiness makes me happy.

This was such a sweet and special little moment today, and I knew that I would regret not taking the time to write it down. I love you sweet girl. Thank you for smiling so big and for loving life so much.

Love,
Your very happy Mommy.

Lydia's 2 Year Celebrations

We didn't do anything over-the-top for Lydia's birthday, but we couldn't let this special time pass without celebrating our darling little girl. Her birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, so we opted to do something super simple on the actual day and then a family party on Saturday.

The morning of her birthday started with David and I singing her Happy Birthday and throwing balloons into her bed. She loved it, and I'm so glad we decided to blow up the balloons last second (literally as we were on the way into the bedroom to get her up). It was a great start to the day.

David had to head to work, so it was just Lydia and I for the day. We went to her 2 year check-up, where she did really well - besides crying the entire time the nurse and doctor tried to touch her. We told the nurse that it was her birthday and she brought back a bouncy ball and some bubbles, and on our way out Lydia told me "Nurse, nice." It was sweet. She got her Hep A shot, so I took her to the farm and let her run around for an hour or so, in hopes that it would help her leg not be so sore. (I really think it helped - it didn't seem to bother her very much.) When Daddy got home that night, we had some yummy dinner and then cupcakes for each of us. For weeks, when you'd ask Lydia what she was going to do for her Birthday - she would say "Cake!" She was so excited about her cupcake and she savored every bite. I seriously about died with how cute she was as she tried to blow out her candles, she didn't really get much air going - but she tried her hardest! 

We just gave her a few small toys, some letters/numbers for her bathtub and a Little People Farm. She's so easy to please, and was so excited for her little foam letters/numbers. We went through every single one before opening up our farm. 

It was a wonderful little party, just the three of us. We went up to her room and sang her songs and read her as many books as she wanted before putting her to bed. I know she's little, but I hope that she felt really special on her birthday. It's hard to believe that she is two years old, but at the same time - she's learned so much and can do so many things that it's obvious she isn't my baby anymore. 

--

Saturday was our family party. David and I decided to make a farm cake for her birthday party. It kind of evolved from a basic in-the-pan-with-frosting-on-top cake to a two layer cake with a barn on top - but it was still super easy and turned out cuter than we could have even hoped!  

Lydia loved it! We know that she won't always want to have a farm cake for her birthday, but this year it was absolutely perfect for her. 

We told people that they could show up around 4, with dinner at 5, and a party at six. Amy showed up a little early and gave Lydia a little pre-party pedicure. Then when everyone arrived, we had dinner. (We just cooked up a massive pot of pasta and dumped alfredo sauce and chicken on top. Some salad,  watermelon, and french bread were the perfect sides. We are grateful for everyone who brought stuff to help out, we are so blessed!) 

Then it was party time. We had Lydia blow out her candles, then open presents, then had cake and ice cream while everyone watched her 2-year video. Lydia was SO sad when we took the cake away and it took her a minute to get into opening presents. She also wanted to stop and play with each one. There were a lot of "We can play with it later, what if you open this new present?"'s from us, and a lot of very sad "Okayyyyyy...."'s from Lydia. But she loved all of her presents and we all felt very loved.  

  

  

 

We were grateful to have so many family and friends there supporting and loving Lydia. I just uploaded the video that we made for her birthday. It is a darling recap of her second year. It's amazing how much she has grown in such a short time period. I know that I often get too sappy, and too mushy, when I write posts like these, but we really do love our Lydia. She is the sweetest, most loving, most forgiving little girl in the world and we adore her. We hope that she had a wonderful 2nd birthday! 

Lydia Elise: 23-24 Months

I can hardly believe it, but today this little girl turned two! 

