April 2015

When you first become a parent, you have certain "rules" for yourself that you will "never" or "definitely" do.  For example, you might say something like, "I will never let my child watch TV when they are under the age of ______."  Or you say, "I read in __________ book that you are never supposed to do ________ so I definitely will not do that."  I did this, and many of these "rules" have gone out the window as soon as you realize there are many moments in parenting that are more about surviving a single moment than worrying about the far reaching effects.  However, there are a few things that were very important to Darren and I in regards to raising Lilly: 1) we put a lot of effort into reading to Lilly constantly, surrounding her with books and sharing our excitement about reading; 2) we talked to Lilly, told her stories, sang to her and narrated things we were doing to help develop her speech; 3) we worked hard to teach Lilly good manners.  I am not exactly tooting my own horn here, but I feel REALLY great about holding to these "rules" because I think they have made Lilly a polite, very verbal 2 year old who loves to read.  We have made many parenting mistakes, but I know we did a few things right!

One thing that absolutely melts my heart is something that Lilly did completely on her own one night.  We were sitting at the table eating dinner and having general conversation.  Then Lilly stopped and looked at me and said, "Thank you, Mommy, for making dinner."  I was so shocked, overwhelmed, proud and overjoyed all at once!  We had NEVER taught her this, and I was SO impressed that she really understood that I did something nice for her by making dinner and that she wanted to show her appreciation.  Now she does this for every meal that I make for her and it is music to my ears!

There is a large hill behind our development right now where they are building the next phase of houses.  When we go for walks, Lilly has often liked to climb to the top of the "mountain" as she calls it.  One evening we went to the top and I heard an animals rustle in the woods at the bottom of the hill.  I told her that I thought it was a deer.  Lilly then asked a million questions about the deer (i.e. where did it go?  where was its mommy?  what was it doing?...etc)  We then spent the next 15 minutes watching the woods for the deer :-)  Lilly crouched down and kept asking me to be quiet so I didn't scare the deer away.  She would call to it and say, "It's ok deer.  It's just us.  You can come out."   It was adorable.

She then ran around the hill and giggled and squealed until it got cold and we decided we needed to go home.

As we were walking back to the house, Lilly took Darren's hand and the site of my little family walking hand in hand together made me so thankful for all we have and reminded me of how incredibly blessed we are.

The pure joy that Lilly has at the simple things, like riding in her wagon with her Elmo doll, is what life is about.  It is a daily reminder to me that there is so much joy in the world if we just take the time to enjoy it!  

Lilly has been anti-clothing lately.  She prefers to just sit in her underwear (or completely naked!).  I think this is a pretty normal phase, but even if it isn't technically "normal" I am totally fine with it.  I don't think it's a big deal when a young child feel comfortable being naked!  In fact the other day to save a fight about getting dressed on the weekend, I let her just be naked.  She sat on the couch watching Sophia the First with no clothes on.  Darren walked in the door and was a little confused...I told him, "Because sometimes you just need to sit naked on the couch and watch Disney Junior."  He shrugged and said, "fair enough," and we moved on.  :-)

We had a fantastic time celebrating Lauren's 4th birthday at Kate and Brian's house.  Birthday parties mean cupcakes, and cupcakes make for happy kids!

Lilly and Daddy were playing outside with bubbles and have a great time.  Lilly has gotten a lot better at blowing them and not just sticking the bubble wand in her mouth.

Kari and I took Lilly, Addy, Zoey and Ryley to Kohls with us to get some shopping done and on the way there, they asked to listen to Frozen (shocking, I know).  This is what transpired:

Our trip to Kohls ended with rain, so Kari went to get the car while I corralled the girls.  They were all ready to brave the rain with hoods up!

Do you remember the joys of popping bubble wrap when you were a kid?  Lilly has discovered the same joy!

Apparently taking these four to Kohls wasn't enough, so the next day we decided to go to Marbles!  After a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts for some coffee for the mommies, we headed to the museum.

When we first got there it was completely empty.  The girls had the run of the place and had a great time!  I think the ambulance is one of Lilly's favorite spots.  She always climbs right up on the gurney and plays with the paddles.

