February 2016

February started off with a few new toys from Kim!  She was cleaning out some of her kids' stuff and asked if we wanted to some Play-doh sets and a fort building set.  I know Lilly LOVES Play-doh and as much as she loves to build with her blocks, I figured a fort building kit would be amazing!  I was right!  The very first night we had it, we built several forts and then we had to leave them up in the playroom because they were her special clubhouse :-)  Thanks Kim!

Lilly loves to do puzzles.  One evening when I was getting ready to go to choir practice, Lilly and Darren were on the floor together working out a tough Frozen puzzle.  It was great to hear her problem solve and try to work out where all of the pieces went.  She was very proud of herself when she finished it!

Darren and I take turns waking up with Lilly on the weekends.  Darren decided to spend that extra time with her to make her Valentine's for all her friends!  It gave them some great bonding time and Lilly practiced writing her name.

Kari and Jason had a Superbowl party and when the game started for the adults downstairs, the movie started for the kids upstairs!  All the kids had been playing together for several hours already and we had very few tears.  It's great that all of these sweet kids can play together even though their ages range from 2-9!  The truth is this picture didn't last long because most of these kids were too excited to be together to sit and watch a movie, but those of us who didn't care about the game wrangled and checked on them ;-)

It's so nice that the weather is warming up and we can be OUTSIDE!  We all love being outside, especially Lilly.  We met up with the Smiths at South Park and had a great time playing.  Lilly was so excited to see Kristin there; she loves playing with her!  She has started calling her "Krissy" which Michelle said is fine with her, so I haven't stopped her haha!  I love how nicely they play together!

Darren had his rock music playing and Lilly started dancing while eating her ice cream!  I caught the tail end of it, but at least you get an idea of how cute it was to watch a sweet little blonde in a nightgown, eating ice cream while shaking it to AC/DC!

I realized the other day that I haven't taken a SINGLE shot of my pregnant belly!  I was so good about taking weekly picture with Lilly and this time around I have slacked off.  This is me at 32 weeks :-)  I am feeling great and loving all the kicks and movements from baby boy!  Being pregnant is very special...it's hard at times, but I am so incredibly grateful and feel blessed to get this experience again.

Lilly and I were having some Mommy/Lilly time and she asked me if she could paint. She absolutely LOVES to paint (and draw and do any sort of craft) and I probably don't pull it out as much as I should.  She had the best time and I just love watching her and how diligent she is about making sure she covers the entire paper!

Lilly and Darren were playing with her Mr. Potato head and friends set and Lilly was very excited at her carrot creation!

Michelle and Chad had some people over for a Sunday evening cook out to take advantage of the nice weather.  It was also great because some of our friends just moved to the neighborhood and Michelle and Chad invited them as well to help welcome them and introduce them to everyone.  We all had a great time.  Lilly had a great time playing with all of the kids, but especially Kristin and Lauren.  She was also very interested in baby Lindsay.  I love watching her with the babies!  She is completely enthralled by them...I sure hope that lasts!  

Darren was working at White Rabbit, so Lilly and I had a Mommy/daughter date to Chick-fil-A.  She was super excited because her friend, Parker, from school was there so they played together on the play place.  They were giggling so hard, making up their own games and having a blast!  It's great to see Lilly interacting with a friend from school.  We get to see her with our neighborhood friends, but we rarely see her with kids from school.  They played so well together.

Here are a few wonderful Lilly moments from this month:

Last night she was listening to a few of her books on CD (which is a great gift for her down the line, by the way because she LOVES books and this allows her to "read" the book on her own and actually hear the story).  Anyway, she was reading her book and in the end the princess (Rapunzel) marries Flynn Rider, who is a thief.  She turns to Darren and says, 'Daddy, when I get married, I am NOT marrying a thief!"  How cute is that?  She says the silliest things and keeps us on our toes!

While Lilly and I were reading a "big sister" book, we talked about what the new baby.  We talked about him sleeping a lot, needing his diaper changed and eating.
Me: "What do babies like to eat?"
Lilly:  "Milk.  And peas.  Babies can eat peas because they're really small."

