Our weather has been so crazy. One week we have a foot of snow and the next we're outside playing in the 70 degree sunshine. I love Carolina, but this winter has just been insane! I was so happy to get outside with Lilly though. She is always so much happier outside, and it's great that we have so many young kids in the neighborhood for her to play with! Even the older kids enjoy coming out and playing with the little ones. It was great because all of Lilly's outdoor toys were such a novelty at first because she hadn't seen them in so long. We pretty much pulled out every toy we had in the garage.
Lilly also still loves her swing set. The girls all had a blast swinging and climbing together.
Her favorite is definitely bubbles though! She isn't very good at blowing them herself yet, but she loves to try! She dips the wand into the bubbles and then puts it directly on her lips and blows really hard. Occasionally she actually blows a bubble, but mostly she just makes a mess. She also enjoys chasing the bubbles out of the bubble machine we have. I forget who gave that to us for Lilly's birthday last year, but she LOVES it! All the neighborhood kids loved the bubbles so we had a big lesson on sharing for everyone! I only had two wands and four little girls all wanting to blow bubbles. I am glad Lilly is learning to share though because as an only child right now, she sometimes thinks she should get whatever she wants.
Here is Lilly attempting to blow bubbles, haha!
Apparently they don't taste very good!
Look at how happy she is!
Lilly loves the wagon we got from Aunt Carissa and Uncle Jared. It's great because she can go for a ride with her friends! We may need to invest in a caboose though because poor Ella couldn't fit and had to help me pull.
Lilly has started saying "Cheese!" when she sees that we are taking a picture. I really don't know who came up with that because it doesn't make for the best face when taking a picture ;o)
We bought Lilly a new cup called a "Reflo" cup which is supposed to help her transition from a "sippy" cup to a regular cup. She definitely LOVED being able to use a "big girl" cup and got the hang of it really quickly. The cutest part was that every time she took a sip, she would say "ahhh" afterward! It was so cute! We have actually been able to use the cup as a reward! I can tell her, "eat your dinner and then you can have your cup," and she starts gobbling down whatever she is eating. She is still a picky eater though. I am really trying to get her to eat better, but she is not interested in vegetables at all unless they are pureed in a pouch or somehow hidden. The only vegetable she eats like it's ice cream is squash. I roast two acorn squash almost every week because I know she loves it and I know she is at least eating a vegetable!
Our neighbor down the street has a caboose for their wagon. Lilly loved taking a ride with her friends!
Our little fashionista enjoyed trying on some hats in World Market while we went shopping!
Another beautiful day to play outside!
We had a great evening with Matt, Jess, Ana and Emma! It was so great for them to come over and play! Emma and Lilly are so close in age and Ana does a great job of playing with them. Lilly and Emma both LOVE baby dolls, and I was glad to see them both sharing and playing well together.
I am not sure what she was doing here, but it's a funny face!
Lilly likes to take some quiet time to read, even when there are people to play with! Haha.
The girls had a tea party and snuggled up on the couch together! How cute are these girls?!??!
Baby hugs!
One of my favorite parts of the night was when Lilly and Emma each grabbed a cart or stroller and started walking around the house. They were following each other around talking their baby dolls for a walk. I wish we could have gone outside because they would have had more room, but it was really cute!
It started to get colder outside, but Lilly still insisted that we needed to go play outside after school. Apparently she had some cleaning to do ;o)
I am so happy with Lilly's vocabulary. She is doing such a great job learning new words and starting to string words together to tell us what she wants. This was a very cute moment because Lilly has just started saying "hummus" correctly. She was previously calling it "hummi" (and yes, my daughter is obsessed with hummus; she literally eats it with a spoon!). I was so happy today when she not only said "hummus" but she said "more hummus" clear as a bell! She loves to dip pea pod sticks into her hummus, which is also very cute.
I love reading books with Lilly even more now because while we're reading she learns new words, points out things in the book using the words she knows and she is incredibly engaged in what we are reading. I am amazed at all of the words she knows now!
The other day we were (surprise surprise) outside playing and Lilly found a princess crown that a friend had given us. She has never worn it before, but she put it on her head and then started asking for her chair. She wanted to carry her chair out onto the driveway to "sit". It was so cute watching our princess carry her throne all by herself ;o)
When I told her the water was all gone, she continued to try to fill her cup with water at the spout and then even tried another pipe on the side of the house (which I have NO idea what it's for....is that bad??). She even made the noise of water coming out of the spout and pretended to fill it up! Here's a cute video to watch!
Special Moments:
-In my early morning fog (6 a.m. on a Saturday morning feels like 4 a.m.), Lilly was fussing a little after I took her out of her crib and while I changed her diaper. I did what I usually do and asked her what she dreamed about (to which she always immediately replies: Elmo), but this time she reached her little toddler arms up and said "hug". I was pretty much a puddle of mush on the floor at that moment, but I reached down and gave my sweet little girl the best mommy hug I had and suddenly I wasn't the least bit tired anymore.
