Nail Polish

Somebody wanted her fingernails painted.  Let's leave it at saying that we will just be painting our toes for awhile longer ;)

Christmas Red nail polish - not blood ;)

The ONE painted finger nail (we just had to smell the nail polish!!!!). 

Painted Toes

Mom's Arm is Painted...

But wet nail polish under the nose does come off...

Thank You Grandma Emma

Lydia got a Christmas card last week (she has gotten several but this one actually was interesting to her - she has alot to get done in a day and sometimes has trouble sitting still long enough to open a envelope!...).

Lion Day!

We recently were introduced to the Stories to Go kits from the Library. This is a HUGE tote bag filled to the brim with books, puppets, flannel pieces, music, and lots of craft ideas. Lydia had been enjoying the books with lions one day this week (something exciting about ROARING!).

SOOOOOOOOO after nap, I let her make her very own lion puppet. Thankfully the roaring lion puppet only intrigued us for a couple hours (mom's ears were a bit thankful for this development...). I do believe that Lydia makes a cute lion though.

Merry Christmas from Lydia!

Mom and Dad told me that I needed to start earning my keep. So I have been looking around the house for things to help with. So far, I have helped with the decorating (my first masterpiece on the walls!). I am the Trash Princess of the House (I leave no speck of trash on the floor AND have you seen how fun the trash can is??? One day I am going to get brave and take the trash out of the trash can!). 

But Mom was lamenting recently that she keeps missing birthdays and never returns calls in a timely fashion so I have become the Manager of Communications! Mom told me this was great and I could write the Christmas letter too.

Oh, my! Speaking of Christmas – I think this is going to be fun! Have you seen the twinkling lights EVERYWHERE? Every time I see twinkling lights I must STOP, clap, bounce, and then very slowly so my peeps don’t notice creep up to touch those twinkling lights! I am a sneaky one and have already gotten my Christmas present from mom and dad – they bought my Christmas present in July?!?! Seriously, parents did you think I could ignore the giant play kitchen??? (They did at least cover it up, but really people. I am small but very smart!). My parents decided we could have Christmas on November 5^th this year. (Don’t worry; I think I will still get a little something for Christmas – because I am cute!).

But I digress. Mom told me that a Christmas letter needed to update people on what we have done this year.  This is a mystery to me because our lives can be summed up in one word: LYDIA!!!!!!!!

Yep, life is all about me and my cuteness. I don’t know why mom and dad seem so busy, all we have to do is eat and PLAY! I spend my days running around the house, playing with my baby dolls, playing in my kitchen, crawling into little holes, chasing balls, and spying on my neighbors.

We spend a lot of time playing with my friends, visiting the park, going to the museums, going to story time, and did I mention my friends??? I love visiting with humans that are my size and most of the time I don’t even cry when mom and dad leave me.

So Merry Christmas All!

Lydia Grace Stojan

Manager of Communications

Stojan Household

Editors Note from DeAnna: Even though it seems like it, there are other things going on in our lives outside of the 3 foot princess. James graduated from Wake Tech with an AS in Computer Programming this summer (hurray!!!!!)  He started a new job several weeks later doing computer programming – which he loves the job and two of the three of us love not being self employed (Lydia is a bit bitter that her dad goes to work in the morning. The grudge is decreasing as time goes on!). James is also attending NC State and working towards a Bachelor degree. I am still teaching little baby ballerinas how to dance. And Lydia is a full time job all by herself – she did mention the masterpiece on the wall, her great love of trash cans, and carefully left out SLEEP in her description of her days J

Why???

I have been in a quandary. Lydia has exactly two teeth left to finish out her one year old set of teeth (hurray!!!!!!!). Let me preface this by saying, I am not complaining!

Every single bottom tooth has been a painless experience. No tears. No sleepless night. No drama. Just one day, I look up and realize "oh you have a new tooth". Every single bottom tooth has been this way.

The top teeth. Let's just say that we are trying to decide if we should buy stock in Motrin, chocolate, or coffee... Get the picture???