The is the sweetest, smartest, little girl we know and we can't believe how lucky we are that she came into our lives two years ago. People talk about the "terrible two's", but in all honesty - this girl is so sweet and well behaved. (I'm not saying we don't have tantrums and tears, but she is so loving and happy that it all blows over fairly quickly.) We took her in for her two year checkup this morning and here are her stats: 

Weight: 25.4 lbs (33%)

Height: 34 in (65%) 

Head Circ: 47 in 

I don't actually know how accurate those measurements are, due to the fact that Lydia was screaming the whole time that the nurse was taking them. (I know that they are busy at the doctors office, but I wish they'd let us warm up a between rushing us back to a room and then poking and prodding Lydia. Even 30 seconds between getting to the room would give me enough time to get her used to the new environment. As it was, she cried the whole time until the nurse left and I could calm her down before the doctor came in.) It's interesting to compare her 24 month and 18 month stats! In height, she's gone from the 12th percentile to the 65th percentile, growing from 30.5 inches to 34 inches. In weight she stayed pretty close to the same percentile (32nd to 33rd), and only gained 4 lbs. Her head measured exactly the same (although, the tape broke when they were measuring her and they didn't take a new measurement - so who knows...). 

Other stats: Solidly in 24 month clothes. Size 4 diapers. She is wearing size 6 shoes that are slightly too big for her, but her size 5's have started getting a little too small. 

I love this girl and can't believe how big she is. Here are some things that I want to remember about this month: 

--We estimate that she can say at least 200 words. It's amazing. At the beginning of the month, we figured she was between 50-100, and now she is probably closer to 250 than anything else. That sounds like SO many words, but it's amazing how many things she knows. Even if you just count all the animals that she can name - simple ones like dog, cat, horse, pig etc... and then all the animals on her world map: panda bear, alligator, elephant, moose, whale, kangaroo, etc... and then all the ones from her books: beaver, rhino, hippo, lion, mouse, etc... She probably knows at least 75 animal names alone. She says please, thank you, and sorry on a regular basis. She knows everyone in our family's names (which is a lot of people). She can communicate exactly what she wants, pretty much all the time. She speaks in three or four word sentences on a regular basis. 

--She eats SO much. She's very active, and she needs to get that energy somewhere. David and I laughed when we read the recommendation from our pediatrician for a 2-year-old: One tablespoon of each food for each year of life. She goes through phases where she honestly eats as much as we do at dinner. When staying with the Rencher kids for a couple of days, she would always outeat Jacob and Aubrey, and even beat Nathan, Daniel, and Josh a couple of times. She just eats a lot. Obviously, she doesn't eat like that all the time. Sometimes she doesn't eat much, but I don't worry about it because I know that at the next meal she'll want 10 strawberries, 2 hotdogs, 3 pieces of ham lunchmeat, 4 pieces of cheese, and two crackers. 

--We bought her a slide as an early birthday present (we'd been looking online, and when we came across this one at a yard sale, we couldn't pass it up). She's spend hours outside climbing up and going down the slide. She especially loved when her Grandpa Walker stopped by and hooked up the tunnel so she can climb from one area to the other.  

 --She loves playing at the farm (although I rarely take my camera because we go so often that I keep my membership card in my back pocket and don't take a bag inside at all), and loves running around the gardens. It's been so fun to watch her and Elsie play together more and more. They've always been good friends, but in the last month they've started playing together and really enjoying their time together. I can't get over these pictures.  

--Lydia takes one nap a day, usually at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. She's gotten really cute and will let me sing her songs and then lay her in bed while she talks to me. She likes to bring several stuffed animals to bed and has started requesting to bring her "Dee Zoo" (Dear Zoo) book to bed with her. She reads or sings herself to sleep. She goes to sleep at 8:00 p.m. and wakes up between 7:15 and 8:00 in the morning, usually leaning towards the 7:40ish time frame.  At night, she always asks to read her "Oodnight Anmals" book, (The Going to Bed Book). We read it and then sing our goodnight song from Daniel Tiger's neighborhood to every single animal in the book. I wish I could post the song, but I can't find it anywhere. I even used quicktime to try to capture it from netflix, but it didn't work in the way that I needed it to. So we sing goodnight to all of her animals, to daddy, and to anything else she thinks of at the time (she says "oodnight _____" and waits for me to sing it, I sing "Goodnight ____" then I wait for her to tell me what next). It's so sweet. She loves her purple blanket, and also loves her heart blanket and will make sure that both of them are on top of her before she'll go to sleep. 

--She was a champion egg hunter at Easter, and loved playing with her eggs for weeks afterwards. (Even setting them out for herself so that she could go pick them up and put them back in her basket.