Water time!  I was impressed how well they all played together and shared.

I know you are shocked that Lilly and Zoey spent some time making pizzas for us :-)  The girls took turns making pizzas and they continually brought them over to Kari until she had a huge stack of pizzas to eat.  It was adorable.

Lilly had an amazing time playing with her buddies at Marbles!  It got pretty crowded when a large field trip came, so we decided to head home and get some lunch.  We will definitely be back!

It was a beautiful day and we wanted to get some family time, so we packed a picnic and headed to South Park to play.  After playing on the playground for a while, it was time to eat.  We had forgotten that some vandals had burned down the pavilion :-(  so we had lunch sitting on the bleachers by the baseball field.  Lilly loves picnics and didn't mind at all. 

We were so excited to spend a long Easter weekend on Oak Island with Carissa, Jared, Addison, Drew, Kari, Jason, Addy and Zoey.  The first evening we were there, we decided to send the guys out to get some pizza and the girls took the kids outside to play and go for a walk.  When we went outside, Carissa picked Lilly up and helped her sit on a big beautiful tree in the front yard.  Lilly had the BIGGEST smile on her face and put her hands up in the air.  The weekend was off to an amazing start.

We took the kids down to the water and tried to get a group picture.  Getting 5 kids to all look the same way and smile is hilarious!  I love all of their expressions in these pictures, so I couldn't help but post a few!

I was getting such a kick out of their antics as we tried to take their picture that I had to take some video.

The next day we all took a walk down to the water.  Lilly was definitely tired.  She didn't go to sleep until about 10 because we had Lilly and Zoey in the same bedroom and you can probably imagine how well two 2 year old girls went right to sleep together.  They were talking, getting up and down, and having a great time.  Kari had a video monitor and I was cracking up watching them.  We all took turns going up and telling them to go back to bed, but the only thing that seemed to work was just letting them tire themselves out.

After nap it was the perfect day to hit the beach!  Michelle's parents, Marcy and John, were kind enough to let us borrow some beach toys, so the kids had an absolute blast playing in the sand!

It wasn't warm enough to swim, but we were all encouraging the kids to get their feet in the water and enjoy the ocean.  I wasn't sure if Lilly would (she has been fearful of the ocean in the past), but she ran right to the shallow edge of the water and put her feet in.  

There is something really special about 2 year olds playing together.  They love each other so much, yet they bicker like old ladies, then 2 seconds later they are laughing and giggling together again.  Lilly and Zoey are two peas in a pod and would be together 24/7 if they could.  I love it!

Lilly loved running to the water, then running away as the waves came up.  She would scream and giggle and run away.  It was absolutely adorable.  I think it helped to have Zoey and the other kids around so she wasn't afraid.  If you need a smile or a laugh, watch the next two videos.  I dare you to watch these kids playing in the waves and not smile and laugh with them!  :-)

Watching Lilly play in the ocean was a major highlight of the trip for me.  

Something that never ceases to fill my heart about our group of friends is how we all love each other's kids so much.  We all look out for and care for all of the kids as if they are our own.  A couple of us were playing in the sand with some of the kids, a couple were playing in the water with others, and it was just so much fun.  I love being at the ocean regardless, but being there with all of these smiling, happy kids and adults whom I love, was just awesome.  I hope his becomes an annual trip (at least!)

At some point in her running in and out of the waves, Lilly fell and sat down in the water, drenching herself.  This was such a shame because she was having so much fun, but I knew once her clothing was all wet, she would not be happy.  She loves the water, but only in the terms she expects (in the bath, in her bathing suit...etc).  I took her clothes off hoping she would just run around in her underwear and be happy.  She was happy for a little while, but her underwear were a little wet too, and it was upsetting her.  She was also tired and was out of her routine, so I think she was a little more sensitive than normal.  We took her back to the beach house and Darren stayed there with her while I went back to beach to hang out for a little while longer.   

