Lydia's Birthday Celebrations

We celebrated Lydia's birthday just with our little family on Wednesday (the sixth) but then we invited more family members over on Saturday to help us celebrate again. David took the day off on her actual birthday and we had a fabulous day doing fun things for Lydia - including a trip to the aquarium, panda cupcakes, and lots of quality family time. Easily, Lydia's favorite part was the "climbing thing" at the Aquarium. She love-love-loved it. If memberships to the Aquarium weren't so expensive, i'd seriously consider getting one just to be able to go to the climbing/playground they have there. 

 

(She was asleep within minutes of buckling her in the carseat.) 

The Saturday birthday celebrations were fairly simple, but the one thing that she had requested was a "Panda cake". I initially had lofty plans of making the entire thing out of fondant, but opted for a less-complex route. I used buttercream icing to frost the cake, shiny sugar sprinkles around the outside edge, and store bought fondant to make the eyes/ears etc... I was pretty darn pleased with the way that it turned out. I knew that I didn't want to make two panda cakes, so, as I mentioned above, on her actual birthday I made a bunch of little panda cupcakes and then we served the extras of those on Saturday as well. 

(I really wanted a picture of her looking at me while sitting by her cake. Sigh. Maybe next year.) 

This little girl is incredibly blessed to have so many people who love her so much. She received many thoughtful gifts and was super excited about each and every one. Three is such a fun age for present opening.

One of the sweetest things that I want to remember is from my Grandma Walker, Lydia's Grandma-Great. I've posted a few times that my grandma isn't doing super great. She has struggled a lot with the movement in her hands, but even so - she wrote out a full birthday card for Lydia. She addressed it, filled out a birthday check, and wrote a very sweet message on the inside of the card. It's obvious that it was important to my Grandma that she wrote it herself and I was touched. 

Lydia was awesome at blowing out her candles, although one of them gave her a bit of trouble - it was absolutely darling. We loved celebrating the life of this happy little girl. 

Happy Birthday sweet Lydia. You are so special to us. We hope you loved your Panda-Sprinkle cake and that you had a wonderful day where you felt just how much you are loved. 

Mother's Day 2015

Today marks my third year as a mother.

I've now been a mother longer than I was a high school student at Manti High, longer than I was a single college student, and longer than I was married with no kids. All of these time periods in my life have been incredibly formative and thinking about the fact that I've been a mom for longer than any of them seems crazy. Time passes so differently during each life stage; it seems like just yesterday that I was celebrating my first Mother's Day as a mom - holding my tiny baby Lydia in my arms.

I have many people that I love whose deepest desire of their hearts is to be a mother, but for whatever reason - their circumstances haven't allowed them to fulfill that wish. To those dear friends today I say, I love you. I know that there is pain in your heart and I wish I could wrap my arms around you and fill you with hope and love. On this day, know that I also celebrate you for your loving hearts and the special roles you play in the lives around you.

Being a mom is a special opportunity to influence the world. I feel this incredible obligation to instill moral values, teach educational concepts and hard work, and place the seeds of love and courage and confidence so deeply in their little souls that they will always know who they are and what they are capable of. I want my children to look back at their lives and remember the times we laughed together, the times we adventured together, the times we loved together. I want them to never doubt that they are and always have been loved, wanted, and so so important. I want them to know that I love being their mother and no matter what - that title and opportunity will be my greatest joy and accomplishment.

These two (and all the ones who follow them) are so special to me.

I'm so grateful for the influence of my own mother in my life and so grateful for the opportunity to be the one that these littles call "Mommy." I'm certainly not perfect - but I want to be the best mom I can possibly be.

Lydia Elise: 3 Years Old (2.75-3)

This girl. Three years. 

There are no words to express all the feelings I have. I'm so proud of her and so glad to be her mom. David and I love her so much and we just can't believe how lucky we are to have her in our lives. 

Three years old is kind of a big deal. She's not a toddler anymore, she's a grown-up-little-girl. She thoroughly communicates her thoughts, feelings, excitements, disappointments, desires, and fears. She says things to make us laugh, and cheers us up when we are sad. She's the best big sister out there and although I know that I tend to get overly cheesy when I talk about her it's just because I am so filled with love and gratitude that I don't know how else to express it. 