--She's definitely asserting her independence - she likes to do things for herself, "I want try!" and "I hold it." But, she still lets me pick out her clothes and I love how cute she is with her little curls and summer clothes.  I'm glad that we have this compromise in our relationship.

--I know that this sounds so silly, but we've tried really hard to not let her have any candy. Just the occasional dessert and a sucker or two during the doctor/stitches ordeal. (She doesn't let us brush her teeth for longer than a few seconds, and it makes me feel better knowing that she doesn't have so much sugar in her diet.) It makes me laugh SO much when she does find the treats that we've hidden and she wants to play with them like toys. Here she is putting all of the "eggs" in a line. (These are my favorite sour jelly beans that I ate like 4 bags of all by myself.) I include the picture because she really likes to put things in a line, and it makes me laugh. 

--Did I mention she loves to play with Elsie? And Carson. We've been watching them on Wednesday's and Friday's and they are easily Lydia's favorite days of the week. She loves these two with all her tiny heart. 

--She does this funny thing where she pretends to be sleeping. She announces "I sleeping!" and then proceeds to lay down and close her eyes. She is not sleeping in this picture below, she's just pretending. It makes me smile - and I can't wait for all our "make believe" adventures ahead.  

 --Lydia loves to read books. Luckily she is surrounded by many people who love to read to her. We caught these sweet pictures of my Grandma Walker (Lydia's Grandma-Great) reading with her. 

 --Lydia loves Dante (my parents dog). Actually she loves ALL dogs. When dogs start barking, and other kids shy away, Lydia gets excited and heads toward the noise. She just loves them.

--Lydia loves jumping on her little trampoline at our house - but she was in heaven when she was able to jump on the big trampoline with her cousins! I tried to balance letting her experience new things, with my worry that she was going to break her neck on the trampoline and made sure that the kids were very soft jumpers with her. (Although these pictures make me nervous all over again.) It was worth it though, because she loved it and everyone came out unharmed!

-It is very rare for Lydia to sleep anywhere but her bed. However, she hasn't been feeling her greatest and she fell asleep on the couch while watching a Super Why (her new favorite netflix show, along with Leap Frog). It's just so sweet.

 

-Lydia is basically a child genius. I don't say this to brag, because I honestly haven't done anything to really initiate it, she's just so stinking smart! She can identify all of her shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, heart, and start), knows the difference between numbers and letters, and can name many of her letters. She knows A, B, C, I,  M, N, X, Y, W, and O (unless she calls it a circle) all the time. And probably another 10 letters, most of the time. It always amazes me when she sees a letter, points to it, and calls it by name. It started when my mom brought down some foam puzzles from my Grandma Knowles and Lydia started playing with them. She loved to punch out the letters and put them back in. A combination of LeapFrog Phonics Farm and me telling her the names of the letters as she put them in led to her starting to identify them before putting them in their place. When playing with her numbers, she almost always calls the 1 a choo-choo-train (don't ask me why), but can correctly identify the 6/9 most of the time, and will say 5, 6, 8, 4, and 7 - even though most of the time they aren't corresponding to the right numbers. However, if you ask her - she will tell you that she is Two!

-She's started asking to sit on the potty. She's gone pee a couple of times, but mostly loves to just sit on her little potty while I read her books. However, I can tell that she's asking to sit on the potty when she is ready to have a bowel movement - she just gets distracted when she's on there. I'm not really ready to potty train her yet - but I don't want to ignore her interest, so I'm not pushing it but I'm also trying to support her in exploring and becoming familiar with the potty. (Except when it's 2 o'clock in the morning - then I tell her to wait until morning and then we'll sit on the potty.) 

I wanted to get some nice pictures of Lydia taken for her Birthday, but where we are having a baby in just four short months - I decided to ask my sister Melissa to take pictures for us instead and then have professional pictures taken in September/October. I'm SO glad that I did, because I think that they turned out really nice. I really just wanted a few pictures that captured her personality (which is hard, because she is go-go-go) and a few good ones of our little family before it becomes a family of four. Shout out to Melissa - you are awesome! Thanks for these pictures of our beautiful girl. 

Happy 2nd Birthday, darling Lydia-girl. We love you!  

p.s. I found a way to upload the movie I made for her birthday party. It's a little long, but it's so cute - I love it.