The next day we went to Southport for their downtown festival.  As soon as we got there, we saw two Princesses, so of course we had to stop and see them!  Lilly knew right away that they were Belle and Ariel and she walked right up to them to give them a hug and get a picture. 

I really want to take Lilly to Disney World soon, but I was worried she would be afraid of the characters.  Seeing her with these princesses and later the Easter Bunny gave me some hope that she would be ok!

Last year Lilly would go nowhere near the Easter Bunny, but this year she was very excited to see him.

I do think it helped that the other kids were not afraid.  Lilly got right in there with them for this adorable picture!

Kari bought some cotton candy as a treat and we decided to let Lilly try it.  She loved it (shocking, I know).

There was a street performer there dressed as Jack Sparrow.  Addie and Drew met him and he gave them gold coins and then posed for pictures.  I was so impressed by how authentic he was and that he would not accept any tips; he just does this for the love of it.  It was awesome.

As we were waiting for the train to arrive, Darren gave Lilly a shoulder ride and Addie shared one of her apple slices with Lilly.  There's something incredibly adorable about a little girl sitting on her Daddy's shoulders.  Or maybe it's just how adorable Lilly and Darren are in general :-)

Time for a train ride!

After a nice nap, it was time to dye Easter eggs!  Lilly has actually never done it before.

I definitely had to help her, but she was getting the hang of it!  The hardest part for her was dropping the egg into the dye gently, but she tried.  She really loved seeing the egg change colors.

We had some crayons for the kids to use to draw designs on their eggs before they dyed them and Lilly enjoyed doing that too.  It was a little hard for her to draw on the eggs, but she did a great job.

Easter eggs are so pretty!  I remember how much fun I had doing this as a child and I am happy to share that with Lilly and the other kids this year.  It was definitely more fun having a lot of kids doing it together.  I thought it would be a big chaotic, but it wasn't at all!  They shared, passed the dye cups around, took turns and had a blast together.

That night (our last night at the beach) we decided to take the kids out for ice cream!  First, let me say how genius it was that this place had these little plastic cone holders for the kids to catch their ice cream drips!  Genius!  

They all sat around this little table together eating their ice cream and having a blast.  The ice cream was also amazing!  I did not indulge other than licking some drips off of Lilly's cone and stealing a bite of Darren's, but the bites I did have were out of this world (and I know ice cream!)

We may have gone overboard with the size of this cone (it was a small, I swear), but Lilly hardly ever gets treats like this and we were on vacation!  She deserved it :-)

On Easter morning the kids all got up and were waiting to start their Easter egg hunt.  We had set out the eggs the night before and decided to just limit the number of eggs they could find that way everything was fair.  They were so excited!

Look at this adorable little girl!

Her Easter basket was still filled with her Easter basket items, so we used plastic bags for the kids to collect their eggs.

Time to find the Easter eggs!

Here's a shot of Lilly's Easter basket.  Just for future reference parents or future parents, the dollar store is amazing for Easter baskets!  Everything except the wooden puzzle and the DVD were dollar store finds!

Lilly has been reading story of The Jungle Book and has the Jungle Book 2 DVD, so we wanted to get her The Jungle Book DVD for Easter.  She loves The Jungle Book so much she decided she wants a jungle birthday party!

She was clearly very excited about her glow wand!

A new headband and card game too!

I found clip on earrings at the dollar store that we put in the Easter eggs, along with some rings and candy.  Lilly and the other girls love dress up, so they were a big hit.  Drew also liked them because he thought of them as pirate treasure!

For breakfast that morning, Jared, Carissa and Kari created these adorable bunny pancakes!  How cute are these!!!  It was truly an amazing trip and one I hope we repeat at least every year.  I cannot express how blessed we feel to have these amazing families in our lives.  Lilly is growing up surrounded by so much love and friendship; it is amazing!