3 Year Stats: 31.2 lbs and 36.5" tall. 3T clothes (absolutely NO 2T and some 4T things). Shoe size around 8-9. This week she hit a growth spurt and all of the size 8 shoes that I thought were still a little bit too big for her are now much too small.

An Interview with Lydia:

What's your favorite color? Blue. And green and purple, and black and white. And pink.

What's your favorite toy? Hmmm.... my big panda bear. And my medium-sized panda bear.
What's your favorite movie? The turtle movie. (Turtle's Tale)
What book do you like to read? Mix it Up. Because it's my favorite.
What's your favorite song? Ummmm... The Train Song. (A song David made up and sings to her.) 
What's your favorite treat? A popsicle treat.
Where's your favorite place to go? The museum.... and the park.
What do you like to eat for breakfast? Oatmeal and oh-gurt. And cream-a-wheat.
What do you like to eat for dinner? Ice-cream dinner? And pasta-dinner.
Who's your best friend? Henry. And Aub-ee (Aubrey). And CarsonElsie.
What's your favorite thing about nursery? Toys and..... eating snacks.

We went to Thanksgiving Point during the Tulip Festival and I rented a super nice camera to take pictures of her for her birthday. We stopped at 7-11 on our way to the gardens and I let her pick whatever candy she wanted as a way to bribe her to sit and smile for pictures. I'm happy with the way they turned out, and grateful that Lydia was such a good sport. By no means are they professional pictures, but I think I was able to capture a little bit of her three-year-old personality. 

Some things I want to remember about Lydia right now: 

--If she swallows some water wrong, or coughs for any other reason, she'll say "I'm sick. I need to rest." And she'll go rest for a minute. 

--She ends many of her sentences with "or sompin' " (or something...). She'll say she wants to get dressed and go outside, or sompin'. Or, She will get started telling you about something, and after several sentences of explaining whatever it is she's talking about she'll add "or sompin". 

--She loves to read books. She loves us to read books and she loves to read them herself. Most nights we leave her in her bed reading a book until she gets tired and falls asleep. She talks to herself while she looks at the pictures and it's the sweetest thing. Some of her favorite books right now: Mix it up! by Herve Tullet, The Three Bears by Paul Galdone, Roly-poly egg by Kali Stileman, Monkey colors by Darrin Lunde, 100 Things That Make Me Happy by Amy Schwartz. We may watch more TV than I would like us to watch, but it makes me feel much better about my parenting when I see how much she loves books.

--Speaking of TV. I've tried (and been mostly successful) for a long time to keep her show-watching limited to Daniel Tiger and Super Why. She's been pretty content with those "shows" until recently when she's started pushing a little bit here and a little bit there, wanting to watch all the "fun shows" that come up on Netflix. It started with me letting her watch Barney (which is still fun/educational) and has degraded into letting her watch pretty much anything. I still put my foot down for many shows, not because they are bad shows - but because I have to draw the line somewhere and really I just wish that she was watching Daniel Tiger. Her most recent favorite is "Turtle's Tale", about a green sea turtle and his adventures. We also watch all the Tinkerbell movies fairly frequently. I wish that there were more good age-appropriate shows out there! 

--Lydia thinks every screen is a touch screen. It blows my mind. She'll try to touch-screen the computer and TV and it doesn't seem to register when I tell her she can't touch the screen. She just doesn't get it. Also, whenever she sees a picture she wants to "watch" it. Heaven help this generation born into such abundant technology. 

--She looooves all of her Aunts and Uncles. She talks about them fairly frequently, just out of the blue - which makes me smile because obviously she's thinking about them. She made Melissa an "Special Art Project" and kept it safe for almost a week before we could give it to her. She requested that we buy special colored marshmallows for "Camille and Aunt Jen-na". She calls our extra bedroom "Amy's room". She's lucky to have such great family members who love her back.

--She's so silly and loves to tease. She'll often repeat back what you say, so a conversation might go like this: "I love you Lydia. No, I love YOU. I love you most! I love YOU most. You are the silliest. No, you are the silliest!" It's even better when she tops what you say instead of just repeating it: "I love you most. I love you BEST!" She does the same thing, but sillier: "I'm not Lydia, I'm Daddy! You're not Daddy, You're Lydia! No, I'm Austin!" Many giggles follow. 

