Catching Up!!!

Wow...we are about to start a new year! This one has gone by so very fast and has been very exciting. We have had a lot of changes this year....our little baby becoming a little girl. Walking and running all around bringing us so much joy and then of course moving to a new state. It has been a fantastic year! Lily has quite the vocabulary....saying well over 100 words and saying 3 and 4 word sentences. She still continues to amaze us w/ all that she knows. It seems that she remembers almost everything and she loves playing w/ all of her little buddies. She particularly talks about Zayne and "Na Na" (Nathan) all the time. We had a wonderful Christmas and it was so nice being close to family and we had a great time hosting Christmas brunch this year! Over the last few weeks Dora has become a new interest for Lily. We have a few episodes of Dora recorded and from time to time Lily would watch one and then when she and I would be out shopping she would spot a Dora book, or doll or something Dora and she would start shouting "Dora, Dora, Dora!" and from then own it has become her new favorite thing. She gets so very excited about anything Dora. It is just fascinating seeing her become her own little person and seeing what interests she has and watching the decisions she makes...you can just see the wheels turning in her head! I love it!!!

I've meant to post more over the month of the December, but we have stayed so busy. Lily loves going to her playgroups and outings at the park. We also went to a smores party a couple of weeks ago which was a lot of fun! The weeks just seem to fly by and here we are almost in January. I hope every one has fun safe New Year's Eve and Day!!!!

The pics are in reverse order.

Lily and Alexander at the park this morning!

Lily is having fun taking stuff on and off her new bookcase!
Sitting on Dora!

Loves her Elmo!


Family pic on Christmas morning!

Seeing her bookcase for the first time!

She is really liking her new chair...her stuffed animals like it too! :)

Lily Had a Blast With Santa!!!

Yesterday we took Lily to see Santa. I wasn't exactly sure how it would go since last year when she saw him she was only 4 months, but I've never really seen anything that has scared her so I was thinking visiting Santa this year would go good and I was right she loved it! I put her in Santa's lap and she didn't mind at all. They took pictures and when they were done Jim went to get her and she shook her head "no." She did not want to leave Santa's lap, so Santa said that she could stay there w/ him while Jim and I picked out what we wanted and paid. So her and Santa were giving each other high fives and she was clapping having the best time and before she left Santa gave her a candy cane. Visiting Santa was very enjoyable for all of us!!! Below is the pic and I am also going to include a pic of last year's as well.



Below is last year's Santa pic when Lily was only 4 months old!!!! Look how much she has grown! Santa has changed some too! ;-)

Christmas Photos of Lily!

Below are some photos that Jim took of Lily by our Christmas Tree....she is sooooo hard to photograph these days...she is way too fast, but we managed to get a few pics. We are very excited about Christmas this year....finding out that we were pregnant was our Christmas present 2 Christmas's ago (December 17th to be exact), and this year it will be so much fun to watch Lily enjoy Christmas. This whole month we have been reading to her about the true meaning of Christmas so she knows all about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. She also loves to read her Bible, she will often go get it and hand it to us and say "Bible" wanting us to read it to her. She continues to amaze us every single day. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone!!!!


She liked the snowflake ornament!

Pretty smile!

So very, very, happy!
awww...too bad it's not a real candy cane! :)

Notice the adorable Panda shoes!

Christmas Decorations!

Our Christmas Tree!!!





I decided to put this tree in our bedroom since we have alot of extra room in there and plus I like it to be festive in there too!


I am so proud of Lily she has done so good with not bothering the trees! Oh and on Tuesday she learned that she can now open the doors to all the bedrooms all by herself!


Lily's stocking!!! We are going to be able to stuff lots of fun things in there!!! Her stocking is way bigger than mine and Jim's!

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent the week in Waycross with family. Lily had a great time too! She got to try all of our favorite Thanksgiving food....turkey, dressing, gravy, yams, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce and even a little pumpkin pie. She seemed to like it all! We have so many wonderful things in our life to be Thankful for.....our wonderful, beautiful, smart little girl, our family, friends, each other, our move to Florida (which we love), and each day we are alive is a blessing!
Before we left to go up for Thanksgiving I had started getting some of my Christmas stuff out, but when we got back on Friday I was in full Christmas mode! So this past weekend I put both of our big trees up and a little tree and Jim has put up some lights outside. I think we are still going to add more to the outside but we have a good start anyway. Lily is enjoying the Christmas tree, so far she has been good w/ it. I didn't put anything breakable down low. She has taken off one of two of the down low ornaments and she will bring them to me w/ a big oooohhhh on her face, she knows she has done something that I told her not to do. But so far it has gone really good. She does like to say "hey" to it. :) I will have to post some pics of the Christmas decorations in a later post!