Lilly loves her blankets, stuffed animals and loveys and will often bring them downstairs with her, or into our room, or even into the car.  I have walked up the stairs with an armload of "fluffy" things many times on our way to bed and I often say something like, "Do we have all of your paraphernalia?"  Well, the other night Lilly grabbed all of her blankets and animals herself, looked up at me and said, "I'm ready for bed, Mommy.  I have all of my paraphernalia!"  Darren and I almost died laughing.

The other night when I was putting Lilly to bed, we finished a Pinkalicious book about cupcakes and then Lilly randomly said, "You should never touch a porcupine on his back.  You can touch his belly, but not his back.  He has quills, Mommy, and they will sting you.  A puffer fish can also sting you, so don't touch that either, ok?"  The letter of the week at school is "P" and I guess that must have been a topic of conversation that she was excited to share!

January 2016

Welcome 2016!  It's going to be an amazing year for us, I can already tell ;-0  Obviously we are anticipating the arrival of baby boy Segool in April, but we are also in the midst of a spectacularly fun stage with Lilly!

January track out is long and it can be hard to keep ourselves occupied when the weather isn't cooperating.  Luckily, we had some great things going on and the best friends in the world to share so many wonderful memories with.

We started the month with Addie and Drew's birthday party.  It was a little chilly, but an overall nice day so the kids went out to play for a little while.  Addie and Allie are 8 and Lilly is 3, yet they still are so great at including her and playing with her.  From the time she was just an infant, the older kids have been just amazing with Lilly and we are so grateful.  I am also so happy that she has these amazing young ladies as her role models because they are the sweetest girls ever.

Lilly was in heaven because dessert was an ice cream sundae bar!  Lilly loves ice cream (just like her mama!) so this was a huge treat for her.

After ice cream, the girls sat around the table and painted each other's nails with Addie's new nail set and then Lilly and Kristin were playing together.  I missed most of this in the video, but they cuddled up on the recliner together and Lilly "read" a book to Kristin.  We could hear her from the kitchen, but by the time I started recording, the moment was ending.  Oh well!

There are times that Darren feels like Lilly favors me over him.  I think all kids go through stages where they want one parent more than the other, but I know this would be hard for me if the situation were reversed.  When Lilly and Darren are spending time together, she is always having the absolute time of her life.  No one can make her laugh quite like Daddy!

Track out would not be complete without a trip to Marbles!  We were excited to meet Amber, Grace, Jace and baby Braxton out at Marbles for a special play date!  Lilly was SO happy!  She loves Marbles and was on cloud 9 to be there with her friends.  We spent quite a bit of time taking care of all of the animals in the money room.  Lilly lined up bowls of food for all of the dogs and cats and took care of them.  It was so cute to watch!

Lilly was very proud of herself for climbing across these cylinders all by herself!  She had me hold her hand the first time and then was ready to do it on her own.  She went back and forth at least 10 times!

When we went downstairs, Amber and I could hardly keep up with how many different stations they were getting into.  Lilly practiced her future career as a doctor ;-)

The girls tried on about 10 costumes each and then got ready to put on a show for us.  They were absolutely loving it!  A few other kids joined in the show and I was so proud of all of them for working together, sharing and just being kind and sweet.

The day that Lilly can actually take over the grocery shopping will be amazing!

How cute are these two little doctors-in-the-making??  They each made sure they had a baby to take care of and they were so sweet and gentle with the dolls.  Then they took turns "calling" 911 on the pretend phone.

We were so excited that Uncle Dan came to visit!  Living far away from our families is hard, so we are so thankful when they come to visit.  This was Dan's first visit to our house in NC, so it was very special.  I absolutely LOVED watching he and Lilly play!  She warmed up to him quickly and had a great time showing him her toys, drawing pictures with him and reading stories.  It was also great for Darren and I to get to spend time with Dan as well.

We took Dan to one of our favorite local restaurants, The Meeting Corner, and introduced him to Puerto Rican food.  Lilly isn't always great in restaurants, but she did great!  Dan even managed to snap this picture of our little peanut :-)

Dan brought Lilly some new play doh to go along with the play doh he got her for Christmas.  She was over-the-moon excited!  Her favorite thing was to use the press and make "spaghetti" to serve to all of us.  We all got in the fun :-)

We had such an amazing time with Uncle Dan!  We were sad to see him go but know we'll see him again soon. 