Today I looked up and realized that she has a full set of teeth on the bottom. Two more eye teeth to go on the top. If she wants to wait until the middle of January to decide to get those two last teeth, I would be deeply indebted to her (or we can all pray and hope that the last two top teeth decide to be as uneventful as the bottom teeth have been!).

Heath Bar Candy

Been tricky this Christmas finding peanut free Christmas treats. My grandmother used to make Heath Bar candy and I was excited to discover that I could make this treat peanut free and share some with Lydia. So I did. Lydia ate all of her treat but when asked if she wanted more a couple days later, I was told no. Maybe she doesn't like Heath Bar candy, maybe she was in a no mood, and maybe she is 1 and doesn't really know what she wants! As she was eating her treat, I think Lydia enjoyed it :)

Heath Bar Candy

Happy 18 Months!!!!!!!!!

Happy 6 Months

Happy 18 months!

Lydia, we have made it!!!!! You have gotten to be much more fun (last year you were really quite annoyed with us pretty much 24-7). This year though I can happily report that you like us! You like playing baby dolls, cooking in your kitchen, chasing your dad, coloring, playing play dough, you eat real food, you love going out to visit with all the neighbors, you adore playing with your friends, infact you no longer scare your teachers at church!

Pictures from the Week...

Life is busy right now, so the overview!

Movie Night with Dad (moral of the story - movie night with a 20 minute movie and popcorn is PERFECT!)

Yes, Lydia you need to keep your dress down!

Probably up to no good in the pantry with dad... 

Look at all those teeth!!!!!!

My play dough experiment that made TONS of play dough!

Another 70 degree day in December...

Lydia and the Hat

There has been a certain jacket and hat that Lydia has really been wanting to wear. For many months. Many many many months. I finally hid the jacket and hat because I was tired of dealing with Lydia wanting to wear this hat and jacket when it was 100+ degrees outside (can we say heat stroke???).

This weekend, it was finally cold enough to wear THE jacket and hat. Lydia's eyes just got a gleam in them when I brought the jacket out from hiding. The child knew there was a hat that went with this jacket and found it! She wore the hat to breakfast, a modeling session for dad, made her babies a quick smoothie, force fed her favorite baby watermelon, and THEN she got to put the jacket on. Oh, my. Let me just tell you that this was delight for this child.

P.S. The teachers at church should be very appreciative, in the excitement of hearing Christmas music and seeing her friends we were able to steal the hat! (I think it is mean to send her to class with a roomful of other toddlers with accessories that she can remove - simplify for the kind teachers!!!!!!).

Her hat almost fell off after so much time playing while wearing the hat! 

Posing with Dad (after doing some modeling for Dad!).

Cookie Decorating

I was sooooooooo excited to discover that Pillsbury sugar cookie dough is peanut free (I know making cookie dough is not that complicated but Pillsbury's cookies always taste better than mine AND I did not spend hours and hours in the kitchen creating cookies!).

We could have made cute little cut out shapes for our cookies, but I decided we would reserve cute little cut out shapes for Play-doh and just slice the cookies for wonderful round cookies. Perfect for decorating. And our little round, done in 12 minutes, easy cookies were very tasty!

Shirtless cookie decorating seemed like the less messy option here. Does RED icing really come out of clothes??? 

Lydia meet the cookie! 

Lydia, this is icing. 

Lydia approves of the icing! 

Eating the fruit of her very hard labor :) 

Trouble :)

Really no words are needed... Lydia wore this hat ALL evening. Through dinner. Through playtime. The hat somehow even managed to stay on through many rounds of hide and seek. This girl and her accessories are something else!

FRIDAY!!!!!!!

I love Friday. James is on his Christmas break from school. I have one week of classes left. Activities are winding down. And it is the weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long Story...

We will just leave this at a very long TMI story but out of desperation, we bought Lydia her potty. One day these will be great blackmail pictures...

Getting used to the potty. 

Yep, I think I can do this! 

Who else can carry their potty around??? Mighty Woman! 

"Ta-da"

Preparing to wear the potty as a hat. 

So excited about sitting on the potty. 

Oh, yes. Eating soup on the potty. Jealous???