Here are a few pics from Thanksgiving day.

Lily and I having story time.

Sitting w/ Granny Faye

Snuggling w/ Daddy! This was after we had to wake her from her nap...she was still sleepy.

Playing on her Slide (Video)

Here is a little video from November 6th of Lily playing on her slide.

The Verdict Is In Regarding Sunbutter....

It is delicious! An absolutely wonderful alternative to peanut butter. It taste so much like peanut butter, just a little more subtle. Even Jim said "it's not bad"...and that is good coming from him! :) Anyway I am glad that I picked it up and decided to give it a try...definitely a keeper!

Toddler Tour at PetSmart!!!

Today I took Lily to the Toddler Tour at PetSmart. She had a great time. She was able to pet a guinea pig, bird, turtle, tortoise, and a gecko. She was very gentle with all of them....she tried to hug the gecko...she just loves lizards! Very cute!!! She also got to look at all different kinds of fish and she saw some cats and watched a dog getting groomed. All the kids had a great time and it was so much fun watching them. I didn't bring my camera, but I did take a quick pic w/ my phone. Lily and her buddy Alexander are looking at the birds!

Sunbutter!!!!

I am very excited to try this product. Sunbutter is made with roasted sunflower seeds. It is a healthier alternative to peanut butter and Lily will get to try it too!!!! I don't have any right now, because I wanted to research it first....but all the reviews I have read have been very positive. So now I cannot wait to give it a try. Next time I am at the grocery store I will be picking up a jar! A sunbutter and jelly sandwich (sb&j) sounds pretty good!!! I will let you know what Lily and I think about it....not sure if I will be able to convince Jim to try it...but we will see. :) If any of you have tried it let me know what you think about it......

Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween!!! It was so much fun watching Lily have so much fun!! We started the day by going to our Farmer's Market here in Oakleaf (they had trick or treating at all of the booths) so Lily wore her costume and went around to all of the booths. Then that evening we had Trunk or Treat at our church. We met up with April, Drew, and the boys and had a fun time despite the 85 degree weather...it was soooo hot...poor Lily in the panda costume, but she did not complain at all. She was having too much fun. By the end she was really getting the hang of what to do. She would go right up to the people holding out the candy and pick some out and put it in her pumpkin! Very cute. She even got to have her picture taken w/ Pammy the Panda! She talked about that big Panda Bear all the way home. She would say "mama, mama, mama, mama, mama".....and I would say "yes Lily" and she would say "panda bear, panda bear, hey mr. bear." She did this all the way home. :) We made it back home in time to still give out candy to trick or treaters and Lily loved this too. She would stand by the door and let us know when someone was coming...she was so excited! We let her stay up an hour past her bedtime b/c she was having such a good time! It was a great day!!!









She was trying to decide what to get!




We were so hot!!!!!!!!!!
Lots of candy!!!!

Halloween Photo Shoot (taken a couple of weeks ago)

The Cutest Little Panda Ever!!!!!! This photo shoot was a little bit more difficult than any of our others. Now that she is running all around it was hard to keep her where she needed to be and also looking at the camera....but we managed to get a few good shots!



Too cute! :)

Halloween Costume Party

Lily went to her very first Halloween Costume Party Wednesday evening! It was very cute and fun to watch all the kids. One of the Mom's in our playgroup hosts it each year and they go all out and have a disco ball and lights synchronized to the music and when it gets dark they turn it all on and let the kids have fun!
Here are a few pics from the evening!

Some of the Halloween Cupcakes I made for the party!

The Storm Troopers!



My little panda is trying to escape up the stairs! :)

Gave her an Oreo cookie for the first time...she didn't really care for it.

oooooh Elmo!!!

Elmo is Alexander from playgroup he is a couple months older than Lily.

Cute!