This is my favorite picture from January.

letters to Lily: 28 Months

Dear Liliana,

  You are two years and four months old now. Like always I still can not believe how quickly time has been flying by. The last month with you has been, as every month with you is, excellent.  You are a firecracker – always telling stories and imagining fascinating things and running around like a wild animal.You are also hugely in love with singing, dancing, and jumping.  You are silly and clever and wonderful and we love you like crazy.

 Your imagination is incredible. You are always creating such elaborate plots when playing with your toy figures, that it just throws your father and I for a loop. You love playing catch with pretend footballs and hunting for monsters or robots around the house. Your father and you have this little game that you like to play with each other where you steal each others noses and eat them, than spit them up in the air and catch them. Usually this game last around 5-10 minuets and if is by far the cutest thing EVER to watch.

 This month you jump started learning to use the potty again. One night you just decided you wanted to start using the potty and you have been doing a very very good job at it, we are so proud of you. Although, I must admit Daddy and I really should be working a little bit harder with you, we have been slacking a little bit this past week and it really shows.But, I promise to do a better job guiding you along your potty train voyage.

 Another cool thing going on this month is that you moved into a big girl bed. Daddy took the front of your crib off and now you have the freedom to get in and out of bed as you please. But even better is you have not given us a hard time about going to bed at all. In fact you are even sleeping in a little bit longer every morning. You are so proud of your big girl bed and we are so proud of you.

  As always my dear girl, living these moments with you is a privelege.

Love,
 Mama

Movie Monday

We captured Lily's first night in her big girl bed !!!!!!

Lily and Jack

Lily has taken dog ownership to a whole new level. I think she thinks that Jack is just hers and considers him her best friend. We’re used to him always being around us, but when she gets sight of him first thing in the morning, it always makes her happy. She will hug on him and kiss him and she loves when he is doing nothing else but sitting by her side.

She will often get in his face and “persuade”him to come sit next to her so she can “read” to him. She also loves to help me feed him, she’ll put two scoops of dog food in his bowl ever so carefully, then call him to come eat. Whenever we leave the house, I am sure to hear at least a few "bye bye jackie. see you soon" 's from the back seat. She really adores him and treats him like a best friend.

 

                                  He sure is one lucky puppy, to have such a loving loyal best friend like Lily, that is for sure.

Welcome Mr Snow....

  Lily has been very anxiously awaiting your joining us.
   This winter so far has been absolutely marvelous in every way lots of sunshine, warm days, and no snow. Most days I would actually forget that we hadn't had a snowy winter yet, and just assume we were well on our way to spring. It was wonderful, well wonderful for everyone but Lilybear.
  Most mornings as soon as she awoke she would run to the back door and look out the window, what she was looking for I never really knew until today. This morning as soon as Lily woke up she ran to the window and yelled "Its snowing it's snowing mama its snowing come here look" So I got up and looked out the window with her and sure enough it was snowing and blowing ever so fiercely.
Go out and walk in snow mama pweese, mama go walk in snow she asked I assured her that if the winds died down a little bit and it wasn't to to cold outside we would go play in the snow for a little bit after breakfast.

So that is what we did... and as a little side note i would like to add My Goodness getting all of the winter gear on a 2 yr old is a absolute nightmare lol the snowpants were fine but the boots and mittens, oh the mittens ...... not fun in the least bit..... there has to be a better way lol.

A Perfect Day for the Zoo

 Today was a beautiful 60+ degree sunny day, and I actually had the day off of work.
 After playing zoo with Lily after breakfast I asked her if she would like to take a trip to the zoo with Mama today. She immediately jumped up and started up the stairs calling for me to follow behind her. " Get dressed go to zoo mama"
 She picked out her clothes, brushed her hair and teeth, helped pack some snacks for the day and was out the door.

 It was a gorgeous day for the zoo, like I said it was 60+ degrees outside and sunny. Nothing like the January days we are accustomed to here in Ohio. Picture perfect. Lily and i spent 4 hours walking around the zoo. It just might have been my favorite zoo trip ever. Just Lily, me and all of the active animals.

