Multi-tasking at it's finest.

So this is the thing - every single day I have at least one load of dishes to do. Most of the time I do them first thing in the morning while Lydia is eating her breakfast. (I have a strict "I don't do dishes at night" rule.) But on the occasional day that I don't get them done while Lydia is in her high chair, I have to do them in the afternoon or else they will pile up and become extremely intimidating. Sometimes when this happens Lydia is happy to play in the next room over, or happy to play with the silverware that I put in the dishwasher. Other times however, she stands by my legs and whines and whines and whines. I can only take so much of the whining, so oftentimes I will set her on the counter and let her play with a tupperware or something while I am doing the dishes. Sometimes she stays fairly dry, and other days she gets pretty soggy. Then there are the days that she wants to full on play in the water. Who am I to say no to such an innocent request? She patiently waits until I get one side of the sink cleaned out and then we strip off her clothes and diaper and stick her in the sink. 

It actually works really well - she is thrilled to be playing in the water and I am able to continue to work on the dishes in the other half of the sink. About the time that I am finishing up with my last dish is about the time that she starts to get bored and tries to stand up (which is immediate grounds for removal from the sink). Who ever thought that as a mom I would be so good at multi tasking that I would be able to wash my dishes and give my baby a bath at the same time?

And what is better than seeing a naked baby in a kitchen sink? 

Seeing that same baby doing the same thing exactly six months ago. 

(I took these pictures in May 2013, but I don't think that I ever got around to blogging them so I searched them out and thought that they would be the perfect addition to this post.)   

Look at how much this cute girl has grown in just six months. I love her happy grin. 

House Updates

 It's taken us a while, but slowly we have been working on making our house feel more like a home, more like our home. After six months-ish of living with no curtain on our back sliding glass door I finally got my act together and finished picking up the supplies for the curtain project I'd been planning for months. David sometimes teases me about my tendency to put something off and then one day just decide that it has to be done right then and then spend the next 24 hours working on it. This project was no different. Once I decided that I was really going to do it - Lydia and I went to the store that day, finished getting the supplies and started working on it before David got home from work. David watched Lydia for me while I was working on it and then I finished painting the curtain panel around eleven that night. After hanging the panel we realized that we were going to need a second panel so the next day I bought a second panel and completed that one during Lydia's nap time. 

I really love the way that they turned out. The panels were $10 each (canvas drop cloths from Walmart) and the paint was another $20. I got the curtain rod at Ross for $12 and the curtain clip/rings on clearance at Walmart for $2 a package. All in all, it ended up being more expensive than I'd hoped (If I had just bought a gallon of the yellow paint originally it would have been less expensive but I bought two quarts, one for the first panel and then one when I realized I needed a second panel.) 

It's not perfect, and it took me a couple of days of chanting "It just adds character" every time I saw the few paint drips that were on the tan part for me to be okay with the imperfections - but now I just smile when I see the happy yellow color in my kitchen. I love yellow. 

The next project to tackle was the long wall in our main room. We've been brainstorming what to do there since we moved in, but it's kind of a hard space because the couch is not centered on the wall. I really didn't want to do a picture arrangement over the couch and then a secondary picture on the right side of the wall. I don't like the idea of chopping up the space into two sections, but it was hard to find something that would look good going over both spaces and uniting them. My friend Kajsa did the greatest job at this, uniting the space over her piano and TV, and I looked and looked for a large object like the window pane and wreath that she used but I just couldn't find anything that I loved for the price that I was willing to pay (which was like a tiny amount of money). However, we had a whole bedroom full of picture frames from our last apartment that have been looking for a place to go and so we decided that a picture frame gallery wall was our best bet. 

Sidenote: Before we moved I was in a book club in our old ward. Each member of the book club takes a turn hosting and it's really fun. In January, I was assigned/volunteered for hosting the month of October. They knew that we would be in our new house by then and were all willing to drive over. (Lets be honest - it's only like two minutes away from where we used to live.) So when we moved into our home in February, and we decided to wait and feel things out before we threw things up on the walls, I told David "That is fine, but I'm hosting book club in October so this room has to be done by then. Fast forward to two nights before we were scheduled to host book club and our wall was still very, very empty. 

So I did what any self-respecting Photoshop lover would do. I took pictures of all the frames that I wanted to use, took a picture of the blank wall, and played around with them to see if we could find something that we liked. I did a couple, but they were too chaotic for David. So he jumped on the bandwagon and created his own (the bottom left) but it was a little too symmetrical for me. So I adjusted his just a tiny bit and came up with our final design (the top right). 

