Winter 2015

I am a mom.  I am a wife.  I am a friend, a daughter, a teacher, a sister, an aunt, a director, a voice coach and many other things in my life.  But first, I am a mom.  Being a mom can easily become who you are and how you see yourself, and while many might fight against that, I want to embrace it.  I love being Mommy.  Oh I have my moments when I need to just be Toni, but I just love being Mommy!  Lilly is the center of my world and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Here are a few moments that I wrote down from the past couple of months.  I wish I was better at writing down the funny things she says, because I missed SO many.  But at least I captured a few :-)

Lilly likes to eat apples whole and bite into them.  She normally takes a few bites and is done (then I finish it).  Today she ate half of it and then said -
Lilly: There's poop in my apple!
Me: What?!?!
Lilly: Look! (pointing to the seeds in the apple)
Me: No, honey, those are just the apple seeds.
Lilly looks at me skeptically, then slowly takes another bite avoiding the seeds.

Today Lilly and Maggie were playing together.  After a great game of tug-a-war lilly brought Maggie into the bathroom and shut the door.  We of course stood outside the door because this was odd.  Lilly was lecturing maggie.  She said, "maggie you need to follow the rules.  You need to play nice and make good choices"  She said it several times in her best "teacher" voice. It was adorable!  It's also nice to know she is listening when her teachers or her parents tell her these same things.

Lilly went through a week or so when she wanted to wear her polar bear hat that she wore as a baby all the time!  I figured, why not?  She looks adorable!

We bought Lilly a playset off of Buy Sell Trade and after the wind knocked it down, and it was fixed, Lilly finally got to play on her new playset!  She was so excited :-)

Our friends Dave and Maribeth hosted a BBQ for some neighborhood friends.  It was great to see all of the kids playing together and for the adults to get to socialize.  We are so incredibly fortunate to live here, but mostly we are fortunate to have these amazing people in our lives.  Not only those who live in Amber Ridge, but all of the wonderful friends we have here!

Sweet little girl sleeping in her big girl bed!

Lily was so excited to get some Valentine's day gifts from Aunt Mare and Aunt Susan!  She LOVED her Frozen shirt and plate, and the new markers and coloring book!  Lilly has so many people that love her!

One thing that comes with potty training and underwear...well, you'll see in the video:

I think every time we go to Chad and Michelle's house Lilly puts on this dress and tiara!  She loves to dress up and of course, she loves playing with Allie, Ryan and baby Kristin :-)

If you asked Lilly her favorite thing to do, I think she would say "playing with Zoey" ;-)  But AFTER that, I think she would say that she loves to read!  We read books together each night and before rest time, but Lilly probably "reads" 15-30 books on her own each day!  She loves narrating what she sees in the pictures and telling the story as she remembers it.  It makes me so happy!  You will see many more pictures like this because it just makes my heart so full to see her reading!

What a crazy month February was.  We had 8 snow days!  This was great because it meant more time with Lilly, but our summer baby was not very interested in the snow and cold weather, so we had to spend a lot of time in the house.  There was one day where there was pretty snow falling, so we decided to go outside and play with our friends.  Lilly did NOT like her snow gear at first...

And she did not like the snow falling in her face...

So we fixed that with some sunglasses :-)

She played for about 10-15 minutes and then decided she had had enough.  I don't really blame her!  I hate being cold too!

Lilly loves to ride on Darren's shoulders.  I love it when she just relaxes up there like in this picture.  She just loves her Daddy so much!

Lilly definitely loves to sing.  We sing songs all the time, but I love it when she sings on her own!  Her recent favorite is Old McDonald.  When we would sing together, I would ask her to pick the animal and she would tap her little finger to her lips and say, "hmmmmm....pig!"  So cute!  So when she started to sing it on her own, she wanted me to pick the animal and I love how she does it! 

Lilly loves to play with Maggie.  Of course, a great game to play is tug-of-war.  Sometimes it makes me nervous when they play, but overall, Maggie is very gentle and seems to LOVE playing with Lilly.  I could listen to her giggle and play like this all day!

Lilly had a fantastic time at Addy's 4th birthday party!  She was so excited to get to sing happy birthday to Addy and, of course, to eat cupcakes!  It's amazing that we go through a time period where we have at least one friend with a birthday for 8 months in a row!  I guess when you have so many good friends, you have many reasons to celebrate!   It is funny because every time we talk about our next birthday party, Lilly would ask if her birthday is next.  Now we can finally tell her YES!  :-)

I don't think there are many thing cuter than a toddler dancing!

Ok, maybe a toddler reading a book!

While I was gone for the morning, Darren took Lilly on a Daddy/Daughter date to Chick-fil-A in Holly Springs.  They were having a little event there and had crafts, free coffee for adults and the Chick-fil-A cow.  Darren said Lilly loved it except for the cow (he was a little scary, according to Lilly).  I love that they get special time together.  Lilly can definitely be a bit of a Mommy's girl, but there are few things that make me as happy as seeing Lilly and Darren bonding!

Lilly and I went over to play with the Smiths one evening while Chad helped Darren with something.  Lilly put on some play jewelry from Allie's room and then found an Elmo microphone and the little Diva came out!  She was serenading us and putting on her own concert.