Kari, Kelly and I took Lilly, Addy, Zoey and Miles to Defying Gravity to bounce for a while.  Lilly really likes the regular trampolines and to climb up the trampoline slide,but she wasn't too keen on the foam pits or obstacle courses.  At one point she slipped and got a trampoline burn, but once we got a band-aid (it's amazing the healing powers of a band aid!) she was fine and jumping again.  :-) We treated the kids to Chick-fil-A at the mall afterward and then took them to the indoor play place there as well.  

While we were away, Darren was very productive and repainted the downstairs bathroom!  Yay!  No more neon green walls :-)

We had Antonia, Matt, Joey and Christopher over for brunch on Sunday, which was so much fun!  We hadn't seen them in so long and it was great to catch up!  Lilly was a little standoffish with Joey at first, but they warmed up and had fun playing.  After we ate the kids all watched a little of a movie while the adults talked and cleaned up.  It was so great to see them!

My heart gets so full when I watch Lilly playing with her baby dolls now.  I just picture her with her baby brother and think about how amazing she is going to be with him.  Lilly was taking time to check out her baby and make sure she was healthy and then rocked her in her arms and told her she would be ok.  I could have been a puddle on the floor!

We went over to Chad and Michelle's house to play and, like always, we all had an amazing time.  The girls emptied most of the toys out of the toy box and decided to hop on in!  Then Michelle let them take out the winter hats and gloves for some dress up!

I took Lilly and Zoey to BounceU for a fun play date!  I forgot that it was a day off for traditional schools. so it was pretty crowded, but the girls had a good time.  Lilly was a little uncertain of the big slide, but went down it a couple of times with Zoey.  They had the best time running through the obstacle course and then going down the smaller slide though.  I forgot that the admission is for 2 hours (which is hindsight is a little long for 3 year old), so we took a snack break in between before we went to the second room.

I don't know why this was so funny to me, but I loved how Lilly was "dancing" while she was bouncing on the little horsey :-)

The girls got in line to try jumping across the big balls, but neither of them made it very far.  I was impressed that they tried though!

Lilly and I were going to try to draw faces on balloons.  The project didn't work very well, but watching her try to blow up the balloons was very entertaining!

When we were walking out of Harris Teeter, Lilly thought Daddy might be cold, so she shared her hood with him!  How cute is she??

Lilly and Kristin playing dress up!

When the power went out during the ice storm, Michelle and Chad took us in since they had a generator and a fire place.  We had a blast as usual!  One of the funniest parts of the night was when Lilly started feeding Kristin so she could finish her dinner and get down :-)

We ventured out the next day to play in the snow.  Lilly isn't usually interested in the cold, but since all of her friends were out, she wanted to play.  We ended up at the Englanders house.  Zoey and Lilly had a great time breaking the icicles off the playground and eating them :-)

Lilly even tried going down the hill on the sled!  She seemed to like it, but when we asked her to go again, she only wanted to if I went too.  I figured, why not?  So I got on and had Lilly and Zoey sit in front of me.  We went down and the sled spun around and then tipped over!  Unfortunately, the ground was really wet from the ice melting and I got soaked!  Oh well.  It was fun :-)

The day before we tracked back in, we brought Lilly to school and ventured out to go car shopping.  We were in the market for a mini van!  I am the negotiator of the family, so once we knew what we wanted, I didn't back down until we got the price I wanted too!  We were down to the last $500 and the salesman wanted me to back down.  I told him, "Look, I am an Italian New Yorker...you're not going to win this one," and at that, he reached out and shook my hand and made the deal :-)  I had to commemorate our drive home and Darren's first time driving the new Mini van!

I am usually the one who takes Lilly to bed, and quite often she is holding several blankets, loveys or stuffed animals, so when she reaches for me, she has tiny little arms.  So her and I started calling this, "Tyrannosaurus Rex baby" with her tiny little arms reaching up at me :-)  I had to take a picture so I would remember this sweet little tradition we have.

Lilly wanted to show off her special Princess Sophia nightgown that she got from Aunt Michelle, Uncle Chad, Allie, Ryan and Kristin for Christmas!  She absolutely  loves it!