Darren was going out with the guys, so Lilly and I had a Mommy/daughter date!  We decided to go to a park and then get ice cream.  We went to South Park first, but it was PACKED because there were several baseball games going on.  I didn't think Lilly would like a playground crowded with older kids, so we decided to go to a different park.  Falcon Park is still under construction, so we went to the little Library Park behind the public library.  There was no one there (in truth I think only a handful of people even know it exists!), so we had the place to ourselves.  Lilly was getting brave and stepped from the main playground onto the fireman's pole with the spiral at the bottom.  I was nervous at first (typical first time mom I guess), but she did it over and over and was so proud of herself for being able to do it without help.  We were going to go to Sunni Skys, but it looked like it might rain any minute, so I thought it best to go Sweet Creations instead since it was closer and has a lot more indoor seating.  Lilly certainly had no complaints!  She picked cake batter ice cream and when I told her she could pick any topping from the toppings bar, she wanted rainbow sprinkles.  :-)

Lilly's favorite food for dinner is definitely pizza.  She absolutely loves it.  With our insane schedules we have pizza almost every Monday night since Darren tutors and I teach two voice lessons that day, there is no time to really cook something.  Lilly definitely has no complaints about this!

Lilly picked up her tent and pulled it out into the living room one afternoon.  She was climbing through it, moving it around, turning it upside down and having a blast.  I snapped a picture as she turned it sideways and was peaking out of the top :-)

I came home one day to find Lilly sitting on the counter sharing an apple with her Daddy.  It was just adorable. She was chomping away and they were just having a little Daddy/daughter moment together.  So cute!

Carissa and Jared had everyone over for a BBQ and a fire in their new fire pit/back patio.  After dinner Lilly had her first s'more!  I thought she wouldn't like it because they are pretty messy and my little girl does not like to be messy, but she LOVED it!  She dove right into that s'more and enjoyed every bite.   

The girls also had a blast playing with bubbles!  If there is a better sound in the world than a child giggling, I have yet to hear it.  I could listen to this sweet laugh all day every day for the rest of my life!

Childhood friendships are so special.  We are so blessed to have such kind, sweet and caring friends for Lilly.  

Beautiful weather calls for ICE CREAM!  And the only place we want to get ice cream around here is Sunni Skys!  Their ice cream is absolutely amazing.  The kids enjoyed their ice cream and then ran around the field together playing with the soccer ball and playing tag.  They had the best time playing together!

Darren stained/painted Lilly's playset and it looks brand new!  I am so lucky to have a husband who is so hard-working and handy!  I know Lilly really appreciates it too!

Spring means spring cleaning and going through the closets.  As we did this we found the pool noodles from last summer.  Apparently Lilly had really missed these!

My little diva!

Darren has been working so hard on the screened porch and it's done and it looks exactly how we wanted it to.  I am so proud of him for building this for our family.  We will enjoy this for years to come and Darren can always look at it and know that HE built that for us!  Lilly was clearly excited that it was nice enough to get out on the porch today :-)

Recently Lilly has asked to get out of her wagon when we are walking and to pull the wagon herself.  At first I figured she would just pull it a few feet and then drop it or want to get back in, but she walked that wagon all the way from the back of the neighborhood to our garage.  She loved every minute of it!

Lilly has been obsessed with nightgowns lately.  I think one of the reasons why is that she doesn't like to have pants on when she sleeps.  When she naps at home, she just sleeps in her pull up and shirt and she doesn't like to have blankets on her legs.  She is similar to me in that regard.  I hate it when my legs are hot when I am trying to sleep.

 Lilly had an amazing time at Grace's third birthday party!  Darren and I had to leave early to go to my teammate's birthday celebration, so Jason was kind enough to watch Lilly so she could stay at the birthday party and have fun with her friends.  It never ceases to amaze me how amazing our friends are.

I had a "parent of the year" moment when we were getting ready to go to someone.  I was getting stuff ready to go in the house and Lilly stepped in to the garage (the doors were closed, by the way).  I assumed she would just get her shoes on like she normally does.  Except when I looked she wasn't by the shoe rack!  I called, "Lilly where are you?!?"  I heart a muffle, "I'm in here!" and then a little blonde head popped up in the driver's side window of my car.  I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was just too funny not to at least take a picture.  We then had a talk about not getting in cars without Mommy or Daddy and I realized I might need to lock my car even when it's in the garage.