 We spent a good portion of our trip playing with, chasing, and looking for our shadows. Which is a total new concept for Lily. I'm not really sure when or where she picked it up, but recently everything is about her newly discovered buddy;shadow.

 All of the animals were out and about today we saw the lions walking around, the black bear cubs playing a game of tag, a family of rinos snuggling up for a nap, and we even snuck a little pet from a curious kangaroo.Which I am totally bummed because he nuzzled my camera lens with his nose and i thought that i took the picture but apparently i did not so ya bummer, oh well we have the experience and the mental memories.

 Oh yeah, and this little guy right here. He came right up to the camera and nuzzled the lens through the chain fence and than kept his little snot there and we touched him. In case you're wondering Kangaroo's feel just like bunnies.

Love,
Jules

Princess in Pigtails.

 Lily received a princess dress-up set from Mammaw for Christmas. She absolutely adores that dress, it has been worn to grandmas house, grocery shopping, gymnastics class, it is currently her favorite dress to wear . Oh I forgot to mention it was also her dress of choice to wear to Grammies house on Christmas-eve.

Lily is a true two year old. This picture completely captures her toddler-ism ( if that is even a word) and for that it is one of my favorites. The pink princess dress, the tiny pigtails,the baby buggy and baby in the background it all screams toddler.  It all screams Lily.

Giddy Up 2012

Hello 2012. Goodbye 2011

I am beyond excited for 2012 to start. This year is already packed  full of awesomness.

New Additions

Weddings

Graduations

Monumental Birthdays

Going back to School

House Hunting

And watching Lily learn and grow yet another year older.

Ahh 2012 is going to be amazing!!!!!!!!!

December Recap

Here are a few pictures from some of our holiday season festivities.....

We took Lily to DTW to check out the beautiful christmas lights on the square. Even though there was not a flake of snow on the ground it was freezing outside. Lily loved the lights so much she had us walk through it twice.

A handprint santa clause, mommy daddy and lily finger print tree and Lil's footprint.

Lily made and painted ornaments for her relatives with her little buddy Ethan

I could kick myself in the butt, I worked so hard on making candy cane kiss cookies, santa and candy cane shaped cookies and peanut butter cookies but did not take a picture of any of them ugh

We kicked off our holiday parties with the Williams family x-mas party at uncle neals house where Lily enjoyed playing with all of her new horse figures with her uncles and grandpa

Christmas Eve is always such a special magical time at Mamaw's house every year.
This year Lily decided that she just HAD to wear her tutu with her christmas dress... ahh typical adorable toddler .

Santa came to our house..Looks like Lily was a very very good little girl this year !!!!!

New Friendships made.

Christmas morning at Grandma and Poppys house. Our first stop in a very long christmas day.

Our Second Stop on Christmas. We drove out to Jefferson to celebrate with Great Mother and Rob. It was a wonderful time. Lily was completely in love with all of the doggies.

Uncle Greg and Lily on Christmas Eve night having fun opening gifts

Ethan and Amy came over our house to make salt dough ornaments for everyone.  Everyone had such a good time.

This Christmas will go down as the one that came and went way to quickly, also as the one without any snow. The one where we put the christmas tree up before thanksgiving,and played christmas music every single day. The one where we made homemade ornaments and sent the christmas cards out super late. The one where I baked detailed cookies non stop for a whole day and than went to work overnight until 6:30am totally forgetting to take a single picture of them. The one where we slept a total of 7 hours in 3 days.The one where we traveled to six parties in 2 days and slept 7 hours in 3 days. The one where Justin was able to stay two fun filled nights with us and Lily and Matthew became inseparable buddies. The one where Lilys smile on christmas morning will forever be imprinted in my memory. The one where Santa brought Lily a play kitchen .yet she still still playing with the box it came in two weeks later. The one where we were still wrapping gifts on christmas day in between parties and Finn our christmas elf came to visit and watch over us for a whole month.

The one of many that we will forever cherish with our family.