--We finally transitioned her completely from the crib to her "own bed". (That's what she calls it: my own bed.) We made the switch months before Austin was born, but the week before he was born she sensed the change (or something) and had us re-building the crib at 4 o'clock in the morning after 3 nights of no sleep. For a while she was back and forth between her own bed and the crib, mostly using the crib for naps (so she wouldn't just play). Then she just wanted to be in the crib, always. We just decided not to push it and we borrowed a crib for Austin to use while Lydia was still using hers. I'm so glad that we did because pretty much overnight she just decided that she was ready to sleep in her toddler "own" bed and didn't want to sleep in the crib anymore. It wasn't a battle or a hassle because she was making the choice and she does really well with staying in bed when she's supposed to. I was afraid to take down the crib but after a couple of weeks of her not using it we finally pulled it down. I love that she's sleeping in a toddler bed, but I do miss how much she loved having Austin come "sleep over" with her after her naps. 

-She loves her Daddy, and asks him most every day if he will "Stay home and play all day." But sometimes she'll tell him "You need to go to work to make money so we can buy raisins and yogurt (ogie-yurt) and oatmeal at the store." On that note: her favorite foods are raisins and yogurt and oatmeal (and pancakes).

-It's amazing how many emotions an almost-three year old goes through in a day. There are just so many big emotions and it's hard to know how to deal with them. We've worked really hard to try to help name the emotions that she's feeling and I think that it helps a ton. (Thank you Daniel Tiger!) It simultaneously breaks my heart and makes me feel so incredibly proud when she says, "I'm feeling so sad. I am just going to go cry about it for a minute."  Then she'll go off on her own and be sad. Sometimes I go to her and hold her while she's being sad about it, and sometimes she'll just go off and then come back after a little while on her own. At naptime today she told me (between tears) "I'm just having a really hard time right now." She was asleep within minutes of me leaving and afterwards she told me "I feel much better." She's just so sweet.

--She's such a good negotiator. I think her most commonly used phrase is "Or... we could do {insert the exact opposite of what I've just said we should do}" She almost always follows it up with the question "Is that a good idea?" which is her second most commonly used phrase. If I say something that she likes she'll say "That's a good idea." If I say something that she loves she'll excitedly shout "That's a great idea!" If I say something that she doesn't like, she'll pout and say "That's not a good idea, Mom." 

-She has a little toddler scooter/car thing that she got for her 1st birthday. She calls it her "bike" and she's actually really fast on it. But she's obviously WAY too big for it. We've been holding out getting her something bigger because we wanted to get her a balance bike for her birthday, but because she's so big, she drags her toes along the ground as she scoots down the street. She's totally ruined two pairs of shoes by doing that. One day when we were just outside for a minute she grabbed her bike and rode off before I could put shoes on her (let's be honest, I wasn't going to put shoes on her - we were only going to be outside for a minute), she came back, absolutely devastated, with holes in her socks. Another time she rode barefoot and scraped up her toes (she called it her "red owie")- hopefully now that we have a balance bike for her we will be able to save out shoes/socks/feet from such wear and tear!

-My absolute favorite thing from the last several months (If I've said other things are my favorite, they aren't. This is my favorite.) is that she thinks she can open and close the garage door by blowing at it. (Like blowing out a candle on a cake but longer.) I have absolutely no idea how it started, but as soon as I realized that she thought she was the one opening and closing the garage door when we were leaving/returning to our house I couldn't help but go with it. I'd ask her to open the door for me, wait for her to blow at it, then press the garage door opener. She's always so proud of herself afterwards. It. Is. So. Darling. 

--She loves to be outside and climbing. She always has. We have a slide/plastic climber thing and she climbs all over it, even the top parts that aren't really meant for climbing over. However, she's recently gained more of an interest in coloring with crayons and painting and other small motor activities. She used to not be able to sit still long enough to color more than two seconds with a crayon, but now she enjoys coloring, painting, and creating. It's fun to see her explore other things.