We laid out the pictures on the ground and kept the photoshop file open on the computer then just kind of went at it, checking back at the picture on the computer to make sure that we will following the plan. It ended up a little bit different but I love it! It's amazing the difference that having that wall filled makes. It's not like before we would walk into the room and say "This room feels empty, like someone just moved in." But now you walk in and it just feels so good, like a real home.

We loved the updates so much that we decided to celebrate with our favorite Aggie Ice Cream - Aggie Blue Mint. (Complements of David's brother Kevin, our only sibling to follow in our Aggie-loving footsteps.) We love our home and are so blessed to be where we are.

Lydia Elise: 17 - 18 Months

This girl just reached a big milestone in her little life. 18 Months. 18 months old.

What a pretty little girl. Everywhere we go, people comment about her big blue eyes. (My response to their "She has such pretty blue eyes" is always "Yes she does! Just like her Daddy.") Sometimes I am surprised at how much they notice them - but then I see pictures like this: 

And it hits me just how big and blue they are. They fit her little personality so well. And let me tell you, this little girl has a BIG personality. She usually takes a minute to warm up to people - but as soon as she feels comfortable she's off like a rocket playing and chattering and showing off her new skills.

Before I get carried away talking about how much I love this girl - let me jot down her stats. 

Height: 31.25 inches (40%-ish) 

Weight: 21 lbs, 6 oz (32%)

Head Circumference: 47 cm (70%) 

She is in size 3 diapers and solidly in 18 months clothes. (I packed up all of her 12 month clothes because they were too small.) She can wear both size 4 and size 5 shoes, although some of her size fours are a little tight especially with socks. Her hair is starting to come in, which is really exciting. (I see a tiny baby ponytail in our future!) She has eight teeth, four on top and four on bottom.

-She is still very active physically. She loves to jump off of things into your arms. She started on our small little brown ottomans and quickly progressed to jumping off tables and even refrigerators. She giggles so much and can't wait to get back up so she can jump into your arms. We've worked hard to make sure that she knows she can't jump off without someone there - although she's taken a couple of tumbles off our couches as she tries to jump off. It's so cute because she will bend her knees like she is getting ready to jump, then quickly straighten her legs and lean off the edge. She doesn't quite have the "jump" down - but you can tell that is what she wants to do.

--She's a pretty healthy little girl. She's had a little cough and a runny nose this past month, but nothing too terribly bad. However, yesterday she woke up with a fever and was feeling pretty yucky. Today when I took her in for her 18 mo. well-check he checked her out and said that she has an ear infection. Poor girl! So we are starting an anti-biotic and hopefully she will feel better soon. (Side-note: I'm allergic to penicillin, which is what the amoxacillin is made of. Instead of the doctor prescribing something different like a z-pack,  he just told me to be careful when giving it to her. I got some on my fingers the first time I gave it to her and didn't go into anaphylactic shock, so I feel pretty great about that. My fingers itched a little bit, but I'm glad to know that I can give Lydia the medicine she needs without worrying about making myself sick.) To show how yucky Lydia was feeling, I had gotten Lydia all ready to go out and was just finishing up my grocery list before we went to the store yesterday when she crawled up into my lap and fell asleep. This never happens. I took this picture with our computer and sent it in a message to Ashley and David with the caption "This just happened. All plans have been put on hold." Already today she is acting like she feels better- I hope she gets over it soon. 

--She's started mimicking us more and more. She likes to pretend to read and act like mom and dad. Also, she has some favorite books. She loves Goodnight Moon, a giant Sesame Street book, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, and How do I love you?.  She also knows what her Book of Mormon is and when we are getting ready to have our Scriptures-Song-Prayer at night we'll ask her to get her Book of Mormon and she'll go right to it and bring it to us. It's darling.

 

-It was Halloween this past month, and she enjoyed all of our festivities - from pumpkin carving to trick or treating. She's getting to the point where she is starting to understand, and that is really fun. 

--One of her very favorite things in the whole world is to play with her dad. She loves to have him read her books and play with her toys.  She's such a happy little girl, especially when she's with Dad. 

Check out these videos: 

-She loves playing peekabo. She'll hide in cupboards, cover her head with a blanket/shirt, put her hands over her eyes, or anything else that she can come up with to play the game. 

--She's took a tumble down grandma's steps and scraped her head. It was sad, but it didn't really bleed. However, it scabbed over and then a couple of days later she picked at it or bumped it or something because it started bleeding all over and ended up looking way worse.