Michelle was showing Lilly a Sesame Street toy and it was clearly interesting to all of the girls.  It was so cute seeing the girls (ages 18 months to 7 years) playing together and all interested in the same thing :-)

What do you do on snow day #8?  Make cookies of course!  Lilly LOVES to bake and help me in the kitchen, but we have never cut out and decorated cookies together, so this was the perfect time. It was hard to stay patient sometimes, but once I got over worrying about how the cookies looked and the mess we made, it was a tone of fun!  

I think Lilly really enjoyed baking and decorating the cookies :-)

The finished product!

I love Lilly's expression in this picture.  Darren put on one of her headbands and was making all kinds of silly faces and the last picture I snagged was this one where Lilly looks like she is saying, "Oh dad!"  :-)

I think Lilly and Zoey might be happy to see each other!

It doesn't get much cuter than this!  Best friends at age 2.

Maribeth and Dave had us over for pizza, which is Lilly's favorite food!  We usually cut it up for her, but this time we decided to just cut her a smaller piece and let her eat it and she loved it!

They don't even want to be separated by separate chairs!

Remember when I said that Lilly loves to play dress up?  She also loves to play pretend now.  She put on her "ballerina dress" and was going around the house pretending she was a princess.  Then she started reenacting scenes from Frozen, like this:

My beautiful little musician playing music in her ballerina dress :-)

We like to sing a special pajama song before we put pajamas on to make it seem more fun (hey, anything to get kids to bed, right???).  Tonight, Lilly decided to do an interpretive dance while I sang her song...just watch...and laugh...a LOT!

Lilly was getting ready for...bed?  a snow storm?  Oh no, going to movie night at Zoey's house!  :-)

These two just crack me up!  I was sitting on one of the stools and then of course, they had to take a turn sitting on the stools :-)  I love toddlers.

The next day was Ryan P's birthday party.  It was kind of rainy, but that didn't stop the kids from having an amazing time.  Lilly and Zoey spent a lot of their time drawing on the chalk board together.

Spiderman made a special appearance!  Lilly was too nervous to go up to him by herself, but when Kari put her next to Zoey for the group photo, she was fine :-)

Later that evening we went to a St. Patrick's Day party.  The rain had cleared, so everyone had a blast hanging out outside.  The adults played cornhole and the kids ran around and played together.  It was a great time!

Lilly and Zoey played Ring Around the Rosy together.

Lilly sometimes needs quiet time when we are with a big group of people, so she will find a quiet place to read or relax.  Tonight she found that on the front porch :-)

The next day we went to Michelle and Chad's to see Michelle's parents and Grandma.  We absolutely love Michelle's family and it was so great to see them.  Lilly particularly loves Michelle's Mom (Marcy), whom she calls Bubbe (the yiddish word for Grandma).  

Lilly sat with Bubbe and baby Kristin after dinner and played games on her phone and then had her special treat (an ice cream cone) on Bubbe's lap.

Our little sleeping angel.  She is so precious, especially when she is sleeping ;-)

Darren was tutoring one day after school and I needed something to occupy Lilly while I got dinner ready.  I know how much she loves to paint, and I figured since she is a getting older, I could let her paint while I cooked and keep an eye on her.  She was definitely occupied and was having an amazing time painting....then she started finger painting...haha!  I decided to just go with it and let her have her fun :-)  She usually HATES getting messy, so I was actually kind of excited that she was loving getting her hands into the paint and getting crazy.  Darren would have HATED it, so I am also glad he didn't have to see it until I showed him the pictures ;-)

I was singing at the school's Show Choir concert on Friday night and so we decided to make it a family night.  We went out to dinner and then to the show.  When we were getting ready, Lilly insisted on wearing the new sparkly boots that my friend, Shanequia bought for her.  Lilly talks about Shanequia all the time now and even says her name every night when we are saying our prayers.  When we go places, she will now often ask if Shanequia will be there :-)   Lilly was amazing at the concert, too!  She sat and listened to the songs, then went over the colored with me for a while until we had to leave to get her to bed.  It was a great night!

I came in from showering to find Darren and Lilly in the playroom.  Lilly was dressed up (as usual) and singing Let It Go into her karaoke machine.  Sometimes I can hardly believe that this amazing little girl is mine!

The guys were working on Kari and Jason's screen porch, so I brought Lilly over to play with the girls outside while Kari and I watched them.  It was a beautiful day and one of the first really nice day's we'd had in a while.  These two little munchkins can't get enough of each other!  Lilly asks for Zoey as soon as she wakes up or gets home from school and Kari tells me that Zoey does the same thing.  It amazes me that Lilly has a best friend already, and I am so grateful!

The next day the guys were still working on the porch so we went back over to play and also so I could help Kari corral the kiddos.  Before lunch the girls all came in to play with play-doh for a little while.  The have their moments, but overall, they play SO well together!  It's wonderful that even though there is a little bit of an age different (ages 2-4, they can all still enjoy playing together and be so sweet and kind to one another).  Could these kiddos be any cuter???