--She calls us MomDad. Not Mom and Dad. But if she needs one of us, and we are both around she'll just call out "MomDad!" and wait for one of us to come. Or if she's trying to get our attention it's "MomDad, I'm trying to tell you sumsin (something, also pronounced sumpin' when used in the phrase "or sumpin.") It makes me laugh every single time. She also calls Carson & Elsie, CarsonElsie when she's talking about them. "Can CarsonElsie come play today?" 

-She frequently dumps her cups of water or milk into/onto her dinner. Just a little bit, but no matter what we say she keeps doing it. We'll sternly tell her that we need to keep our milk/water in the cup and then take it away and she'll sweetly reply, "Okay, next time I won't do that!" But she always does (or at least tries.) It's not a big deal and she always eats pretty much whatever I serve so I can't really complain, but that's one of those things that I'll want to remember about 3 year old Lydia.

-She says "Cheese" when we take her picture. It was nice for a while, but now she pretty much looks anywhere but at the camera while she's saying it and she gets this big grimace face as she's stretching out the "eeseeeeeeeeee". I wish I was better at just capturing her real smile.

-She love love loves bounce houses. She calls them "balance houses". Be it a slide, an obstacle course, a jumping area - she loves them all. We've been able to go on quite a few lately, at the women's expo, at the gardens for the tulip festival, etc... and she asks to go back at least a couple of times a week. I love how happy they make her. 

-She's developed a love of popsicles and after days of eating massive amounts of popsicles from the morning to bedtime, we had to instigate a one-popsicle-a-day rule. She's really good about it. She can have one popsicle a day but she can choose when she wants it. Most of the time it's eaten before 9 o'clock in the morning. But having our limit that we all understand has really helped with the meltdowns after saying "no more". This girl loves her treats. (Popsicles, donuts, candy, suckers, etc... she's got a sweet tooth!)

--She loves her Panda bears. She calls them by their size. "Big Panda." "Medium-sized Panda." "Small Panda." She will also tell you that pandas are black and white and that they eat bamboo, if you ask her about them.

--We went to the dentist for the first time just before her third birthday. I given her recent affinity for sweets, I was a little worried that she would have cavities and then I would feel bad for not taking her to the dentist earlier. But no cavities! Plus, she did awesome at the dentist. She let them "tickle" her teeth, and held still while they were looking in her mouth. It helped that I was sitting in the chair with her (David was able to stay home with Austin so that I didn't have to worry about juggling them both). Plus, they had a TV in the ceiling, they painted her fingernails, they gave her a balloon, and a token to get a prize on the way out. It was a stellar deal- I want to go to that dentist!

-We went branding with my family in Wyoming. We had a great day and Lydia loooovveed it. She made the most darling little cowgirl. I can barely handle it. 

This girl. She has my heart. She's adventurous, spunky, opinionated, sweet, loving, silly, stubborn, darling, and so so perfect for us. We love you Lydia Elise!  

**Update: Within a week of her third birthday...

--Her feet grew two sizes. (Really!) The shoes that were too big for her are suddenly all too small. I thought we were going to have plenty of shoes for summer, but all the ones I was planning on her growing into are much too small. Because we didn't have shoes that fit her right, she decided to shun shoes altogether (even after I got her shoes that fit). For about two weeks she refused to wear shoes anywhere we went. The park, the store. Yeah. I got quite a few looks from other parents - but you have to pick your battles! Finally I've been able to convince her to wear these darling little sandals with a flower on the front - but she still only wears them about half the time. (If I turn my head for one minute, they are off and laying in the grass while she's busy playing somewhere else.) 

--Potty Accidents. I would have said that she was completely potty trained, both during the day and at night. But all the sudden she's totally regressed. Let's just say I have to wash her bedding after pretty much every nap and every morning. And we are going through at least 2-3 outfits a day. I don't know how to handle it exactly, so we are just hoping that she'll figure it out and it will get better. I'm just patiently trying to outlast this little setback. (But I do NOT want to go back to diapers or pullups.) Thankfully she's still perfect with poop, and she doesn't have accidents when we go places. It's just when we are home. I don't know. But I thought that I should record this for memory's sake.