Visit to Richland

We needed to get some stuff out of our storage unit that we have in Richland and we wanted to see my brother and his family too, so we made a quick day trip down there.  While we were down there we went to my bestest friends house, Katie.  In pure best-friend-fashion, she baked us some of her amazing cookies and we enjoyed a couple hours chatting and Lilly played with her adorable son, Jimmy.  I also got a little work done and stripped some wallpaper in one of her bedrooms for her.  Now we are planning a fun work weekend and will be redoing her bedroom, I'm so excited!

We brought my niece her birthday card and Lilly went completely nuts spending time with her cousins.  I just couldn't resist posting pretty much all the pictures of them playing.  Lilly immediately walked into my brother's house and made her way up to Sadie's room and started playing.  She loves spending time with her cousins, and Sadie is especially sweet to her.  I can't even express how much I love watching them play.  They chased each other all around the house and we could hear laughter and squeals as they all played.

 

 (This is the funniest one *above*, we were all back in the family room and the kids were all hiding.  So Lilly just comes strutting in like, "hey, where did they all go?")

First Haircut

Lilly's hair has gotten so out of control and long, it was time for a haircut.  We had gone back and forth about when we should do it because I just didn't want to cut her hair.  She has been pushing her hair out of her eyes for long enough.  So a week before her 2nd birthday, we went to visit my brother and his family in Richland and got her hair cut at a cute little kid salon called, Monkey Dooz.  We thought she would be upset or squirmy the entire time, but she only fussed for a bit when she had to get her hair washed and when the clipped on the apron thingy.  Other than that, she was thrilled to be "riding" in her own car and they had little TV's at each station, so she enjoyed some Toy Story.  I can't believe how good she was and she is still as beautiful as ever!  Even more so now that her hair is all cleaned up better.  And of course, I saved a nice big chunk of hair for her baby book.

Coloring & Reading

I mostly blame my Father for teaching Lilly how to color...all over herself!  She was coloring a Halloween picture and the next thing we know, she's all covered in marker.  Thanks Dad for teaching and encouraging this!

Lilly loves to read.  She has really started to enjoy it and actually sit still through books and books and more books.  She goes into her room, closes the door, and will pull out all her books.  She looks through them for hours.  I love having so many books.  We were able to start our big collection because of my friend Joanna; when Lilly was born she bought us like 50-75+ books.  They were in a big basket and it was so exciting to get so many.  The obsession of children's books have resulted in us having to clean up piles of books every night before she goes to bed.  It's so much fun though when she brings you a book to read and says, "book?"  She actually understands what we ask her now too, because I will tell her to go and get another book and she will!  We could sit for ages reading if there was time.  

Lilly's little painted toes.  I painted her toes for the first time and she was completely thrilled by it.  She keeps touching them saying, "toes...paint toes."  

Playtime & Bedtime

We've been really enjoying Lilly getting older.  Although it's kind of sad that she isn't a little baby anymore, it's so much fun doing things together and watching her little personality grow.  We got a bunch of dress up clothes from one of my nieces and Lilly loves to put all the clothes on and wear them all day.  She got the Minnie ears from Grandpa & Grandma Childers (because she might be Minnie for Halloween, if I get the time to sew the outfit) and she has found a new fascination with the Mickey Mouse Playhouse show, so she loves wearing the ears too.  She is just really enjoying her room more than she ever did.  She will just go in there, close the door, and start playing.  She is just so funny.  :)

One morning we woke up to the sounds of Lilly playing, but it sounded a little closer than usual.  Well, she had piled all her stuffed animals and toys into the corner of her crib and used them to help her climb out of it.  She was opening and closing her bedroom door and playing.  We thought we might take off the side of her crib and turn it into a toddler bed for a couple days to see how well she did sleeping in it.  We just didn't want her crawling out of the crib and hurting herself.  BUT we also really didn't want to have her in a toddler bed because it's so nice to have her in the crib where she can't get out and roam around our house doing who knows what.  We took off the one side and she just went crazy jumping all over the mattress.  She did not do well for her nap that day and we decided to just put the railing back up and see what happened.  Plus, she can't have so many toys in the crib anymore and she hasn't tried to crawl out since.  Phew!