-She loves to explore and loves to get into things. However, I think that the's much more calm than other kids her age. I say that she's into everything - but other than pulling down all the DVD's and all her books - she actually stays out of many things. I am able to leave the pancake mix on the floor in the pantry, the tupperware in a drawer she can access (she plays with it, but doesn't pull it all out), and other things that I don't think I could do with another baby. It's only occasionally that she pulls the wipes out or makes other messes like that. For the most part, she's happier climbing on something than doing anything else. But, like any 17-18 month old - she has her share of adventures.

-It's starting to get cold outside, which doesn't keep her from wanting to go out and play every single day. Thank goodness we got this darling coat and hat from Wendy. She loves it and so do I. (Although, it's a little big and she has a hard time standing back up if she tips over.) 

--If I ask her to give me a kiss, she'll lean her face into mine and let me kiss her lips or cheek. Then she smiles and walks away. This is huge progress, as before she wouldn't even acknowledge my request!

--She is starting to learn her animal sounds, although the only one that she can say consistently is "Moo" (sounds like "Whooo") when you ask her what a cow says. One of her little books has a line about a lion that says "don't forget to roar", and she will roar with us. Its too cute. 

-She has this thing where she likes to hold two cups at a time - one in each hand. She likes to alternate which one she drinks out of. It's so funny to watch. 

--She's starting to say more words! It's exciting each time she says something  new. And lets be honest -it's exciting each time she says something that she's said before, too. It's just an exciting thing. Now when she's done with her food she will say "All done" as well as sign it.  Some of the other words that she's saying are: Purple (pur-*pause*-puh), dog, book, downstairs, uh-huh, no (but she doesn't say it "no" she always says "naaoooooohhh" - long and drawn out), Elsie, grandma, grandpa, peach, cheese, outside, and of course Mom and Dad. 

She's started saying the absolute cutest thing. If I ask her 

"Who loves you the most?" She says "Mommy!"

This is after one fairly intense training session while grocery shopping. She was getting a little stir-crazy, so I started talking to her and telling her how much I love her, which evolved into me asking "Who loves you the most" and then immediately saying "Mom!". She caught on quickly and when David got home that night we showed him our new trick and it was perfect! It's so cute that I may be over-using it, but I just know that I'll be sad when she doesn't say it anymore. Now she won't do it all the time, unless she's really happy - and even then she'll only say it once or twice before she gets bored. I wish that I had taken a video of it that first day, because I could ask her 20 times in a row and everytime she would enthusiastically respond "Mommy!", now she usually just says Mom. 

Isn't that the sweetest thing in the whole world? 

--Lydia is a social laugher. If she hears other people laughing she will always laugh along with them. Even if they are in the next room over but she hears them laughing, she automatically starts laughing and looks to us to see if we are laughing, too. Which, of course makes us laugh. I love how she takes every opportunity to laugh. I hope she never stops feeling that joy in life. 

--One of her favorite things to do is sort things. She often will pick out all of the corn that is on her tray and put it in a pile before eating it. She'll stack things, then unstack them - move them, and stack them again in another place, over and over and over. She especially loves doing this on her dinner tray. She'll pile something up, then move it to a different pile, then eat it. Case in point - she stacked all of her apples on top of her cup before eating them.

--Along with being a social laugher, she is pretty much just a social little girl all the way around. She's pretty shy at first - but warms up quickly. She absolutely loves to play with her best friends Carson and Elsie. They come over and play with us every friday morning and nothing makes her smile bigger than saying "Carson and Elsie are coming" or when she hears them knocking at the door. She loves to follow Carson around and play with him as much as he'll let her. They've started chasing each other around for extended periods of time. Carson will chase Lydia, then run away while Lydia chases him. (She actually loves to play chase with everyone, but Carson is the one who will do it for longer periods of time.) They also have fun playing in the cupboards while Elsie cheers them on. Lydia laughs at Carson almost constantly - I'm pretty sure she idolizes him. It's really darling. 

--All of the reading with Lydia seems to be sinking in, because occasionally she will pick up a book and start reading it to herself. It brings me great joy, because I love reading and I hope that she will learn to love reading as well. However, she's also very capable with the computer and loves to climb up in the chair and play with the keyboard and mouse. It's a good reminder that she does what we do and that I need to spend more time reading to her than sitting at the computer. 

There have been several things that have happened this month that have made me want to hold this little girl a little tighter than usual. I'm just so grateful for her and I've often found myself praying my thanks for having this happy and special little girl in my life. Life isn't always exactly what you want it to be, but life is good and Lydia constantly reminds me of that.